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Other Hobbies and Interests that our NLG members enjoy => Other Hobbies and Interests => Topic started by: Lizzo54 on January 06, 2015, 08:06:44 PM
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This past year i finally got around to setting up a mini reef tank. I used to have a large 75gal saltwater tank but lost it all to a overnight die out. Always want to get into corals. I decided to start with a 14gallon Biocube, like slots, you start with one and keep expanding. The good thing with a 14 gallon is its self limiting.
Heres some pics of the tank, corals and fish. The clowns have hosted with the xenia coral. They both sit in the middle of it all day long.
I also have a variety of snails, crabs, mini stars and one peppermint shrimp to help keep it clean and healthy.
Lenny
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In this shot you can see the arms of a tiny brittle star behind the coral
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White anemone crab i picked up a few weeks ago.
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The crab is very cool..... :cool_thumb_up: Nice tank .... :yes: :yes:
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Thanks, yes he is cool looking. He's a filter feeder, and sits in the currents waiving his mouth parts, they look like fans.
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Crabs are very entertaining to watch in tanks! :yes: Same with shrimp! I haven't had a tank set up for years now, but still miss it. A salt tank is just no comparison to a freshwater tank. After a saltwater tank, a freshwater tank just seems so dirty and stinky (to me at least, but that could just be stemming from memories of neglected fishtanks as a kid though!).
Very cool! Thanks for sharing! :cool_thumb_up:
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I liked the Jelly fish in the will smith movie 7 pounds.
https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.608024901171940559&pid=15.1&P=0
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Nice coralline you got growing. Good to see another marine enthusiast in the forum. I aquaculture clownfish from time to time to have the hobby be self-sustaining, although sometimes I don't think it actually pays the feeding bill, but I tell my wife that. :propeller:
I had a nice frag tank going until I went away for a week and came back to a non-functioning pump and all the corals sad and droopy. Lost most of them, only a few large polyps, a frogspawn and xenias survived. I'm hoping the remaining xenias colonize a big rock again. Here's a picture of the surviving frags now in a soon to be growout tank for clownfish. Also a picture of my 6 year old Emperor angel. Bought him as a 1.5 inch juvenile and he has matured and still growing. Now at 8 inches, I hand feed him every morning before I leave for work. The third photo is my current clownfish growout tank. All of them are between 2 and 2.5 years old. About 160 or so left.
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Nice setup for both of you. I had a saltwater setup for years with 2 disasters.....one time I left for a vacation put my duaghter in charge of feeding. She turned off the pump to make it easier to feed and forgot to turn it back on. Lost most of the fish. Then the second disaster was while I was home, I hear a loud popping noise and rushed in to find the pump on fire. That was the end for me. I never thought the pump would catch on fire but I was lucky....if I wasn't home it could have burned the house down.
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Very nice! Darn you guys! :hissyfit: :hissyfit: Now I've got full-blown "tank envy" and want to get another set-up....just a "little" one, lol...It never seems that 1 is ever enough though, for the different purposes and mix of critters! Nothing sweeter than a clown fish wiggle though!
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Thanks guys for the compliments.
Losing a tank sucks and costly. I do love having a reef tank. I feed at night around 9 and i love sitting in front of it and checking things out. The best part is finding new things growing and moving about.
Heres a closeup of a tiny black snail i found yesterday on a frag. I found that using the camera from my ipad works awsome to zoom in and get a closer look at things.
Heres a few more shots of coral. Some of the ones towards the top are very hard to photo with the reflection.
How do you get the clowns to reproduce? My pair is very close but i haven't found any eggs. I did have snails laying eggs for a while and have a few babies crawling around. It be great to see something develop but idon't know if they would survive, id have to add a refugium to place them in and my tank just isn't big enough for that. Do yours keep multiplying in that tank? Do you sell them to feed the addiction?
I was at my local fish store earlier to see what they have. Id like to add a Goby and Pistol Shrimp pair to the tank. After that i am capped for fish. I like the candy cane pistol, just need to pick a good looking Goby that will stay on the smaller size.
I tried a sexy shrimp last month, it lasted about an hour before my red hermit killed it and ate it. Nice $9 meal for crabs.
