Jump to content

ScooterTDI

BB Participant
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    242

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by ScooterTDI

    Bluestripe pipefish

    in Propagation and Breeding

    I shut down my aquarium a while ago. I stopped breeding them after a couple of batches. Once I had a working protocol, it seemed fairly easy and the broodstock are quite prolific, but it just required a lot of time and attention. The biggest challenge is that the males start fighting once the get to be a little over an inch and require some kind of system to separate them until they grow out to a salable size. Unfortunately, they are small enough to get through most divider materials (except sponges) in a conventional small cube divided setup that you see at most petstores.

    Mandarin dragonet spawning log

    in Propagation and Breeding

    I don't think parvo are cannibalistic like some other calanoids. I never had any problem restarting cultures with sieving that retained adults. Make sure to feed VERY light. I would put my clear 1g culture vessels up against a white wall and if I could perceive any tint to the water I would not feed. I only fed enough that I could see a slight tint when against a white backdrop. It would normally look totally clear if it wasn't against a white backdrop. If the tint doesn't dissipate by the next feeding, the culture was usually due for a restart. Also keep the aeration very light at only maybe 1 bubble/sec.

     

    There is a good chance apocyclops alone will work, but I could never reliably maintain high production with them. I suspect Tigriopis won't work well. I tried them unsuccessfully with blue stripe pipefish a long time ago and I think they have a larger gape than mandarins. Good to have those around after settlement though.

     

    I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that last survivor from the original batch!!!

    Mandarin dragonet spawning log

    in Propagation and Breeding

    Yea, in my experience parvo is sensitive to water quality and algal density. When I was culturing them, I had the most success feeding very lightly twice a day and I would immediately sieve and restart the culture with a fresh batch of water if productivity declined. Usually, restarting the culture resulted in a substantial bloom. I probably restarted parvo cultures once a week. If I remember correctly, I was able to reliably harvest about 25% of the culture volume every day, so they cultures basically got a 25% water change daily.

    ScooterTDI's 12g Long Peninsula

    in Dedicated Tank (Build) Forum

    Thanks! Yea, I'm really digging the skunks. Not breeding anything now, but I might in the future. The pipefish we're a lot of work, so I got kind of burned out after months of caring for them. It was very rewarding though. My ocellaris clowns and molly miller blennies occasionally lay eggs, so I might give them a try.

    ScooterTDI's 12g Long Peninsula

    in Dedicated Tank (Build) Forum

    · Edited by ScooterTDI

    Well, the tank is 4 years old now, so I thought I'd give a update.  I added sand a little while ago to the display and although I rarely purchase wild-caught fish, I bought a diamond goby to keep it clean. I really liked the aesthetic change. I also set up the former frag tank in the fish closet, but now it is just a  second display for me to enjoy. I've recently added a pair of Biota mandarins, a Biota coral beauty, and a pair of ORA pink skunk clowns.

     

    My plan is to continue with softies for a while since I don't miss the frequent testing and and frequent preparation of calcium and alk dosing solutions that I had to do when it was hard coral dominated.  I'm interested in tracking down some of the fancier soft coral varieties, but I'll probably still have a limited population of easy sps like encrusting/plating montis or pocillopora. As always, please excuse the dirty glass...

    PXL_20220301_223839576 (1).jpg

    Ulva Scrubber

    in Do It Yourself

    I've been running a DIY algae scrubber that is a little unconventional since it is a "trough"-style scrubber and not a "waterfall" style scrubber. Originally I was cultivating typical hair/turf algae on a screen, but then ulva started to grow in the trough. At first, I considered it a bit of a nuisance since it didn't root firms to the screen and sheets would often slough off, but it was able to easily outcompete the turf algae on the scrubber. I decided to modify the scrubber to specifically cultivate ulva by weaving in a bunch of zip ties that project 1-2" out from the surface of the screen to catch and hold the ulva in place (seen as light green zipties poking out above the algae in the attached picture). This works fantastic now and everyday I remove a handful of ulva that I either toss out or feed to my urchins (daily harvest shown in attached picture). Basically all herbivores love ulva, so it makes a great food source if you have tangs, urchins, sea hares, etc. Just thought I'd share this since its been working so well for me. I see the following benefits:

     

    -Easier (and less messy) to harvest algae than scraping turf off a screen. All you have to do is grab a wad.

