Sorry for all your troubles, but I am sure you learned a lot , your tank looks spectacular !!!
Your crinoids are looking very healthy , I am considering one of those for my tank, can you tell me more about what you feed them and how often? I am also considering sea apple, any experience with those?
It's been a long haul for sure, I really appreciate the support Mark!
As far as the crinoids go, at first I was feeding everything but as time has progressed I'm starting to fine tune. Each species is different and you really gotta just mix a bunch of foods together and then start selecting one or two at a time and see what they react to the best. Most of mine definitely love cyclops,calanus, and fauna marin foods but I recently discovered how ravenous they go for the marine snow- especially the red ones.
In general I find that the more "feathered" ones, especially the ones that like to "take off an fly" are much more finicky and tricky like the standard red ones. The species that crawl around more individuals tentecles as their pinules in replace of "feathers" generally seem to be easier and tend to be more open on food sources.
On top of that,keeping parameters consistent, whether its allways dirty, or more on the clean side. Pick and stick with it. With your system being larger, water changes will less likely be a issue as long as you keep your salanity consistent. Go read Aquabac's build thread if you haven't already...he's a genius with azoox corals and a true pioneer with the principles of keeping crinoids and was definitely my inspiration to dive in and go for them. It's been very rewarding.
As far as apples go, I have two! I have the standard Philippines variant and an australian which is my favorite- he's borderline patriotic :lolspin:
Both react best if you're adding phytoplankton in your mixes and other fine micron sized foods but my australian seems more open to different foods and I always see him producing more waste then the one from the Philippines. Both are very healthly though, I've found apples to be nearly indestructible. You've seriously gotta be messing up your tank big time to stress them out.
Take it to the next level and get a pair of emperor shrimp to live on the apple(s) of your choice. It's awesome to watch them interact and much safer than a medusa worm as we now know!
Both get my thumbs up and I think your tank would suit these organisms very well Mark!
I've got some footage of my australian one I'll post tomorrow, I think you'll like it's colors
