How many fish?

[doch]

I saw another post relavant, but rather than hijack it I figured I'd start a new one. 90 gal full reef... about 20 corals, 50 snails/crabs, 3 fire shrimp an RBTA, a Sea Hare, 90ish lbs of rock, 33gal sump/fug. I now have 1 gold stripe maroon, 1 yellow wrasse, 1 orchid dottyback, 1 Scooter blenny, 1 Mandarin. How much more room do I have? I'm kind of thinking that I want a Regal, and a Sleeper Goby... and if I could catch it trade in the Blenny for another Mandarin (the one I have is female). Anyways.. looking for opinions.

[Edmonton Eskimo]

sounds like you have some room to me. I would stay away from a regal as they get pretty big and really need a 6 foot long tank for swimming room. If you were planning on a bigger tank you could get a small regal.

[danny zubot]

Sounds like that would work if the tang was small, as stated above. A word of caution about the manderine. Two manderines will compete for the same food, make sure you have a good pod population before attempting this.

[blood_hound]

A word of caution about the manderine. Two manderines will compete for the same food, make sure you have a good pod population before attempting this.

I agree with danny on this. You can give it a try but make sure that the manderine you have right now will eat other food and this wont be easy or you can try culturing your own pods. Which I been doing for the past month now since I have made a big mistake of buying two green maderine for my 55g before doing my research on them but its all ok now because they start feeding on live baby brine shrimp.

[BCOrchidGuy]

If you look it up you may want to figure out if your mandarin is a male or female and find a mate for the one you have. If you can get them to spawn it is something to see. A 90 is a bit short for a Regal, that being said I had a Sailfin in my 90 and it did fine it wasn't a fast grower. People will have mixed ideas on Tangs.

Doug

[Tarolisol]

First i would be asking if he is considering a regal tang or angel. If he is refering to the tang then i would say you should be fine. But i wouldnt add anymore fish after. If he means Angel i would say no, they are difficult fish to take care of in general.

[doch]

Ok, I did mean Regal as in Tang. As far as I can tell, my Mandarin is a Female... from the small amount that I know about sexing them... 'she' has a small dorsal fin with no long point on it. The guy at the LFS thought her to be female as well. As for the food issue... I am well aware of this. Two things though: 1. I have a scooter Blenny which is competing for the same food as well... he would be getting traded in. 2. LFS sells live pods. Expensive, but there if needed. What I've been doing so far is I've put a bottle of pods in there every month or so just to make sure that they have a good source, and in doing this I'm sure I'll end up with them establishing in the tank. As for the spawning comment... are they easy to get to spawn? This isn't something that I had really considered. I just love the look of them, they are one of my favorite fish!

[blood_hound]

Base on what I have read they it is easy to get them spawn the hard part is keeping the fry from getting suck by the filter or being eaten by other fish and if you manage to save some fry another big challenge is feeding the fry because it is so small.I my self did not try on breeding them I just like to watch them swimming together. And as for the pods why don't you try culturing your own pods it is easy anyway.


Copepod Culturing:

Parts:
The first step, as in any project, is to assemble the parts we will need for the project.


1 – 10 gal tank
1 – Small air pump
1 – 2 gang air valve
1 – 36" ¼" rigid tube (cut in two equal pieces)
1 – 12" section of ¼" airline
1 – 24" section of ¼" airline
1 – 36" section of ¼" airline
1 – Acrylic lid with holes for rigid tube

Assembly:
The next step is to assemble the parts.
1) Connect the air pump to the gang valve with the 12" section of ¼" airline.
2) Connect each gang valve to the two remaining sections of airline.
3) Connect a piece of rigid tubing to the ends of the two airline sections.


4) Insert the rigid tubing in two of the holes in the acrylic lid. Place them at opposite ends of the tank. This will allow for better flow through the tank.

Select a source for phytoplankton to feed the Copepods


Phytoplankton can be found from many sources, including home culturing. Commercially available phytoplankton will tend to be more concentrated than home grown cultures. Pictured here are examples of DT's Live Marine Phytoplankton, Reed Mariculture's Plankton Live FeedDiet, and the typical 2-liter bottle of home grown phytoplankton. Which ever source you decide to use, make sure you use according to instructions to prevent contamination and spoilage.