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The clowns reproduce when they feel conditions are right. Typically they need to be around 4 years old, but my pair were in a 125g display tank for over 8 years before they started to breed. You can't really induce them, but it helps that they are alone in your reef tank. Once they start laying eggs, they are like machines, every 2 weeks they spawn. Unfortunately for me, my male jumped out of the tank and I found him dried up the next morning. They had spawned regularly for about 6 months. I had well over 11 batches that were good. On a new pair, you typically don't bother with the first 4 or 5 as the quality of eggs is not all that good, and the survival rate is predictably bad. I raised 5 of those batches, and ended up with well over 400 mature clowns before I started selling them. My female died of old age about 3 weeks ago. She had been with me for around 14 years. When I start to breed them again, I'm going to secure a pair of snowflakes or platinum clowns as they fetch a higher price and it is the same amount of work. Raising clowns is not easy, and does not happen without much intervention. Clowns in nature have a pelagic stage right after they hatch. They basically float up to the surface and live amongst plankton feeding for about 7 days and then they go through a metamorphic phase that lasts about a day. They go from basically being a transparent looking tadpole about 2 mm in size, to a miniature clown in about 8 days. This pelagic stage is what takes the most work. You have to duplicate the planktonic environment by maintaining a culture of zooplankton (typically rotifers) and of course you need to feed your rotifer culture (usually greenwater full of phytoplankton) so they can reproduce and you can maintain a ready food source, which the clowns will require for the first 5 to 6 days of their lives before you can move them to newly hatched brine shrimp. A lot of people have clowns in their tank the spawn all the time, but raising them is another story. I nature the survival rate of clowns that hatch is less than 1% due to predation. My workflow is able to produce a survival rate of 65% from hatchilings to clowns that pass metamorphosis. Here are a few photos.
1. Eggs about to hatch
2. Newly hatched less than 1 hour old.
3. 6 days old, before metamorphosis.
4. 8 days old, just after metamorphosis, you can see the orange color and some have a headbar (about 1/8 inch)
5. 2 Weeks old (a bit less than 1/4 inch)
6. 1 Month Old (about 1/2 inch)
Their growth rate in the first month of life is phenomenal.
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Wow Rick, I am seriously impressed! :hail: :hail: :hail: You have the science nailed on what it takes to breed clowns. Have you ever thought of breeding other fish? And do you have any problems selling them when they are ready? And, if you dont mind me asking, do you sell direct to retail stores or wholesale to distributors?
Lizzo - Check out a Mandarin Goby. Not the most exotic in the family, but I've found they are easy keepers and are a lot of fun to watch, as they are fairly active. Tough as nails, not picky at all.
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I sell them to local petstores, I can get a bit more that way for them, although I can't sell like 100 at a time, most of the time like a dozen or so. I've bred several other types of freshwater fish during my lifetime, most notably Turquoise Discus, Panda Discus, and Powder blue discus. Those are some pretty cool fish to see rear their young, and I got at the time like $20 per about dollar sized fish. I also bred freshwater angelfish, Siamese Fighting fish (Bettas), pearl scaled gouramis, guppies, mollies, swordtails, platy's. The later 4 are pretty much self breeding as they are livebearers and you only have to take them out of the fish tank and require no special care other than smaller sized food. At the time I was breeding most of these tropical fish, they were for the experience, as I was in my late teens and early 20's. The discus were in my late 20's as they require quite a bit of care and maintenance in order for them to breed and rear, and I didn't have the patience when I was younger. The clownfish started by accident when my pair began to spawn, then I just learned by fire, my first 2 attempts were utter failures with no babies making it through metamorphosis. The 3rd batch I was able to raise about 30% and it got better as I refined my workflow. Clowns are an easy sell, because I sell them below the wholesaler's and have never been exposed to any kind of disease, so they don't even have to be quarantined when sold. I do tell the aquarium store to place them in an isolated tank that is not plumbed to the rest of their stock, as fish from the wild carry all sorts of parasites and what not. Discus were not quite an easy sell because most people with freshwater aquariums do not invest $40 retail on a fish, so most of the time I sold to wholesalers. In fact most freshwater aquarium stores don't carry discus because their water parameters are quite unique as they live in acidic water, while most other tropical are neutral to alkaline, this makes it a bad community fish, even though I consider them to be the most beautiful freshwater fish, not a fish for beginners.
