Jelliquarium anyone?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone here kept jellyfish?

Sounds like feeding them would be the key.

Jelliquarium.com has some cool looking setups.

I was thinking this might be a cool way for me to keep a tank that is small in scale, but still cool as hell.

Matt, Jellyfish? Is this doable?

Galleon?

Anyone with Jellyfish experience please chime in.

Oh, and this assumes I don't win the zeroedge aquarium in the raffle. :lol:

Louey

 

[Len]

I really want to try one, but I don't have the room right now. Would be fun to have it in my office though.

 

[Anonymous]

Len wrote:

I really want to try one, but I don't have the room right now.

Well, I have room. Why don't you sponsor mine and I'll (unlike you) would post so many photos of it that you'd almost feel like you were sitting right next to it!

Louey

 

[Len]

What does a $5 sponsorship buy me?

 

[Anonymous]

That would be $5 worth.

Send the money and tell later if you thought you got your monies worth.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your donation, Len. :lol:

If you got a laugh out of that, like I did, you've already gotten your money's worth.

Louey

 

[Len]

I only got a mild smirk :?

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Anonymous]

$15,000 just for the tank?

 

[Anonymous]

$15,000 just for the tank?

quite spendy for a tank... I wonder if DIY is possible to bring the cost down

 

[Len]

There are smaller ones for less. But keep in mind it's not a regular rectangular tank which any of us can build if we wanna risk it

 

[Anonymous]

They start just under $4000.

Peanuts compared to what I spent on my 300G.

Louey

 

[Len]

$3500 for a full system.

 

[Anonymous]

I have never kept open water jellies before. Galleon has and I would plunder him for info.

From what I understand they are pretty labor intensive. You need to feed a lot, break the system down and bleach it frequently to prevent hydroids from taking over.

Mastigias and Cassiopeia are two much easier genera to keep that wouldn't require a kreisel tank. Both are photosynthetic so you also avoid the laborious feeding requirements--although they still need some food. When I was at UCD we spawned and reared Cassiopeia. They're actually very undemanding animals.

 

[Anonymous]

Matt, you make it sound difficult. Breaking it down and bleaching frequently is not something I'm looking to do.

I was hoping it was no more difficult than keeping SPS and clams (except feeding). Not that that SPS/Clams are real hard, but I don't want a ton of maintenance.

I was thinking the low light/low temperature jellies would equate to a clean tank (free of algae) that wouldn't require to much maintenance. I didn't know about the hydriod issue. I was hoping that feeding was the biggest obstacle and I would see if that was something I could accommodate.

Galleon, what's your take on this type tank?

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Chris would be the one to talk to. I though about doing jellies instead of a reef, but he told ma all the work I would have to do. Made a SPS reef tank seam easy.

 

[Anonymous]

Louey,

There are two real keys to Jellies:

Feeding and cleaning. DAILY.

Feeding: Moons (the species you'd likely end up with) are especially fond of 12-18 hour old Artemia nauplii. Cycopeze are appreciated occaisionally. Feeding schedule is twice a day, 12 hours apart, only when the lights are on. You'll get real good at hatching artemia real quick. We used to get our eggs from San Francisco Bay Brine. Very high yield stuff (am I allowed to plug on here?). If you can keep three cones rotating (one hatching, one bleaching/rinsing, and one maturing), that's best.

Cleaning: The bottoms, edges and grates of the kreisel have to be cleaned DAILY. A quick vacuum is all that's necessary. If left unvacuumed, hydroids will rapidly overtake your system and kill your jellies. A beefy skimmer is also recommended. I'll look at the jelliquarium site to see what their setups are like. Once a month or once ever 2-3 months, you MUST remove the jellies, drain the tank, bleach the tank, rinse the tank, and refill the tank with seawater. I used to use an integrated polypro reservoir to recover the seawater for reuse. This gets rid of hydroids in the plumbing.

Jellies have short lifespans. Moons 6-18 months, rarely longer, if they are kept at coldwater temperatures. However, healthy jelly colonies in kreisels will spawn almost continuousy, and you will quickly be able to recognize the settled polyps on the sides of the kreisel. These can be easily strobilated into ephyrae/new jellies, let me know if you want to know how/get that far, I'll teach you how.

 

[Anonymous]

If you buy one, I could also be encouraged to make the hour and half drive to help you set it up.

gall

 

[Anonymous]

wow that's a lot of work

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder how the hell Spencer and Heidi from The Hills are pulling it off. :roll: :lol: