Category: Mexican Turbo

The beast, aka Pablo the Turbo snail

15/11/2020

Pablo has been with me since the 27th December 2016 and still appears to be going strong. He's one of the most hard working members of my clean up crew.

Here he is January 2017 in the Reefer 170:

12th January 2017.

And here he is July 2020 in the D-D Reef-pro 1200.

29th July 2020.

He works tirelessly cleaning the rocks/glass and pumps of algae. As you can see he's a lot bigger now (clearly I have plenty of algae to feed him). He's completely covered with coralline algae and is probably 90% responsible for seeding the new tank.

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Leaving no stone unturned...

30/3/2017

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.....or in this case pipework uncleaned. Pablo the Mexican Turbo snail getting some 'air' time.

Also today Hop the T. nudus goby is once again MIA and Skip is looking decidedly thinner today. Is this the beginning of the next breeding cycle I wonder? I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings and Skip looks positively thrilled about the state of affairs as usual.

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Going up.

28/3/2017

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One of the hermit crabs fancied taking a ride on the Turbo snail today, all the way up to the top of the tank, along the front glass and back down again. :o)

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Still alive!

12/1/2017

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So my tank seems to have passed the first coral test, all of the frags I introduced 12 days ago are still alive. Phew! The Stylophora is even showing signs of growth. I think it might be time to add a few more at the weekend and maybe even another fish.

The coralline has really started to take off, I'm seeing spots of growth on the pumps and on the back wall too. I am undecided as to whether I should scrape it off for a nice clean look or leave it au naturel. I'll live with it for a while and see how I feel when the coverage increases. Spirorbid worms have also begun to appear in the DT and in the sump too.

The tank parameters as of this morning are:

Specific Gravity 1.026 d SG
Alkalinity 6.85 dKH
Calcium 425 ppm
Magnesium 1270 ppm
Nitrate 0 ppm
Phosphate 0 ppm

I'd like to tweek the KH and Mg up a bit more but those values are not too bad. I am extremely surprised not to have any detectable NO3 or PO4, this is a bit of quandary for me, I don't think I've ever had a tank with no (or low amounts) of NO3/PO4. I guess the Siporax and refugium must doing their thing, it is early days though and stocking is light I so expect that the levels will rise soon. I do have a bit of furry algae growth on the rocks and a film of algae forms on the glass so I know that there must be some nutrients hidden in there even if the tests say different.

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A few days away

31/12/2016

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I had to leave the tank in the capable hands of my eldest son for three days over the Christmas period whilst I was away visiting the in-laws. Amazingly everything survived the ordeal, lol, although the squat lobster is currently MIA. I am hoping that he is in hiding following the shedding of his exoskeleton but equally he may have passed on. I will be very sad indeed if he has died.

I really need to get my dosing regimen sorted out. The alkalinity dropped as I wasn't dosing which is somewhat unexpected since there are no corals in the tank to suck up the calcium and yet the calcium and magnesium levels remained stable.

As predicted the growth of algae (interestingly on the live rock only and not on the sand) has increased with the addition of the new Mitras light so to keep on top of it just before I went away I decided to add some more CUC. One more small Black foot Trochus was introduced along with a Mexican Turbo snail for added variety. The Turbo snail (named Pablo) has done a wonderful job eating the furry looking algae that has started to cover the well lit areas of live rock.

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The beast, aka Pablo the Turbo snail

Leaving no stone unturned...

Going up.

Still alive!

A few days away

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