Teresa

BUMP Has some interest, but no takers yet.

The mandarins were in my coral tank so the are the only two fish. I removed all my hermit crabs a long time ago (I hate them with a passion, just read what they did to Juiceman's sea horses)! So the cuc is only snails. The two mandarins have been together for at least two months. She's never beaten him up before. Do the males/females fight or just the males? She's always seemed very passive and there's not a mark on her. I figured it was the same bacterial infection that took my sea horses, but this did happen very very rapidly. hummm

wow - so very very cool!! I love it! You just convinced me to definitely get some baby sea horses from Brooks and convert my 29 gallon into their new home . If you have any extra shoal grass or manatee grass (not sure which I saw in the photos), I would be very interested in purchasing some from you. What kind of lights do you have on the tank? They look very bright. I've always been curious about the growing of sea grass with sea horses. The grasses need high light, but sources online say sea horses prefer lower light. Any insight into that topic would be awesome. Thanks for finally sharing

Hey - I'm excited to see these new pics - except I can't see them . Do I just need to cut and paste each link into my web browser?

BUMP - SEE NEW PRICING

ummm ya, I returned from Petco with the medication to find him dead. I think it was a bacterial infection. He started acting "off" around the same time I lost two more ponies. I'm blaming the bbs. I hope my husbandry skills have improved with regard to hatching the bbs cause I still have one pony left and that's all they'll eat. Live and learn as they say . ..

Ok - I saw that I forgot to turn on my pump last night after feeding my mandarins bbs. After turning on the pump the male mandarin came floundering out from behind a rock looking as you see below. I'm wondering if there is a blockage - he was not THAT skinny yesterday. The tail is all sorts of gone. I'm heading to Petco in a few - help - what's wrong - what do I do?? I've already removed him from the tank and put him in a plastic bowl with air bubbler. PS the female mandarin looks healthy, alert and full.

pms replied. he's such a cool animal

Hi All, This eel is super super cool. I bought him 6 months ago when he was only 1/2" around and maybe 6" long. He is now 1" round and at least 12" long. He eats frozen shrimp (PE Mysis is his favorite). He always comes out from hiding during feeding time and you can see him swimming around the rocks every now and then during the day. Zebra Eels do not eat fish and are one of the only/few that are fish safe. They are also reef safe (minus their size or clumsiness). Zebra Eels grow quite large and therefore need a large aquarium 125+gallons minimum. I, unfortunately, purchased him for my 29 gallon biocube and was told this would be "okay" since they spend all of their time hiding in the rock work. Well - I've had a change of conscious (or I'm finally listening to it) and he's now for sale. The picture attached is not of him - but it looks just like him . I'm asking $80 as I've read hardy tank live stock goes for market prices and they usually sell for around $80-100 for the small sizes. Please pm me if interested. Teresa

Pictures please

BUMP - will take reasonable offers

Mine is doing a good job of growing out my macro algaes. The pods are hit and miss. I saw a bunch the other day eating a decaying oar grass leaf. I think they prefer the decaying algae to the real stuff I dose with. I'm hoping the pods will get to a mass where I can easily siphon them out. Right now, I'd have to suction them off the wall (rather than the water column). My mandarins are doing well on bbs so I guess I'm not too concerned about the pods. I am actually more interested in having the macros grow out at the moment.

i want/need the QT tank!!! let me know if its still available. I can pick up later tonight or maybe a weeknight. T

pms replied

Not sure that this applies to homemade food - but it might help someone else out: I used to just let my frozen mysids thaw in a cup and then pour the entire contents into the tank. I ran into a lot of problems with cyno and someone informed me that I should be rinsing my shrimp first. Now I run them through a sieve after thawing (5 min), place them in dechlorinated tap water, add a few drops of garlic, wait a few minutes and add this entire mixture to my tank (pumps off, anything that falls to the sand is found by my zebra eel or miscellaneous scavengers). The cyno hasn't gone completely away, but it has definitely decreased by a large amount.