The pictures below are more or less what they looked like at the size I sold them. The bars disappear as the fish gets older as in the other photo and in a good mood, when they are stressed, the bars show up.
Mandarin gobies require a lot of liverock for them to feed on the little critters that live amongst it. There are now commercially bred Mandarin gobies available and those eat just about anything, but the wild caught ones can be finicky. I've never had good luck with those beyond a year.
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That is super interesting! I've never had freshwater (besides childhood tanks), but my grandmother kept a tank (Angels and guppies mostly) for years. I remember the guppies were very prolific breeders, as her tank would become overcrowded, and she would give them to any neighborhood kid who had a tank.
I must have got the commercial Mandarin gobies, as I never had issues with them eating at all. I never fed anything specifically for them, just a commercial blend, with some brine shrimp, spirulina, and feeder goldfish for the others. It's been so long, I forget who/what I was feeding the goldfish to. My main problem was I couldn't commit to one type of tank, and always wanted a mix of occupants who didnt always co-habitate nicely. Then I had a demonic Domino damsel that went berserk when he got about 3" and took over the tank...that little sucker killed my big Yellow Tang! I flushed the Tang down the toilet and it got stuck and plugged the toilet. Toilet had to be removed completely to get the fish out...to this day, I cannot tell you why I flushed the fish and didnt just toss it in the trash?!? :Scratch-Head:
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Wow Rick, some amazing stuff. Ive also never had fresh water, never had any interest in the fish.
Ive always stuck to saltwater. I used to have a 200 gallon pool in my basement that was filled with local cold water salt that i would catch off the shores of Mass., RI and Maine.
I had it setup for about 10 years and had schools of fish, most were killifish or silversides. I had a few diff variants of gobies, sea-bass, i had a few small dogfish they are small sharks, eels, all types of crabs, even a couple small horseshoe crabs. Clams, scallops( which are really cool if you see them alive. They have blue eyes and actually right themselves up and swim around.
I also had red and yellow anemones, sand dollars and urchins. This pool was well established and had barnacles flourishing around the sides.
I have all different types or nets and traps and would go to the shores at different times of the year to try and catch diff stuff. Up here, if you hit the rocky beaches in mid winter you'll find the urchins, and sand dollars all over. They move to deeper colder water in the summer. I would rotate out the creatures and fish at different times. It was a fun project and cool to have a tidal pool in your house.
I never got into the actually breeding of fish, its a lot of work and with my luck id end up with success and unable to get rid of them. Maybe at some point my clown pair will mate if it does happen ill put you on speed dial.
You do have a great slide show of the stages. How big are your tanks?
Did you frag and sell coral before your tank crashed?
I may get into that since my stuff is growing really well with exception to two hard corals that recently bleached out on me. My alk dropped, over christmas due to my neglect. Theres a lot of people in my area that sell in craigslist, i have one guy i deal with and his frags are generally in the 10-20 range depending. I picked up that nice plate coral for $18 from him. Its doing really well except it inflates and tries to move about. Sometimes its the size of a large orange.
I had Mandarin gobies in my old larger tank and they are cool to watch but I'm looking to get a burrowing goby paired with a pistol shrimp. Heres a few pics from the web of what I'm looking at. I want them to have some good color and variations. And hope that they choose a location near the front of the tank. I have a good looking peppermint shrimp however he's always in and under the rocks. You never see it unless its feeding time.
Lenny
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Jeff,
I meant to followup on your comment about the pump catching fire. You are damn lucky you were home. Thats a first for me, I've had pumps seize up but never fire.
If you decide to get back into it, the Biocube like i have is a nice, clean enclosed design. And theres only one pump that cycles the water back into the tank and its submersed so no chance of fire there.
My only regret is not going with the 29gallon as opposed to the 14G I have.
