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The 210 tank build

NikkiT

NikkiT

redfishbluefish said:
Being of Irish descent, I’m glad to see that size isn’t all it’s cranked up to be. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, google “Irish Curse”.)

Small is good! :grin::grin::grin::grin::eek:
Click to expand...

LOL!!!


James, Xavier and Tommy, thanks :) I get a lot of strange looks from people when I talk about my stocking list for our tank, and i appreciate your appreciation for my itty bitty fishes.

Pete, I'm glad you liked the gobies, thank you for the kind words - you just have to come again when you have more time so that you can see the pipefish and the candy basslet, and see the 3d magnificent goby as well!
 
@marko@

@marko@

i like that type of stocking. variety is good. :) and 40 tiny fish have more variety than 2 big fish.

and i keep planted tanks. from them i learned that a school of 30 small fish is more aesthetic than 1 bigger fish just pacing back and forth in front of the glass.
 
Tommyboynj

Tommyboynj

Administrator
Officer Emeritus
NikkiT said:
LOL!!!


James, Xavier and Tommy, thanks :) I get a lot of strange looks from people when I talk about my stocking list for our tank, and i appreciate your appreciation for my itty bitty fishes.

Pete, I'm glad you liked the gobies, thank you for the kind words - you just have to come again when you have more time so that you can see the pipefish and the candy basslet, and see the 3d magnificent goby as well!
Click to expand...


Nikki,

How long have you had the pipe fish? If been thinking of one myself. I have a nice pod population. My Pygmy wrasse is always picking at the rocks.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
We bought the pipefish in march. He spent the first couple months in our frag tank as the pod population at the time was better down there. We moved him to the display about three months later and he has stayed fat and happy. He is very active when the lights are lower and not out as much when the lights are on.

We highly recommend the blue stripes as their natural habitats are reefs so flow is not a problem at all for them. They are also a touch easier to feed and are very easy to sex so a pair is easy to get. We have been hunting for a mate for a while to no avail. As soon as we find one, we will add it.

We have a culture of tigger pods going that we dose into the tank and will buy the alamein products every few months to top it off. We have no idea if he takes prepared foods or not, but he is a round little fish so he is eating something very well.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
He is a bugger to photo because he does not really come out when the lights are on. He is also generally dancing in the rock work, not really front and center like the other fish.
 
JRWOHLER

JRWOHLER

mnat said:
He is a bugger to photo because he does not really come out when the lights are on. He is also generally dancing in the rock work, not really front and center like the other fish.
Click to expand...

Those sound like excuses. :p
Hope you get one sometime.
 
Tommyboynj

Tommyboynj

Administrator
Officer Emeritus
mnat said:
We bought the pipefish in march. He spent the first couple months in our frag tank as the pod population at the time was better down there. We moved him to the display about three months later and he has stayed fat and happy. He is very active when the lights are lower and not out as much when the lights are on.

We highly recommend the blue stripes as their natural habitats are reefs so flow is not a problem at all for them. They are also a touch easier to feed and are very easy to sex so a pair is easy to get. We have been hunting for a mate for a while to no avail. As soon as we find one, we will add it.

We have a culture of tigger pods going that we dose into the tank and will buy the alamein products every few months to top it off. We have no idea if he takes prepared foods or not, but he is a round little fish so he is eating something very well.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info. I read the info you posted a while back on culturing pods. That coral article makes it sound easy. Think I'm going to get a couple of jars going myself. Kids will think that's pretty cool also.
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

Tommyboynj said:
Thanks for the info. I read the info you posted a while back on culturing pods. That coral article makes it sound easy. Think I'm going to get a couple of jars going myself. Kids will think that's pretty cool also.
Click to expand...

It is very easy. I've had the same culture running since March (full disclosure: not 100% sure why it hasn't crashed yet, they usually go 3-4 months- I think it is related to me not fertilizing the orchids).
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
The planets aligned, the pipefish was out yesterday morning and I had my camera handy and was able to snap off a few pics. You will note that the lights are off and I needed to use a flash so the pics look a lot different than normal.
DSC_4411_zps868b2662.jpg

DSC_4409_zps08eb293d.jpg
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

Thanks Dan. I picked her; I've been keeping pod cultures on and off since 2009 (we had mandarines at that time), and I was committed to keeping her healthy so I've been running pod cultures continuously since he arrived. I've also added about 6-7 bags of pods to the tank since we bought him to help keep our population up.

Right now, I'm waiting until we have more pods to buy mandarines again. Back in 2009-2011, we had a spawning pair, and I would love to have that again. When the time is right, it will happen. For the moment, I have a LFS on the lookout for a male bluestripe pipefish to pair with our girl.
 
TanksNStuff

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Great shots of the Pipe fish Mike! Nikki, you picked a beautiful fish.

Do you guys have any pics of your pod culture setup?
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

It is not really photo worthy George, but I'll take a pic and text it to you tonight.
It is a hurricane jar that holds about 1/2 liter, and it is somewhere between 1/4 and 2/3 full at any given time with greenish liquid.
It is pretty unattractive, usually pale green with tiny red specs (tigger pods) but it works.
No bubbler. No substrate. The pods can tolerate large swings in SG and swings in temp, so it is pretty no fuss.
I add about 1/2 jar of pods to the container, 2-3 pellets, and 12 oz of tank water. Then I leave it sit for about 2-3 weeks, with small additions of water from the tank, before I start harvesting pods. I harvest 1/4 to 1/2 of the culture at a time.
You could strain it with a fine micron strainer, but I find that the corals like the algae that is growing in the culture so I usually just dump it right in, and then I add more tank water to the culture.
 
TanksNStuff

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Cool. I wasn't really planning to look at it as a display, lol I just wanted to see what containers/equipment you were using for it.

Thanks for the explanation of the process. That helps me envision it better.
 
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