Nannochlroposis is my preferred phytoplankton to feed copepods. Others may work as well or better, but Nannochlropsis is widely available from both commercial and home grown sources.

Once we have the phytoplankton, we need to fill the culture tank with an appropriate amount of phytoplankton. To prevent spillage and some of the mess, I typically fill the tank less than half full.


Now we have the culture tank filled and ready for copepods, not just yet. We need to make sure the culture tank parameters are within ranges.
Temperature – For culturing copepods, I do not use a tank heater. I have had great success with room temperature. So what is room temperature? It means a room that is typically considered comfortable. This does not include the room with no insulation on the Northwest side of a house on the plains of North Dakota in January.
Salinity – It is best to match the culture tank to the tank to be fed. This helps eliminate the possibility of salinity shock for the copepods.
Airflow – With the culture tank filled with phytoplankton, we can set up the airflow. This does not need to be forceful, but does have to provide some circulation. I found that adjusting the airflow to a rate slow enough to count the bubbles to be adequate.
Lighting – Ambient room lighting or low wattage fluorescent lighting.

Adding the Copepods:
If we've successfully completed all the above, we can now add the copepods. When adding the copepods try to insure they are near the same water parameters as that of the culture tank. If not, try to "acclimate" them slowly, although they are quite hardy. Standard acclimation procedures will work fine.

Culturing:
With the phytoplankton and copepods added to the tank and the airflow set up properly, we are now culturing copepods. Well, we got started. The idea is to keep a green tint to the water, the greener the better to cultivate copepods to feed the target tank. As the water clears in color, add more phytoplankton. Once we reach the desired density we can start feeding the target tank.
What density are we looking to achieve before we start feeding? This depends on the target tank. Once you start seeing copepods gathering on the tank glass, you probably have a good density.
These pictures show a copepod tank that has consumed the phytoplankton and the culture water has gone clear.


Having the culture water turn clear in color is not a 'bad thing,’ but it is something we should try to avoid. If this does happen, we are left with two options:
1) Add more phytoplankton to the culture tank to return the water to a green color.
2) Drain the tank through a strainer (53 micron works well), and then backwash the copepods into the culture tank with fresh phytoplankton. When draining the tank, I use a small diameter rigid tube to siphon out the water and copepods. When draining/siphoning the tank, try to minimize the amount of 'gunk' that is siphoned out.
The 'gunk' that builds up on the bottom of the tank is normal. Eventually, we will need to change the culture water and restart the culture. This can be done by following Option 2 above.

Feeding:
Feeding methods vary from person to person. I will quickly describe the two methods I use to feed my tanks.
1) Scoop out the desired feeding amount from the culture tank and pour it into the target tank. Replace the feeding amount taken from the culture tank with fresh phytoplankton. Because this is simple, it is my preferred method.
2) The second method is to do the same as above except strain the copepods from the culture water and then backwash into the target tank. This reduces the amount of culture tank water added to the target tank.

Cross-Culture-Contamination:
I haven't seen any ill effects from cross-contamination of cultures, with the exception of brine shrimp. It seems brine shrimp will eat almost anything and that includes copepods. It is possible to have a dual culture of copepods and rotifers.

Miscellaneous Notes:
1) Don't worry if the water goes clear. I have had some copepods in a 2 liter bottle with no phytoplankton added for almost 3 months. They might have lasted longer, but I added some phytoplankton.
2) Divide the 10 gal tank into two equal sections with a piece of plexiglass. This allows you to have two cultures of copepods and gives you some redundancy in case of a culture crash.

3) Don't be afraid to feed the target tank. I have deliberately fed large amounts of copepods to my main tank, and I have yet to see a negative impact.
4) Try to change the culture tank water every 4 weeks on average or as water parameters warrant. This will help keep the quality of the culture water higher.
5) When feeding from the culture tank, try not to scoop the bottom of the culture tank. If you scoop the bottom of the tank, you stir up a lot of waste that then potentially gets put into your target tank.
6) Share your cultures with others and educate them on the ease of culturing live foods.

[blood_hound]

Sorry foor the long post :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: