Food or Feeding

Everything changing; the 29g is broken down at last

melev — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 19:23:00 +0000

Everything changing; the 29g is broken down at last melev Sat, 08/28/2004 - 23:23

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. They are voracious eaters though, and the pellets don't sit on the substrate for any amount of time - thus the mandarins rarely get the opportunity to eat any of those anymore.

I've been thinking about painting the floor in the fish room (assuming the fumes aren't insane), and then putting up the baseboards and siliconing everything like Joseph suggested earlier in my RC thread. I'll probably cut a mouse hole with a flap. If water ever does fill the room, it can flow out the hole.

I'm seeing coralline spots on the back walls already, and it has barely been 4 weeks since the livestock went in.

I finally took down the 29g today. The end of an era - man it was hard to turn it off. The cool refugium/sump with the bubble tower, the non-drilled-tank closed loop with a SCWD, the PC lighting, my food timer, the auto top-off and more... all dissembled and cleaned up. The living room has been rearranged now that the tank, stand, & canopy is no longer there. I did find my Xanthid (Mud digger) crab in the refugium, and tossed it in the new refugium because I like the little guy. He's on my ID page, standing proudly on some cheatomorpha if you want to see him. I'm also no longer dosing B-Ionic like I did for so long.

This new tank is such a change from what I did in the past, and I'm not even sure how to arrange my website now because the smaller tanks were appreciated by so many people. It gave them hope; something they too could attain with their equal-sized tanks. When people come over now, they are amazed by the sheer size of the tank, and they are overwhelmed by the equipment as well as the fact that I have a fish room rather than tucking all the equipment under the tank like most people do.

Click to see the latest pictures in my 280g thread on ReefCentral.com

Reef Blog

Finger foods? Nope.

melev — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 07:33:00 +0000

Finger foods? Nope. melev Fri, 08/06/2004 - 11:33

Tucker is getting along just fine with the other tangs in the 280g. He still has spots were he was injured, but he swims and eats and it is a good indication of full recovery.

Ever since I removed the female ocellaris, the other three ocellaris are getting along fine with my 6 yr old female Percula. I've been watching them, and one of the ocellaris keeps doing the jittery dance of submission, and not only to the Percula. It is kind of odd and interesting at the same time.

This morning I tried to clip some Nori to the glass for the tangs to eat from. The Naso kept pulling it right out of the clip, so finally I just held it and they ate it from my fingertips. That was very cool.

Here are some pictures of the 280g taken yesterday, posted on Reef Central.

Speaking of eating from my hands, a few days ago I was dissolving some frozen food in my son's tank, and the female Gold Stripe Maroon Clown was eating right from my fingers. The Golden Eel has become more adventurous and I'm keeping my fingers away from it; it has been eating quite a few pieces of squid recently, so it has a healthy appetite.

I can't wait to get the 29g and the 55g out of the living room, now that the 280g is running. It'll be nice to get some space back.

Reef Blog

So many mouths to feed!

melev — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 18:08:00 +0000

So many mouths to feed! melev Tue, 06/08/2004 - 22:08

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 fed the other BTAs in my 29g reef, and even put a net in place over the anemones to keep the clowns away so it could injest its food without distraction. A medium sized hermit crab walked right around the net and was stealing the food from one, while bristleworms were tugging the food away from the other two!

I fed the Suncoral again today, because it was open and it might as well keep eating to stay healthy and grow. I've been feeding it a cube of Mysis shrimp with a mini turkey baster. To my shock, one of the False Perculas actually took a nibble of my hand making me jump slightly. I've been feeding that coral each day, but I guess she doesn't like my invading her space. Hmmm! I'm paying the mortgage, my lady!

Trying to keep the Suncoral fed, I've been feeding the rest of the tank with floating debris (thawed food) so the fish don't start coming to the one spot I'm target feeding. So far, it seems to be working. But you can never trust these guys, and I noticed the fish are hovering on the end of the tank now. I saw the Green Target Mandarin swimming over the coral, and watched keenly as it sucked up one mysis after another. Sure, that's great to know my mandarin will eat prepared (frozen) foods and never starve, but it is stealing from a coral that has to be fed often to survive. Man! And I'd already fed a bunch of live brineshrimp to the tank two hours earlier, and my own mixture of foods after that. Still it was pretty nice to watch, but...

