Food or Feeding

The mandarins are doing fine so far. The female Blue Mandarin will chase either or both Target Mandarins. The male and the female target get along, but lately their doing their chase again (with the female always running away). I'm continuing to feed newly hatched baby brine shrimp every other day, so I know all the mandarins are getting some food for sure that way. The larger fish don't know what to do with the tiny jittery food.

I cannot believe how opportuntinistic my reeflings are. Is it any wonder some things seem to grow so slowly?!

Tonight, I fed the Rose BTA in my son's tank, and watched the Skunk Cleaner shrimp closely. I walked away for about 3 minutes to feed another tank, and when I came back, he'd pulled the chunk of shrimp right out of the anemone and was picking away at it. I had to steal it back to feed the BTA again, and chase away the Cleaner shrimp for at least 10 minutes.

I've been feeding corals at night, with live brine nauptilii (48 hours old, hatched with yolk sac still connected), Cyclop Eeze, or CoralPlankton (as well as Phytoplankton every other day like usual).

Both URI VHO Actinic bulbs were replaced today, as they need to be replaced every 6 months.

I moved the green Goniopora into my 29g reef, the purple Goniopora in my son's tank, and a new Red Goniopora into my 55g reef. The red one was purchased from a club member's tank, who's had it for over 9 months with good success. While his setup looks like it matches mine (Skimmer, sump, and refugium), what surprised me was what he'd been feeding the goni: flake food! I can't believe it. :)

The BTA looks a little better today. The mouth is still a little too exposed, the the tentacles are more inflated. Several of the zoa frags I traded for are not doing so well. That could be due to livestock (emerald crab?) pulling them off the rock or just a placement issue. Others look great though.