I work at 35 and North Lamar. I'm in education so I have to be at work by 8am all week. Are you able to come that distance in the morning? I'm going between two different campuses, so if you tell me which day, I can tell you which school to come by. I don't teach a class until later in the day so I should be able to come out quickly and trade off the Red Gracilaria if you tell me the approximate time and then txt me when you get there. LMK via pm.

Everything $5 or less All displayed on 8.5 x 11" white paper for scale I live in North Pflugerville off the 45 and Kelly Lane Red Gracilaria - one large multi-branch piece ($5) Sea Oar grass - clump on right hand side - up close pictures to show detail ($5) Individual pieces of Codium ($1)

I agree - very cool! I love looking at freshwater aquascapes - it gives me ideas for my marine tank. BTW - I was a thrown aback by the strange links/pictures on the site - those viewing the aquarium pictures with kids might not want to scroll all the way to the bottom.

the bags were all contained in the large bag you handed me with my name on it. no one else seems to be claiming it yet, so I'll assume all's good. Thanks

I'm mixing it up between roti food I purchased from aqua-culture nursery farms, phyto feast, DT's and an enrichment blend from seahorsesource.com I bought for the live brine shrimp I have to feed my sea horses. In terms of cost effectiveness - I'm looking at just feeding the phytoplankton tank the enrichment blend or a culture blend they sell at seahorsesource.com. I agree with a comment made above that continuously buying phyto feast or DT's is too expensive. I tried to culture my own micro-algae but gave up not too soon into the project. So far, so good. We'll see.

lol. I've read a bunch on this as well. Contamination is anything other than fresh saltwater and the single pod you are trying to reproduce - for the reasons you already mentioned. I always fail when I try to do things "the right way" so my setup is anything but sterile. Plus I decided to add macro algae (i've got ulva, chaeto, garcilaria, codium, and left over oar grass tumbling) we'll see what happens . I can still see plenty of tiger pods so i'm excited about that. I'm hoping the macro will "eat" up any extra nutrients that might cause a crash. Crashing is the main thing I'm worried about . . .

Matt - thanks for picking everything up for all of us Quick question - I think I only ordered one or two things of oar grass but there were three bags in the large bag you gave me. Did anyone else order some? I'm placing it in my tanks now, but if one or more of the bags belongs to another member just let me know. I'm hoping it should still be alive for them tomorrow if need be. Otherwise - more is never a bad thing .

That's cool . I totally thought about buying one of those, but didn't want to spend the money. I love how you have it set up to automatically enter your tank! Ironically, I've ended up creating a DIY type one using a 3 gallon aquarium I had sitting around in the garage (bought and never opened of course). Its the Aquaview 360 with color changing LED I originally had it set up with the grid on the bottom, then live rock on top of that and tried to get a microscopic culture of rotifers going. Well I hated not being able to see the rotifers so I decided to go with Tiger pods instead. I thought I could try and use the same tank for macroalgae so I did the following: I glued an extra suction cup to the large round opening in the grid, then I drilled a hole in the suction cup just big enough to fit rigid tubing. I cut the middle section away from a water bottle and am using this to steady the grid 4-5 inches from the bottom of the tank. I made 3 different openings around the water bottle where it meets the bottom of the tank. Now the air moves down through the rigid tube and bubbles out from under the water bottle and up through the grid. There is live rock in the bottom section where the pods like to hang out. The air flow has done a great job of keeping my macro algae in constant motion/tumble on the top half. I love this setup and it has done really well for the past week (made it this weekend). I'm adding some ulva tomorrow - so I can let you know how well it tumbles then. Sorry you can't see the macro-algae in the pictures - the LED is not very bright, the room lighting is bad and the water is nice and green from feeding it micro-algae. I promise it's there tumbling .

congrats - and thanks for the bubble - he's so cute

I love that you are in round rock . I live just south of you in Pflugerville and I'm used to having to drive really far to pick up frags, etc. Yay for living North East!! I won't be able to pick up until the evening however. What are some good times (I'd prefer not to interrupt your dinner or anyone's bedtime)? Thanks for everything T