Just when I thought I was out...

... They pull me back in.

Gobies, that is.




A green mandarin goby. Actually, it's a dragonet, not a true "goby." Now, if you know anything about these guys, or you're a card-carrying member of the mandarin gestapo on fish forums, you're probably shaking your head or spitting fire right now. But you know what? My copepod culture arrives today. I have my pod cultivating farm on my windowsill right now, ready to host the progenitor 2000 pods which will feed the mandarin until I can wean him onto mysis and hopefully, formula 1.

Traditionally, mandarins are found in large systems with 75+ pounds of live rock. This is so the pod population will not be decimated and can reproduce enough to sustain the mandarin goby. However, if you can culture some 100 pods a day to feed the goby, then there is no reason this fish should not thrive in a nano tank.



Note the line you can see on his side. That means he's starved.

He was in the fish store's non-live rock tank for three weeks, eating nothing. Sad thing is you often see them in worse shape...

I had a fair pod population in my tank. I could see them on the glass, on the rock, on the sands, scurrying about like fleas. However, they've all been consumed. This is why under normal circumstances mandarin gobies cannot be kept in small tanks, even those with an ample fuge. They will wipe out an entire pod population in a matter of days.

I hope to break the stigma around these fish as well as piss in the eyes of all the nay-sayers... if all goes to plan, I will be not unlike Lando Calrissian blowing up the core of the second Death Star and delivering a crippling blow to the Galactic Empire... only the blow will come to the mandarin gestapo who attack and flame anyone who dares mention the unspeakable name of Mandarin Goby.

Stay tuned for a full feature, in-depth article outlining the researched and painstaking process I'm doing to make this work.

- J

P.S. I wrote this entry Friday, put it up for an hour, then got cold feet and dropped it. The mandarin gestapo are not to be trifled with... nor is any fish nazi, guru, or self-styled "expert" who thinks they got all the answers.

I started my first culture jar. 3/4s of a pod bottle went into the main tank, then the rest went into the quart jar. I added about a 1/4 of the second bottle, and the remaining pods are in their commercial bottle just in case this population doesn't take off.


The mandarin is showing signs of improvement. His abdomen is not so pinched, and he constantly grazes for pods on the rock and over the sand. He seems to nail one every 5-10 minutes. I can still see the amphipods scurrying about. I added a "pod pile" (a cluster of small live rock for pod reproduction so fish can't eat them all) as well as inserted a scrubber sponge in the filter box. Once I have my second and third jars up and running, I'll swap out this scrubber with one in the quart jars. This may harvest amphipods as well as copepods... so I'll have two jars of pure strain and 1 of mixed.

A Jumper

Several days ago I bought a second fish for the future reef tank, a firefish goby. I keep an open tank and I was aware that these fish are known jumpers, but the one I purchased was in the same tank at the fish store for a good two months. I figured any jumpiness he had in him would have shown up already.

A few days back I bought a margarita snail and I was watching it chew cud on the glass. I happen to look over and see these larvae-shaped, white and pink squirmy thing on the floor. It looked just like one of those brightly colored fake fishing lures, only this was alive. I scooped the fish up in the net, returned it the to the tank, and watched it for about an hour. I leave the room for ten minutes, come back, and the fresh fish smell hits me. I find the fish five minutes later after some serious searching between 2 books on the bottom shelf of a nearby bookshelf, doing a good job of drying up.

I put the fish in the net, lower it to the water, and wait a few minutes. Looks like it's a goner. I take it out to flush, and it jumps. Put it back in, gills start working, I release it, and it floats to the bottom... right by the live rock the starfish lives in. Immediately, the tentacles are out, and they latch onto the fish. It was like watching an octopus track down a tuna. The goby got away, languished for a bit in an opposite corner, then the current kicked him around. I netted him, dropped him into a cup of freezing freshwater, and that was that.

Joshday.com

P.S. Please check out two great articles about betta care at my article section. They're written by a knowledgable breeder who has been doing this for years.

Rid Ich+

The ich strain is immune to Quick Cure. Now it's time for Rid Ich+

I've heard good things about this med, even better than QC. It uses a much safer form of malachite green, and it's also supposed to be plant safe.

Tomorrow I'll run carbon for a day, do a huge water change, and then start on the Rich Ich+ regiment.

My 55 gallon looks great. I just cleaned out one filter and popped in two brand new whisper cartridges, and the water is flowing better now, still not as well as I'd like. All the fish look great. Big discus is finally eating like a champ, and little discus is actually eating now, which is a nice change.

Black ghost knife is huge. Now that I've removed that clown loach, the angelfish's fins are whole and intact, and the tank seems much more peaceful.

The starfish just came out of his rock and climbed up the glass for a bit. Really neat.

- Joshday.com

Brittle starfish photos

Been a while.