Tonight I must have spent almost an hour playing guard with one tank after another to make sure everyone got fed. How do they survive in the reef for years and years????

Reef Blog

Night feedings

melev — Sun, 21 Dec 2003 04:27:00 +0000

Night feedings melev Sun, 12/21/2003 - 07:27

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).

Lately, I've been trying to feed my corals during the latenight hours. Tonight I added some of the refrigerated Coral food I won in the last raffle. I don't know what the heck is in that stuff, and it is hard to believe that 6 or 8 squirts of the brown juice makes such a difference. However, I looked in the tank about 10 minutes later, and my eyes almost popped out of my head looking at some of the corals.

I really tried very hard to get this first picture, but it was virtually impossible. The polyps had extended a good 3/8" out of the main branch at several locations, making it look like it was extending 4 to 6 new branches (or twigs).... plus the ends of each of those polyps had the petals extended another 1/8"... Interstingly, as soon as the flashlight lit the coral up (barely I might add) the polyps closed up and went away so photographing them was near impossible. 10 minutes later I went back and checked and the polyps were in full extention again so I quickly left it alone and in the dark.

What you'll see in this image are about 8 super-oversized polyps near the tip of the frag.

This next image is my fuzzy Pocillopora damicornis. Look at the top!!!! It was doing this in the back of the coral, but it looks almost like sweeper tentacles. I've never seen this coral do this, nor heard of it.

And finally, I've been trying to save my Lobophylia, and that entails feeding it krill at night. I have to put a cut 2-liter bottle over it to keep others away to give this coral time to eat because it is slooooooow, about one hour or more. The coral is learning and doing better. Tonight within 20 minutes, you could only see a little of the krill sticking out. I just thought this looked funny. Shot under actinics.

Reef Blog

Three gonioporas

melev — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 05:33:00 +0000

Three gonioporas melev Tue, 12/16/2003 - 08:33

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. :)

I picked up some Krill from the LFS, along with the replacement male Anthias (the first one died during acclimation). At the suggestion of the employee, I put a krill on each polyp of my Lobophylia to see if something meaty would help that brain coral fluff up more. It has been looking very retracted and unhappy lately. I thawed out one krill for each polyp, laid it on the center of the polyp, and covered it with a dome (made from a 2-liter bottle) for about 5 hours to keep the cleaner shrimp and serpent stars from stealing the food. When I got back from work, the lobophylia did look better. I'll keep this up for now, trying to feed every 3 days.

While the krill was in my hand, I decided to feed a few to my BTA. Well, it is still many hours before the lights turn on, but the BTA looks fantastic at the moment. It always inflates at night looking so pretty, but during the day time it can look very unhappy. This really drives me crazy, because it makes me feel like there is something I should be doing to help it. The clownfish is always swimming in the tentacles, no matter how it looks.

Reef Blog

Some improvement visible

melev — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:32:00 +0000

Some improvement visible melev Tue, 12/02/2003 - 01:32

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.

My 55g keeps me going. About a week ago, my Colt was super fluffy and happy looking. The two gonioporas are both still suffering from the kalk burn, so much so that I think the purple will just fade away. Part of the tissue is flapping in the current, and the purple pigment faded to pink. :( The green goni does fluff up quite a bit, but there is a giant hole in the center of the coral where the skeleton is visible at night, the size of a half dollar. Lately, apparently, there has been a chemical war between it and the Colt, which made the latter look pretty miserable. It is shedding now. This occured because I had to rearrange the corals to make room for a new SPS colony.

One thing I really don't enjoy doing is to feed a coral and have to guard it for a good while so the food can be consumed before it is stolen. Tonight I took Formula One pellets and dribbled them over my ricordea patch and the Lobophytum, while my pair of cleaner shrimp took every opportunity to snatch the food away. It would be nice if these corals would learn to grab the food more quickly somehow.

Watching a ricordea eat is rather interesting, as it isn't sticky like an anemone. Food can stick slightly.

Reef Blog