Dawn's seahorse garden!

Michael Hoaster said:
Cool. I love using the magnifier to see stuff I don't normally see. There's so much! Isn't it nice to have a bunch of pods? I think they are more important ecosystem members than they're given credit for. Everyone focuses on their food value, but they help keep the tank clean too. They were instrumental in my winning battle with dinoflagellates.
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I completely agree on copepods contributions to biological filtering. You can feed heavy without the worry of ammonia when you have a healthy amphipod and copepod population. They have little tunnels dug out in the rubble zone next to the front glass. It could not be more perfect for watching their antics. They also are prolific in some of the red titan that has grown right up against the front glass and again perfect for watching them do their thing.
 
I love watching my tanks though a magnifying glass. Since I "broke down" the oyster reef, the tank is still going with inverts. With no fish in there, amphipods are coming out. I couldn't believe how many there are. I never saw them when the fish were there. I pretty much keep the tank in the dark now since the inverts seem to like that better. Plus, I wanted to reduce the dinos in the tank. I should put a blind over the tank and not let any sunlight in to see what happens. The sandbed is quite alive.

As far as keeping a mandarin for a long time, PaulB had plenty of pods in his tank, but he kept his mandarin and pipefish fat by supplementing the feeding with baby brine shrimp. He raised his own brine shrimp and developed a feeder. Search for Paul Baldassano on YT for his videos. Also, I've heard of people culturing their own pods too, and stocking them often in their fuges and tanks to keep the populations high for keeping mandarins and pipefish.
 
Chasmodes said:
I love watching my tanks though a magnifying glass. Since I "broke down" the oyster reef, the tank is still going with inverts. With no fish in there, amphipods are coming out. I couldn't believe how many there are. I never saw them when the fish were there. I pretty much keep the tank in the dark now since the inverts seem to like that better. Plus, I wanted to reduce the dinos in the tank. I should put a blind over the tank and not let any sunlight in to see what happens. The sandbed is quite alive.

As far as keeping a mandarin for a long time, PaulB had plenty of pods in his tank, but he kept his mandarin and pipefish fat by supplementing the feeding with baby brine shrimp. He raised his own brine shrimp and developed a feeder. Search for Paul Baldassano on YT for his videos. Also, I've heard of people culturing their own pods too, and stocking them often in their fuges and tanks to keep the populations high for keeping mandarins and pipefish.
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I did not know that you broke down the oyster reef. I really liked that tank. Was there a particular reason? Are you still going to do the bigger oyster reef or perhaps that is why you broke it down?

I have read Paul B's thread on R2R and I thought he has a pretty innovative idea with his bbs feeder. I have tried it in my tank but the pantyhose I used must have not been as tight a weave because the bbs came out of my DIY feeder too fast. I have bought a PJ reef's bbs feeder that I had planned to use for dwarf seahorses but haven't had the time to get into DSHs. I should just use the feeder in my 56 gallon tank. It uses magnetized cysts that keeps the shell casings in the feeder. I am not sure of the shelf life of those cysts so I should start using them. I am sure that the newly hatched bbs would be consumed by the smallest fish as well as the coral.
 
Sounds like you have the bbs covered :thumbsup:

Somehow, velvet showed up and killed off my fish one by one. I tried to save the last four fish and treat them in QT, but they were too far gone. I pulled the reef out of the tank to catch the fish, LOL. I just left the tank up and running as it is. There is a good amount of life in the tank, so I thought that I'd use whats left as a start to my bigger tank project. It's weird how it happened. I think that somehow, it was reintroduced into the tank with some macros and shrimp that I added, because I hadn't added any fish to the tank in almost two years. It was sad, because I raised those fish from 1" long to full adults. The last male blenny looked in great shape, and I took that for granted. When it stopped eating, I took a closer look and it was obvious that he was sick. That's when I moved them into QT. The other fish were worse, but kept hiding in the reef, so I never saw them until I broke down the tank. This was over the course of a couple days. It happened very fast. Velvet is no joke.
 
That's what I read about Velvet - it happens fast.

Years ago I tried one of those in-tank hatcher-feeders, with no luck whatsoever. I ended up just tossing the eggs in my tank. I never saw a single brine shrimp. It's a great idea. I just didn't have any luck with it.

These days I buy pods by the thousand, and add them to my "Shallows" in-tank, coast-to-coast overflow refugium. There's lot's of plant material in there for them to shelter and eat, then they can wander out into the display when they want.
 
