Mandarin update for the new year
2006, green mandarin in a ten gallon nano still A-OK
Nothing new to report. This is good, of course, but I have some future plans in the works for the mandarin as well as this whole project...
I may be moving soon to an actual house. I'd like to upgrade the tank to a 20 gallon long and add an HOB refugium chocked full of chaeto, scrubber pads, and small pieces of live rock, while keeping a healthy flow.
I feed approximately 1/2 teaspoon of roe every other day (off days cyclopeeze), rinsed in tank water to get most of the unnatural dye before it hits the tank. Pods are visible in the tank at night so a steady number appear to coexist with the mandarin. I supplement sometimes from my vase, which is crawling with pods, by swapping out a pourous rock of shitty starburst polyps and zoanthids.
For a while in Nov. and Dec. I got lax. I only dosed roe about twice a week during the holiday shuffle. Finally, when I spent a couple hours looking at the tank, I noted the mandarin's abdomen was concave. Still well-rounded and healthy, but his stomach looked as if he were sucking in.
Not good.
Immediately I started a daily roe feeding program. In three days he was back to himself... full stomach, no trace of lines on the side. A healthy mandarin looks chubby, like a fat muppet from Sesame Street, and when you see his stomach on the underside it should either be flush with his body or slightly rotund.
The daily feedings of rich foods like roe obviously take a toll on the tank. I do weekly water changes, 1-2 gallons, which is about 20% due to the live rock and sand that takes up some of the volume. Nitrate has not once tipped over 5... actually it has never registered on my test kit, and I hope to keep it that way. However, green hair algae is a constant problem, thanks to the high nutrient content and dosing of phytoplankton, but the water changes and chaeto macro I keep in the tank seem to keep it in relative check.
I had a breakout of mild cyano and nasty red string hair algae a long time ago but an extra powerhead kicked that, along with some nassarius snails to stir up the sandbed.
Everything in the tank is thriving. Green star polyps are frequently fragged, but even so a portion of the encrusting purple mat is growing up the side glass, enough to cover my fist in green star polyps. The crocea clam is doing wonderfully. It's grown a whole ridge and starting another, evidenced by the fresh white calcified growth on the shell. I do not dose kalk or any additive so I attribute this to my strong lighting and weekly water changes of fresh trace minerals in the salt... and possibly DT's phyto. The brittle star is getting huge and most likely in a year or less time I'll have to give it away. This won't be so difficult cause the monster is practically tame... comes to the top whenever cyclo is introduced and its tentacles skim the surface like conveyor belts. Also the scallop is still alive (yes it's a flame scallop and I guess I'm a 2-time offender for throwing that into the mix, or maybe I'm just flame bait). No shrinking or withdrawal of the mantle. I've had this specimen from the beginning of October, according to this blog. Can't conclusively say anything about its true longterm survival, but the fact it's still alive and looks better than it did when I took the first pics is heartening. Hitchiker featherdusters are also thriving and growing, so I'm likely doing something right.
Honestly, I attribute my success to the lack of skimming on this tank combined with my routine water changes. This makes me wonder about the general effectiveness in skimming in the first place. Given the history of the saltwater and reef hobby, many devices and gadgets have come and gone, some of which were the supposed Holy Grail of marine keeping, only later to be proven detrimental. I would not be surprised if skimmers are in the future shown to be not as great as they are believe to be today.
But only time will tell, and no one can truly predict where the hobby is evolving.
Josh
http://joshday.com
Nothing new to report. This is good, of course, but I have some future plans in the works for the mandarin as well as this whole project...
I may be moving soon to an actual house. I'd like to upgrade the tank to a 20 gallon long and add an HOB refugium chocked full of chaeto, scrubber pads, and small pieces of live rock, while keeping a healthy flow.
I feed approximately 1/2 teaspoon of roe every other day (off days cyclopeeze), rinsed in tank water to get most of the unnatural dye before it hits the tank. Pods are visible in the tank at night so a steady number appear to coexist with the mandarin. I supplement sometimes from my vase, which is crawling with pods, by swapping out a pourous rock of shitty starburst polyps and zoanthids.
For a while in Nov. and Dec. I got lax. I only dosed roe about twice a week during the holiday shuffle. Finally, when I spent a couple hours looking at the tank, I noted the mandarin's abdomen was concave. Still well-rounded and healthy, but his stomach looked as if he were sucking in.
Not good.
Immediately I started a daily roe feeding program. In three days he was back to himself... full stomach, no trace of lines on the side. A healthy mandarin looks chubby, like a fat muppet from Sesame Street, and when you see his stomach on the underside it should either be flush with his body or slightly rotund.
The daily feedings of rich foods like roe obviously take a toll on the tank. I do weekly water changes, 1-2 gallons, which is about 20% due to the live rock and sand that takes up some of the volume. Nitrate has not once tipped over 5... actually it has never registered on my test kit, and I hope to keep it that way. However, green hair algae is a constant problem, thanks to the high nutrient content and dosing of phytoplankton, but the water changes and chaeto macro I keep in the tank seem to keep it in relative check.
I had a breakout of mild cyano and nasty red string hair algae a long time ago but an extra powerhead kicked that, along with some nassarius snails to stir up the sandbed.
Everything in the tank is thriving. Green star polyps are frequently fragged, but even so a portion of the encrusting purple mat is growing up the side glass, enough to cover my fist in green star polyps. The crocea clam is doing wonderfully. It's grown a whole ridge and starting another, evidenced by the fresh white calcified growth on the shell. I do not dose kalk or any additive so I attribute this to my strong lighting and weekly water changes of fresh trace minerals in the salt... and possibly DT's phyto. The brittle star is getting huge and most likely in a year or less time I'll have to give it away. This won't be so difficult cause the monster is practically tame... comes to the top whenever cyclo is introduced and its tentacles skim the surface like conveyor belts. Also the scallop is still alive (yes it's a flame scallop and I guess I'm a 2-time offender for throwing that into the mix, or maybe I'm just flame bait). No shrinking or withdrawal of the mantle. I've had this specimen from the beginning of October, according to this blog. Can't conclusively say anything about its true longterm survival, but the fact it's still alive and looks better than it did when I took the first pics is heartening. Hitchiker featherdusters are also thriving and growing, so I'm likely doing something right.
Honestly, I attribute my success to the lack of skimming on this tank combined with my routine water changes. This makes me wonder about the general effectiveness in skimming in the first place. Given the history of the saltwater and reef hobby, many devices and gadgets have come and gone, some of which were the supposed Holy Grail of marine keeping, only later to be proven detrimental. I would not be surprised if skimmers are in the future shown to be not as great as they are believe to be today.
But only time will tell, and no one can truly predict where the hobby is evolving.
Josh
http://joshday.com
posted by Josh Day at 11:06 PM
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