    -More efficient nutrient removal since it grows substantially faster than turf algae

    -Free food source

    -More consistent nutrient removal since you only removal a little at a time instead of scraping the screen clean as you would for turf algae. When growing turf algae, I found that algae growth in the display tank would fluctuate depending on how long it had been since I had cleaned the screen. 

     

    PXL_20220305_021958337.jpg

    PXL_20220228_010051894.jpg

    PXL_20220305_021951156.jpg

    ScooterTDI's 12g Long Peninsula

    in Dedicated Tank (Build) Forum

    Thanks guys. Despite losing a bunch of coral, I see it as a positive. I had gotten a little bored with the tank and this is opportunity to re-engage with the hobby. I'm already having fun looking for soft corals that I've never kept before. I'll probably also consider some generally non-reef-safe fish that I wouldn't have previously paid any mind. 

     

    Here is the current state of affairs after removing all the dead or struggling sps.

    PXL_20210708_221227371.jpg

    ScooterTDI's 12g Long Peninsula

    in Dedicated Tank (Build) Forum

    · Edited by ScooterTDI

    A bit of sad news. Since the beginning of this year, the tank has been gradually declining. I slowly lost one sps colony after another. I've decided to just switch to an softy tank for a while since it should be easier to maintain and I've never kept one before.

     

    In the process of shutting down the frag tank, I may have found the part of my problems. Urchins chewed through the insulation on the pump wires thereby exposing the tank to copper and stray voltage. It probably wasn't the sole issue, but it certainly wasn't helping.

    PXL_20210706_203410111.jpg

    PXL_20210706_191539395.jpg

    Bluestripe pipefish

    in Propagation and Breeding

    2 hours ago, dmatt56 said:

    Please let me know when you have a pair available. Thanks again!

    I tried to PM you, but it's says you can't receive messages. I already sold about half of them, but I do have one more pair that is ready (and another pair that needs to grow out more).

    Bluestripe pipefish

    in Propagation and Breeding

    10 hours ago, therootcause said:

    Have any of the sea horses survived? I have a 12 month established low flow Macroalgae tank with no filtration, a small 3gpm pump, and an air stone. I wonder if they would do well in there.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Yes, they are all still alive, but there were only 4 on the brood to begin with. They are dwarf seahorses which only get to be about 1-1.5" and basically only eat live foods. They require significant dedication to keep since you have to hatch artemia for them everyday. They would not do well in the average refugium.

    Bluestripe pipefish

    in Propagation and Breeding

    On 11/24/2020 at 11:01 PM, arking_mark said:

    I'm assuming you're going to sell these at some point. Please add me to the list of interested buyers.

    Sure thing. I 'll let you know when they are ready. I'd estimate sometime in January or maybe early February. Right now they are about an inch. I'd like to get them closer to 2" before selling.

    Bluestripe pipefish

    in Propagation and Breeding

    22 hours ago, WheresTheReef said:

    Very cool! Can you show us your setup where you are raising them?

    Sure, no problem. I'm raising them in my fish closet. The top shelf has my algae cultures, artemia, and copepod cultures. Middle shelf is the broodstock tank with a sump on the bottom shelf that is also connected to the main display. The larval tank is a 1 gallon DIY kriesel made from a standard fish bowl aquarium sitting inside a 5 gallon aquarium on the right side on the closet. The kriesel tank isn't plumbed into the sump, but I manually do a 50% swap of water from the main display every day or two (after filtering down to 25 um).

     

     

     

    PXL_20201114_024459522.jpg

    PXL_20201114_024412970.jpg

    PXL_20201114_024358992.jpg

×
×
  • Create New...