Chasmodes said:
Sounds like you have the bbs covered :thumbsup:

Somehow, velvet showed up and killed off my fish one by one. I tried to save the last four fish and treat them in QT, but they were too far gone. I pulled the reef out of the tank to catch the fish, LOL. I just left the tank up and running as it is. There is a good amount of life in the tank, so I thought that I'd use whats left as a start to my bigger tank project. It's weird how it happened. I think that somehow, it was reintroduced into the tank with some macros and shrimp that I added, because I hadn't added any fish to the tank in almost two years. It was sad, because I raised those fish from 1" long to full adults. The last male blenny looked in great shape, and I took that for granted. When it stopped eating, I took a closer look and it was obvious that he was sick. That's when I moved them into QT. The other fish were worse, but kept hiding in the reef, so I never saw them until I broke down the tank. This was over the course of a couple days. It happened very fast. Velvet is no joke.
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O Kevin, that is heart breaking. I do not know much about velvet but for it to move so fast and effectively impact all the fish is ominous. I am so sorry that happened to you as I know how much you and your whole family loved your fish. I did not know that any diseases hitch hiked on macros or shrimp. I will try to remember that for future reference.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
That's what I read about Velvet - it happens fast.

Years ago I tried one of those in-tank hatcher-feeders, with no luck whatsoever. I ended up just tossing the eggs in my tank. I never saw a single brine shrimp. It's a great idea. I just didn't have any luck with it.

These days I buy pods by the thousand, and add them to my "Shallows" in-tank, coast-to-coast overflow refugium. There's lot's of plant material in there for them to shelter and eat, then they can wander out into the display when they want.
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The hatchery I have is totally different than the one you probably had. I too had tried one of those earlier hatcheries and it made a lot of fouled water and very few bbs. Google PJ reef's bbs hatchery and you will see that it's much improved from those early ones. The PJ reef hatchery is round and about the diameter of a half dollar so they are not intrusive even in a small tank. The magnetized shell hatchings stick to the magnet. Every other day the unit needs cleaned and refilled with new cysts so maintenance is really easy.
 
vlangel said:
The hatchery I have is totally different than the one you probably had. I too had tried one of those earlier hatcheries and it made a lot of fouled water and very few bbs. Google PJ reef's bbs hatchery and you will see that it's much improved from those early ones. The PJ reef hatchery is round and about the diameter of a half dollar so they are not intrusive even in a small tank. The magnetized shell hatchings stick to the magnet. Every other day the unit needs cleaned and refilled with new cysts so maintenance is really easy.
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Wow, that's really cool. I think I need to get one of these! Looks like when you get enough eggs to last 3 months with the feeder, and to buy more eggs, it's only $11.
 
I have been MIA lately on the forum but my tanks are doing well. I have not added anything new but am keeping up on maintenance and WCs. I have some sad news to report - Delilah unexpectantly died about a month ago. She was doing fine and I just found her laying on the bottom of the tank one evening. I guess I will never know what happened. Eve and Samson are both well. All the animals /fish in the 56 gallon reef are doing great. I still see spottings of Cheerleader the pom pom crab once every few weeks which is cool. The fish are all fat and sassy but everyone gets along nicely. I need to prune the caulerpas and red macros occasionally but in general this tank is super easy to care for.
 
The tank was just cleaned, and pruned this morning so a lot of the coral are understandably retracted. I moved a few pieces to new locations as well. Hopefully in a day or so everything will look a little happier.
 
I really love your tank Dawn. It's funny, on every vid that you shoot, I look and try to find the barnacle blennies before you zoom into them. It's like the eye spy game of aquaria. I have yet to spot them first. This time, I kept my eyes focused on the left side, because in your last video, that's where one of them was hanging out. Wrong!!! :D Thanks for sharing.

Also, sorry to hear about the loss of Delilah.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
Looks great, Dawn! You've got so much to see in there. It's a very entertaining aquarium!
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Thank you Michael. I really enjoy just pulling up a chair on occasion and just sitting in front of the tank to observe the goings on. A few weeks ago when the red titan macro algae was especially lush, I was watching amphipods walk amonst the fronds just doing their thing. Even with so many small carnivores the tank seems to maintain a very healthy pods population, which I am sure contribute to the stability of this tank.
 
Chasmodes said:
I really love your tank Dawn. It's funny, on every vid that you shoot, I look and try to find the barnacle blennies before you zoom into them. It's like the eye spy game of aquaria. I have yet to spot them first. This time, I kept my eyes focused on the left side, because in your last video, that's where one of them was hanging out. Wrong!!! :D Thanks for sharing.

Also, sorry to hear about the loss of Delilah.
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I love Barney and Betty the barnacle blennies. They act just like Michael's in that they each have their own hidey hole not all that close to one another. However I see them visiting so I suspect that they are male and female and have paired up. For their small size they will defend their hidey hole with big shows of intimidation if another fish happens to swim too close which is quite entertaining.

Yes the one hangs out on the left side also has another hole dead center of the tank! I call that one Barney even though I really can not tell them apart. I just assume he must be a male since he wants to lay claim to 2 territories which I am sure is totally unfounded, ha ha!
 
It is pretty amazing that pods can flourish in our tanks despite the hunting pressure. They are very good at utilizing the refuge they can find among the plants, etc. I agree, they are valuable members of the community too.
 
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