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Thanks, not sure I want to get back into it since my slots now take up the space. For the time being the only tank I am keeping in pictured below. Problem is I have to keep feeding the little critters coins. LOL
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Some pistol shrimps will hunt and kill other things. You need to get either a candy cane or a tiger pistol, I'm partial to the candy cane ones. As far as the goby is concerned, I really like Yellow Watchman gobies,
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Hey guys, thought I add an update on the reef tank. I lost a couple hard corals a couple weeks ago. for some reason i had a big drop in calc and alk, the corals bleached out in a few days. Everything else seemed to bounce back so i guess its better to loose a couple rather than the whole tank. Oh and i lost my peppermint shrimp as well. Ill probably choose something a little different to replace it. Id love a small arrow crab but they may bother some corals and would certainly kill off any feather dusters and tube worms growing thru out.
Heres a pic of a mini star; i started with 3 that hitchhiked on some coral frags. I would notice that they are odd shaped and missing appendages, for the longest time i thought one of the crabs or shrimp where eating them. Turns out they multiply by separating their bodies and regrowing.
In the other pic is my plate coral that has been doing amazing well. That thing when closed up is a little bigger than a silver dollar, its gotten almost the size of a grapefruit at times. It inflates itself to grab the current and move around. As you can see, it can be a challenge keeping it from crowding out the other corals.
I still only have the two clowns. They are very compatible with each other and paired up nicely soI'm hesitant to add another fish.
Lenny
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Awww...thank you for the pics and the update...Just be satfisfied. A "90% healthy, thriving" tank is better than "No" tank....Trust me...I'm delving into chickens now, as if I can't have crestures inside, I will have creatures outside, lol!
Love the pics, keep them coming!
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You cannot add another clown of any type. If yours have paired up, they will kill it. Get a banded coral shrimp, they are cool and don't bother anything else, other than their own species. Plus they are good scavangers.
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What type of chickens are you looking at getting? And what is their purpose, egg laying or just a hobby?
One aspect of my job is permitting and inspecting the livestock within the community i work for. So please ask if you need any advice. We have roughly two dozen residential chicken permits, plus the larger farms and stables. Most backyard farms, which is a growing trend in my region have around 3-4 chickens. Bantam hens are one of the more popular, good egg layers, smaller chicken and easy to care for.
If you're looking for something interesting the easter egg laying chickens are nice. They have the blue and green colored eggs.
Whatever the case its best to get them at the same time. Chickens will peck at and even kill others that don't look similar to themselves. So getting different species together at the same time helps to avoid that.
Are you building the coop or buying a premade one?
It is a great hobby especially if you have young kids.
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Here is a all black chicken.
http://ifunny.co/fun/cARo8rvk2 (http://ifunny.co/fun/cARo8rvk2)
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Rick i meant to add a response to my previous post with the chickens. Yes banded shrimp are nice and I've seen some small ones at my LFS so maybe ill give that a try.
As far as the clowns, yes I've read about them fighting others. How are they in that large group tank you have? Does the schooling suppress the hostility?
Do they eventually pair up while in large groups or do you have to seperate them in a smaller tank as a couple? It be nice if my pair would reproduce but anything that occurred would probably go into the filter.
I love checking the tank out in the middle of the night, all types of stuff comes out of the rocks. Ill try to catch a pic of the clowns resting together. They sit side by side in the xyneia at night. Its funny to see their face sticking out pressed cheek to cheek.
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All these clowns grew up together so they are used to each other. However, you can setup a harem clownfish tank where you put a group together of at least 6. The two dominant ones will pair up and the rest will just hang around as immature males to replace one of the two that are mated if something should happen to one. Typically if the male dies, the next dominant fish will sexually mature and pair up. If the female dies the male becomes the new female and the next dominant immature male will mature and pair up. In my setups I have found that groups of at least 6 will not result in deaths, but going under that you may have a problem. You really need something bigger than a cube though, something around 4 feet long as the mated pair will protect their area, which is about 8 cubic feet or thereabouts. Too many fish and then you will get water quality issues. My growout tanks required a lot of filtration and frequent water changes to maintain water quality with all the clowns.
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Here is a all black chicken.
[url]http://ifunny.co/fun/cARo8rvk2[/url] ([url]http://ifunny.co/fun/cARo8rvk2[/url])
OMG!!! Looks like it was dipped in black paint! I wonder color eggs the hens lay?!?
