430gal., L-shaped display
- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Well, you know, the display tanks still aren't where I want them to be, but there are some encouraging signs. I'm still doing water changes like mad, trying to flush out all the things that don't need to be in there. I haven't lost any major fish (and the big dussimieri is well over a foot long now), but I've lost some smaller ones. The sailfin that was the size of a quarter when I got him and had to stay in the basement for 9 months while I grew him out is now the second-biggest tang, easily well bigger than the purples and yellows.
The clove-y type polyp (with the spawning pictures above) is still spawning regularly and I've had a good number settle around the tank, probably 10-12 new colonies. They'll have taken over soon. A ricordia rock that I got is doing fine. So, looking up, I'd say. Not where I want it yet, but not horrible.
Mostly, I've been playing around with a lot of aquaculture stuff.
You all know that rotifers and brine shrimp basically suck as larval fish food, right? The best that can be said for them is that they are easy to grow. Small, pelagic copepods are really good nutrition, but are really hard to grow: They need good water conditions and lots and lots of live, good quality (not nanno) phytoplankton. Good quality phyto is really hard and really expensive to grow.
Sigh.
I've always gotten a weird little protist contaminant in, basically, any container with water that I through out there. It is a dinoflagellate (as are many phytos), but it is non-photosynthetic. I figured out a protocol for culturing those suckers using algae pastes that's going really dang well. I've now had them in continuous culture for about a year.
So, I was culturing along and decided that I really wanted to culture T-Iso to try to raise copepods. Try after try of T-Iso failed miserably. I finally gave up in frustration. Then I thought, "Wait a second. These other dinos are about the same size as T-Iso. I wonder if copepods would eat 'em?"
Turns out, some will.
So, I'm working with this great little cyclopoid right now. It's 100% pelagic. The adults top out at about 800 microns (less than a millimeter) and the 1st stage nauplii are about 80-90 microns wide (much smaller than a rotifer). They live in much greater concentrations than most other pelagic copepods--at least the ones being sold--and don't seem to show any cannibalistic tendencies. AND, it'll eat my little dinoflagellate. So, I'm digging these and the fact that I'm raising them with NO live phyto.
The cool thing is that I've tracked down reports that this little copepod has been used before to rear shrimp and I've also heard that they've been used with fish.
So, I'm now up to the testing with fish phase. A buddy of mine had some percs lay a nest that he didn't have room to try to raise, so he gave them to me. Lots of losses in the first couple of days (probably from transfer), but only about 6 lost to metamorphosis. So, now I have about 200 little clowns swimming around. They ate the copepods as a first food and are _still_ eating them. I didn't raise these just on the copepods, but I'm still psyched at the results.
Here are some photos:
Amphiprion percula ("onyx" [F] x "picasso" [M]):
Day 1:
Day 5:
Day 8:
Day 12:
Day 14:
Day 20, and a headstripe (stripes were really late for some reason):
Day 29, second stripe:
The clove-y type polyp (with the spawning pictures above) is still spawning regularly and I've had a good number settle around the tank, probably 10-12 new colonies. They'll have taken over soon. A ricordia rock that I got is doing fine. So, looking up, I'd say. Not where I want it yet, but not horrible.
Mostly, I've been playing around with a lot of aquaculture stuff.
You all know that rotifers and brine shrimp basically suck as larval fish food, right? The best that can be said for them is that they are easy to grow. Small, pelagic copepods are really good nutrition, but are really hard to grow: They need good water conditions and lots and lots of live, good quality (not nanno) phytoplankton. Good quality phyto is really hard and really expensive to grow.
Sigh.
I've always gotten a weird little protist contaminant in, basically, any container with water that I through out there. It is a dinoflagellate (as are many phytos), but it is non-photosynthetic. I figured out a protocol for culturing those suckers using algae pastes that's going really dang well. I've now had them in continuous culture for about a year.
So, I was culturing along and decided that I really wanted to culture T-Iso to try to raise copepods. Try after try of T-Iso failed miserably. I finally gave up in frustration. Then I thought, "Wait a second. These other dinos are about the same size as T-Iso. I wonder if copepods would eat 'em?"
Turns out, some will.
So, I'm working with this great little cyclopoid right now. It's 100% pelagic. The adults top out at about 800 microns (less than a millimeter) and the 1st stage nauplii are about 80-90 microns wide (much smaller than a rotifer). They live in much greater concentrations than most other pelagic copepods--at least the ones being sold--and don't seem to show any cannibalistic tendencies. AND, it'll eat my little dinoflagellate. So, I'm digging these and the fact that I'm raising them with NO live phyto.
The cool thing is that I've tracked down reports that this little copepod has been used before to rear shrimp and I've also heard that they've been used with fish.
So, I'm now up to the testing with fish phase. A buddy of mine had some percs lay a nest that he didn't have room to try to raise, so he gave them to me. Lots of losses in the first couple of days (probably from transfer), but only about 6 lost to metamorphosis. So, now I have about 200 little clowns swimming around. They ate the copepods as a first food and are _still_ eating them. I didn't raise these just on the copepods, but I'm still psyched at the results.
