My 55 gallon reef project

hmmmm...well my observations lead me to be more inclined to believe the "promoting pod growth" post. This is why I have a refugium. Many reef keepers have fuges for exporting nutrients, but to be honest, I don't believe they have much impact in that area. Sure they absorb some, but not on a scale to affect water quality unless you had a gigantic fuge with a huge mass of macro.

And I observe them in my grow-out tank as well. My tanks are teeming with pods. They are all over the glass, rock, and macro, and they appear to be eating off those surfaces and not from the water column. So the fuge provide a predator free zone for them to multiply, and then they work their way into the display.

Live bearers may help your mandarin as well.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11511831#post11511831 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
Live bearers may help your mandarin as well.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with these. Where can I find, and what are they exactly.

Ironically enough, I don't seem to have any issues with my mandy right now. I periodically check my glass for a few pods, and if I see some there I figure there are thousands elsewhere. They are so tiny, I can't see them too well on my rock, but I can see them scurry on the glass. I do see lots of amphipods on the rocks, but they are obviously larger.

I do dose a bit of DTs now, just because I paid for it, but I only dose about 10 ml to my 84 gallons of sump/tank every few days.

I may cut it off, and see how the population holds up.
 
Live bearers are any kind of fish or crustacean that bears live offspring. Shrimp are an example. Mouth brooders like Cardinalfish, and even FW mollies can be acclimated to SW and provide your reef with live food.

Whether or not the mandarin will eat them is not really known to me, but we do know from multiple reef keepers now including Marc, that they can be trained to eat other foods.

My experience has been that the pod poulation in my system comes and goes. Sometimes there are only a few, sometimes the tank is crawling with them. But, there are competing fish like many wrasses that also eat pods.
 
Good info. There really are no competing fish for the pods right now to my knowledge. My watchman goby may get a few while sand sifting, but until my clowns go in, there's really no competing source.

I hope to keep them occupied with prepared foods anyway. Thanks again Jonathan.
 
And the clowns probably won't be an issue either. I think the biggest issue will be your tank/reef size. The question is, is it large enough to support enough pods to keep the mandarin happy? Tough to say for sure, but perhaps you could creat a small area that the mandarin cannot get into to propagate the pods. For instance, some sort of small container with macro and an eggcrate lid hidden behind some rocks. Or even an all eggcrate box. If you get them to grow in there and maintain a decent population, then the mandarn can eat the escapees.
 
Will my fuge suffice for that? I've got a 29 gallon sump with about about a 10 gallon section of fuge. I have miracle mud, live rock rubble and a huge clump of chaeto in there.

Or should I make a separate "fuge-like" area in my display?
 
your curent fuge should be as good as you can get with that system. just watch out ofr detritus building up too much. That is where you want to look for pods. if the population remains good in there, then your mandarin should be getting enough to eat.

It doesn't hurt to encourage macro to grow in your reef though, partcularly if you like the way it looks. For that, I would recommend getting your hands on some sea grass if you can. Once you have some, put a little bit tied to a rock in the display, and the rest to grow out inthe fuge. Sea grass type macro looks good and usually will not be eaten by your fish. In the interim, the next time you harvest chaeto try puting some tied to a rock in the display and observe it for a couple of weeks. That's not the best way to grow chaeto, but you will get a better understanding of what you can accomplish, plus youwill be able to see how many pods are on it when it goes in versus a week or two later.
 
The bad luck continues.

I woke up this evening to gurgling, and thought oh POO. My top off unit had failed again and flooded my sump.

The sg dropped from 1.025 to about 1.022 or 1.023 in my tank. The anemone is the one I fear will react to this, but seems to be doing ok so far. I will slowly bring the salinity back up over the next few days.

For those of you that have followed along, you have heard of my past troubles with my top off unit. The company has been good to fix/replace my problem units, and I won't mention the name as this may be a freak incident. I'm about to give up on them though. I'm hoping we can negotiate a refund so I can take my business elsewhere. I'm thinking a DIY or just dropping the money for an osmolator next.

Hoping for the best.
 
What is happening specifically? If the water reservoir is taller than the water level in the sump, it can continue to add more water (via siphon) even if the ATO turned the pump off.
 
Sorry to here about your troubles, If there is anything I can do let me know, shoot me a pm, wont take to long for it to get to me somebody is always on the pc. Good luck I hope all goes well.
 
This is why I shelled out th ecash for a LiterMeter. After overdosing my system several times, I just couldn't take it any more.
 
The LiterMeter is a great unit except for its total lack of mounting method. There are others available as well, and I saw a decent looking one on twopartsolution.com IIRC, but I don't think it was programmable.

The thing about the LiterMeter is that it is designed to run multiple pumps so you can use it for water changes, 2-part dosing, top-off, etc. When you look for a dosing pump, make sure there is at least THREE rollers. Four is even better. This is what helps keep it from allowing a siphon.
 
Not sure what you mean by that. I don't know how a PH would be used for top-off.

Doser pumps typically use a combination or rollers on a rubber tube to slowly dose liquids.
 
I run a hose from my powerhead (that resides in my top off resevoir) to my sump.

The powerhead is plugged into an extension cord that is wired to a relay that kicks to pump on when the float switch in my sump drops closing the circuit. When the water level rises, the float switch raises and kills the circuit shutting off the pump. The relay should help avoid surges that melt the float switch prongs together causing a constant on position for the pump, but something continues to go wrong with the relay and when the pump surges, the power melts the float switch together and the pump floods.

To avoid syphoning, I have the hose from my powerhead raised above the water line in the sump.

Does that help?
 
yeah but for a system the size of yours, just the in-rush of that much water is not a good idea. That pump probably draws more power than the relay can handle is my guess. COuld just be that the float swith is DC, and your pump and relay are AC.

Anyway, integrated dosing pumps like the LiterMeter use rollers to slowly dose over the course of the day. You program how much evap you have, and let them manage the doses. I still use a float switch and data from my ACIII Pro to add some additional control, but in most situations, that is not needed.

Another issue is that starting and stopping a Maxi-Jet alone can be risky since sometimes it won't actually start the magnetic drive in the right direction. Then you have lots of current but no pumping going on. I wouldn't use a powerhead in that manner unless it was a "controllable" one, and that gets to be as much as a decent doser.
 
Jonathan, my RBTA isn't looking the greatest after the sump flooding episode.

I've been slowly toping my tank with a bit of low salinity water and the sg is back up around 1.024.

The color is still there, but the extension was less than impressive yesterday, and a bit worse today.

I post a picture of today shortly.
 
RBTAs are fairly hardy and the best option is to not panic. I have done that a few times, but we know they can be shredded in a PH and still survive. Don't worry about extension either. Color and stickiness are a much better gauge of health. If it's sticky and has decent color, it is probably fine. You can try feeding it too.
 
I fed it a chunk of shrimp with vitachem yesterday, and it readily accepted it.

Here are a few pics of the tentacles and base today.
DSC_0808.jpg

DSC_0807.jpg

DSC_0806.jpg
 
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