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What type of chickens are you looking at getting? And what is their purpose, egg laying or just a hobby?
One aspect of my job is permitting and inspecting the livestock within the community i work for. So please ask if you need any advice. We have roughly two dozen residential chicken permits, plus the larger farms and stables. Most backyard farms, which is a growing trend in my region have around 3-4 chickens. Bantam hens are one of the more popular, good egg layers, smaller chicken and easy to care for.
If you're looking for something interesting the easter egg laying chickens are nice. They have the blue and green colored eggs.
Whatever the case its best to get them at the same time. Chickens will peck at and even kill others that don't look similar to themselves. So getting different species together at the same time helps to avoid that.
Are you building the coop or buying a premade one?
It is a great hobby especially if you have young kids.
I'm just getting a few for eggs. I've wanted them for awhile, then 1st of the year, a new law went into effect in CA requiring laying hens to have almost double the space, so our egg prices skyrocketed!
There is an excellent local source of young Leghorn x Rhode Island Red hens that are just starting to lay, so that is what we are going with. I want the largest, most plentiful eggs I can get, so I opted for more of a production layer versus a novelty breed.
We are building the coop ourselves. The pre-fab coop kits were so cheaply made, i couldnt bring myself to spend the $$$ on something i knew was "disposable". Didnt really know if we would be married by the time it was built, but so far so good! :rotfl: I drew up the plans for it, and im doing the measuring and some of the cutting, so any screw ups are pretty much on me!
Here's a pic of the frame. Going to paint it today and start hanging the wire. Then build the hen house and nest boxes. I found the 2x2s on CL for 50cents each (compared to $7.84 at Home Depot), so that was a huge savings...
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It never ceases to amaze me the variety of talents and interest of our members here. Who would have thought about chickens? Honestly Roz, I thought you were just kidding about the chickens :propeller: :propeller: :propeller:
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The coop is looking good.please post more pics as you progress. Be sure to use a heavier gauge fencing on the underside of the nesting house. Chicken wire wont keep the predators out. Racoons can rip thru it and will help themselves to a good feast. Also be certain that your access doors for cleaning, egg harvestring etc are storng and secured. Ive seen cases where racoons have essentially clawed chieckens to death by getting tehir hands inside small voids and grabbing and pulling thru what ever they can.
You obvously want to install a some what complicated lock on the doors to keep the, from being opened. I know some of this is common sense but youd be surprised what some folks dont think of.
Are you allowed to let you chickens roam your property or do they to be caged all the time? They can do wonders for tick control, just need to be warry of birds of prey.
If your an outdoor person and spend a lot of time in the yard, and you let them roam around with you, they will grow a mothering type attachemnt and stay in your vacinity. It sounds odd but ive seen it in many cases thru work.
I like the Rhode Island reds, they are a good looking chicken. Im not so much a fan of leghorns.
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Rick,
What do you feed your clowns? I image with that many you probably have a tank growing out brine shrimp.
I use frozen mysis shrimp and brine. I mix a little of both in, i have some pellets and add them from time to time and occasionally some plant wafers for the crabs to munch on.
For the corals i really only dose alk and calc regularly and maybe once a week dose the tank with a liquid coral feed.
For water changes i actually been using the boxed seawater from petco. Since my tank is so small my water changes is only a few gallons a time so its not a bad investment and much easier. I have redsea salt on hand if needed and RO water for topping off.
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I feed them a variety of pellet foods every day. New Life Spectrum pellets, Ocean Nutrition pellets, and TDO Chroma Boost. In the evenings they get Frozen Mysid shrimp mixed up with arctic pods, sometimes frozen brine shrimp, and some krill.
The arctic pods are an amazing food for reef environments, rich in certain types of fatty acids and astaxanthin, which brings out the orange and red in the clowns. Highly recommend putting some of that in your reef tank as a food source for filter feeders.