I recently purchased a brittle star for my nano. This guy is cooler than words. A brittle is the fastest of the aquarium starfish, and they are great members of your cleanup crew. I supplement my star's diet of detritus with sundried baby shrimp, stuck to a wooden skewer and plaved near one of its waving tentacles.






This morning I euth'ed a neon tetra with neon disease. First casualty from the ich tank in a long, long time. That drops me to 8 neons and cardinals, 3 black neons, 2 glowlights, 1 hatchetfish, 1 rainbowfish, 1 oto, and 5 loaches. Full house, huh?

- Josh
http://joshday.com

Wedding pics

Here are some pics of my wedding on 3/24/05...

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A Salty Update

It's been a good while since my last update, and a lot has transpired. I'll try to keep this as organized as I can.

My 96 watt Coralife light came in, and it's ultra sleek and looks amazing. At night, the 50% blue "actinic" spectrum fills the whole room with nice blue light. I have it suspended over the tank two inches with mounting legs. It's a bit of a pain to remove the light for maintenance, but the extra light is well worth it.

How about some pics?


This is my largest piece of rock, a cured chunk of Fiji dead coral. Live rock is actually the dead remains of a reef, colonized by micro and macrorganisms. They provide biological filtration as well as food for inverts and other varieties of marine life.

Only "hitchhiker" I've seen so far has been a tube worm. This morning I caught the worm extending its fan as I turned on the light. Cool, huh?

Small seashells add decor at the bottom atop the sand.




Check out the astrea snail in the middle. I currently have two of them. The rocks on the right is a piece of tonga branch, leaning against a nice, white, porous piece of Fiji again.

I'd like to talk a little about my other tanks before I continue with the saltwater.

Ich is still present in the planted tank. The fish are all alive, as are the plants, and I continue the tired old regime of Quick Cure. I'm amazed this toxic stuff hasn't killed anything yet. Good news is all the previous fish that were afflicted seem to be immune, at least on the surface. I only saw one spot today, so hopefully, in four days I can stop this nasty blue malachite green shit forever.

My banana plant sent out a leaf that is literally stretching across the tank. I could almost watch this thing grow. The plant is doing swimmingly, and it appears my 5700 k 10 watt light is more than adequate.

Ok, onto the big tank. The discus's HITH has finally been cured, thanks to frequent nitrate lowering through water changes and garlic juice rich bloodworms. The surving clown loach is tearing apart my angelfish's dorsal fin, so seeing him succumb to IP which killed my other two loaches wouldn't be such a bad thing at the time being. I believe I may not be feeding the loach enough with sinking pellets so I'm sure to drop some in every day now.

I changed 40% of the water today in the guppy tank and added some instant ocean to truly make it brackish, as well as changed the carbon. Tank looks sparkling and a few of the new guppies are exhibiting amazing colors... almost saltwater bright in the cobalt blues and pinks... I've been feeding the duller ones to the frogs and ghost knife, but I noticed today there is only one female in the first batch of fry, now juvenile guppies. Having all males would not be good especially in that small tank, when they come of age.

I also changed out half the water in my planted vase. Removed the old stalks of elodea, and everything is sparkling and bright green now. Looks great.

Ok, now back to saltwater:

I began this tank Easter sunday by adding the live rock. Several days ago I added invertebrates, which include:

5 blue legged hermit crabs
2 astrea snails
1 burrowing conical snail
1 emerald crab

Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all appear stable. Amm. and ni. are 0, while nitrates are under 5. So far the Biowheel does not seem to be contributing to Nitrates, but we'll see as time wears on.

Here's a shot of the whole tank:




I was at one of my favorite LFS's today, a store called "Everything Fishy." I purchased the live rock there and got a good deal on my pieces. I was actually looking for orange or red fromia starfish, but the hardier, more appropriate brittle and serpent stars caught my eye (probably because they were the only starfishes available).

When I know that the tank is fully stable, I'll get a serpent star, and hell, maybe I'll get a brittle too.

Since I have so many other fish, and the options one has for nano tanks are limited, I'll most likely go with a small non-Nemo perc or a goby, hopefully with a bonded shrimp partner. I want to keep the bioload low for this tank for the future soft corals, as well as to keep things simple. Right now a colorful goby or tomato clown are looking good, but fish are at least two more weeks away until I know the system is ready.

I saw an amazing fish called a green mandarin today, and what was even more amazing was it was only $25! If you saw this thing, you would think it would go for $79.99, minimal. I did some reading and I learned these guys eat only pods, the small translucent critters that live in the live rock, and they need a mature aquarium, large, and preferably with a refugium (a separate tank with live rock just for critters and shit). That guy would have been awesome in my nano, but it never would have worked. Oh well, I still think the serpent and brittle starfish are cooler...

- J
http://joshday.com