Here are some photos:
Amphiprion percula ("onyx" [F] x "picasso" [M]):
Day 1:
Day 5:
Day 8:
Day 12:
Day 14:
Day 20, and a headstripe (stripes were really late for some reason):
Day 29, second stripe:
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Day 31:
Day 35, some good picasso stuff coming out:
Day 37:
Day 39:
Day 45:
And we're up to day 52 now.
Day 35, some good picasso stuff coming out:
Day 37:
Day 39:
Day 45:
And we're up to day 52 now.
Sisterlimonpot
Premium Member
Andy,
Seems like you have been busy lately....
+1, even though the tank might not be where you want it, I'd like to see the progress.
Seems like you have been busy lately....
+1, even though the tank might not be where you want it, I'd like to see the progress.
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
It's all about the bottom line with you guys, eh? I'm lined up for a glass cleaning party this weekend, so I'll take some.
Sisterlimonpot
Premium Member
I'm lined up for a glass cleaning party this weekend, so I'll take some.
No matter what or how interesting your last post was, we want more, more, more!!!
You have about 4 months to make up for!!!
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Daniel, you and Marc Levenson. Everybody's giving me a hard time about all the algae....
Wheel of Time
New member
Andy thanks so much for the updates. Ive been sub'd (lurking) in this thread since almost the begining. What you have done is simply amazing, and I cant tell you how wonderful it is to see everything you have been able to spawn in your tanks.
Thanks so much for documenting and sharing with the community.
Thanks so much for documenting and sharing with the community.
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
All right. The Boulder fires messed up my schedule for the tank cleanup a bit, but it's done now.
FTS:
It's not as pretty as I'd like it to be at this point, but here you go. A couple of ballasts decided to click off before I took the photo, but you get the idea. The red kind of looks like cyano, but it's a deep red coralline. Most of it at least.
My monster tang. It's probably 1' 3"--1' 4" now. More tangs:
The ricordia is doing okay:
More fish:
My 100mm lens can _not_ get the gramma color. This is my big male. He's enormous.
And one of the cleaner wrasses. They still spawn 2-3 times per day.
FTS:
It's not as pretty as I'd like it to be at this point, but here you go. A couple of ballasts decided to click off before I took the photo, but you get the idea. The red kind of looks like cyano, but it's a deep red coralline. Most of it at least.
My monster tang. It's probably 1' 3"--1' 4" now. More tangs:
The ricordia is doing okay:
More fish:
My 100mm lens can _not_ get the gramma color. This is my big male. He's enormous.
And one of the cleaner wrasses. They still spawn 2-3 times per day.
Sisterlimonpot
Premium Member
Thanks Andy,
I didn't put 2 and 2 together, how close was this fire to you?
I didn't put 2 and 2 together, how close was this fire to you?
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Sorry. I didn't get reply notifications until Eric's. The fire was about 20 miles away, but over a ridge of the little mountains from us. The only really scary part (for us) was about day 3 or 4, when a big front pushed through from the Pacific with really high winds. If that had taken embers up and over the ridge, then it could easily have started a pretty major fire in the city. But that didn't happen, so.... Otherwise, the only problem was smoke. The first couple of days, winds pushed smoke and ash up over the ridge, but the winds on this side pushed all of it into the Boulder valley and wouldn't let it escape. It was seriously like stepping into a very dense fog (couldn't see the end of the block sometimes). I was pretty much high--and not in a good way--from the toxins in the smoke for a couple of days and it was a pretty nasty hangover that took a couple of weeks to really get over once everything cleared out.
But, that's all over now, thank goodness.
You guys think it looks okay? Honestly, I see little progress at all and am pretty bummed by how slowly things are going. It was really pretty depressing to see all the corals die one after another with no clue what was going on. Speaking of, I'm doing another water change this morning.
Things are starting to feel right, though. At least better. So, I still have hope. The fact that coral planulae are settling and growing makes me mighty happy, even despite the fact that they are just a weedy soft coral. At least it's a first step.
But, that's all over now, thank goodness.
You guys think it looks okay? Honestly, I see little progress at all and am pretty bummed by how slowly things are going. It was really pretty depressing to see all the corals die one after another with no clue what was going on. Speaking of, I'm doing another water change this morning.
Things are starting to feel right, though. At least better. So, I still have hope. The fact that coral planulae are settling and growing makes me mighty happy, even despite the fact that they are just a weedy soft coral. At least it's a first step.
erics3000
Active member
It really does Andy. Time goes fast. I haven't really done anything to my tank this year and I will be at the 3 year mark soon. I thought I would be way further ahead. With my son and work I have settled to just have a mostly softy tank and hopefully soon get my nitrates down so I can get some more fish. Your spawning and breeding have to be good signs you are on the right path. Little by little........