With water changes, I am hesitant to go to the beach and grab some water to use natural sea water. I know of a lot of hobbyist that do that locally here, they go when the tide comes in and harvest some seawater. I'm afraid of introducing pathogens to my grow out tanks and have all my clowns get sick and die. I would have no issues with that water on a reef tank, but my clowns have been raised in a pretty much sterile environment free from any pathogens, so I think they would be particularly susceptible to that. I know I've given some of my clowns to a few friends and most of the time, they do well. But I have some friends who like to buy a lot of fish, and they don't quarantine their new purchases and bring all kinds of pathogens into their systems. They continually loose fish, and they wonder why, even after I tell them not to do put new fish without quarantine for at least 6 weeks.
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The pellets i have are New Life Spectrum. I haven't heard of Artic Pods so thanks for info. I just googled them and see they are very popular. Ill see if i can get some this week and let you know how it goes. I also read about tiger pods, have you tried them? Seems that you can hatch them out, wouldn't mind trying something live.
The seawater i use is from Petco and is apparently filtered and balanced. Its not water i get from the ocean myself. I have too much invested in coral to take a chance of adding a contaminate.
I agree 100% with quarantining to avoid bringing disease and parasites to a tank. I value my fish and want them suceed. Im not a fan of trial and error with them. I have a large fish store nearby that has an amazing selection however, they sell anything to anyone. Without questioning whether they can properly raise and care for them. I avoid the place unless i absolutely have to go there for something specific.
Ive been buying my coral frags from a couple diff folks i found on CL. Much cheaper than a store.
I use a large glass bowl and set any new corals in it to look for hitchhickers. I found some really beneficial and interesting stuff and some bad ones. Ive found a few tiny brittle stars which i love, however i haven't been able to find anyone selling them though, just the larger ones.
I also found a few sea spiders which looked cool but not good for a reef so they got tossed.
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The coop is looking good.please post more pics as you progress. Be sure to use a heavier gauge fencing on the underside of the nesting house. Chicken wire wont keep the predators out. Racoons can rip thru it and will help themselves to a good feast. Also be certain that your access doors for cleaning, egg harvestring etc are storng and secured. Ive seen cases where racoons have essentially clawed chieckens to death by getting tehir hands inside small voids and grabbing and pulling thru what ever they can.
You obvously want to install a some what complicated lock on the doors to keep the, from being opened. I know some of this is common sense but youd be surprised what some folks dont think of.
Are you allowed to let you chickens roam your property or do they to be caged all the time? They can do wonders for tick control, just need to be warry of birds of prey.
If your an outdoor person and spend a lot of time in the yard, and you let them roam around with you, they will grow a mothering type attachemnt and stay in your vacinity. It sounds odd but ive seen it in many cases thru work.
I like the Rhode Island reds, they are a good looking chicken. Im not so much a fan of leghorns.
I agree, LEghorns are not exactly a friendly bird..,very loud and flighty, not exactly your ideal backyard chicken...the Cross hens we've seen have been very calm, quiet, and peaceful. We can only hope they grow out the same, lol! We'll se I guess, or there will be a chicken fry...and I'm not really kidding there...
We have 3/4 acre, but because of the uppity yuppy area, free range, or even roaming chickens would be frowned upon, do unfortunately, these will be caged for the time being. To tell you the honet truth, I have 3 phobias in life, and it's chickens, balloons, and bees.... :rotfl: I'm hoping to face my fears, and get over it, but for now p, that coop will be licked like Fort Know!!!! I have a small access door drawn in the plans for feed and water, and another for egg gathering and best box clean-outs...if I have to open the big door and actually walk in, I'm pretty sure they will smell my fear and peck my eyes out in a matter of seconds...
So if I don't post for a few days, or fill your order in a timely manner, you pretty much know what happened to me.... :rotfl:
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I don't like to feed live foods, it tends to spoil the fish. When I get a wild caught fish, during quarantine, he must get used to pellets and frozen foods, otherwise he doesn't make it to the display tank. Live brine is another potential source of pathogens, so I try to stay away from it, plus they are not really nutritious at all.
Arctic pods are awesome. When the clowns were really small, they would eat it up like there's no tomorrow. It was by far their favorite food. The problem with them is that they are soo small, that is why I need to mix them up with mysid. I typically thaw them out together and re-freeze, then drop the little chunks into the tank, so the fish will eat the pods as well.
I get my frags from other reefers, I trade clownfish for them :propeller: :propeller: :propeller: