LynnEdwards

Hey Lynn, did you start your tank with live rock or dead rock? And how long has the tank been up? A mandarin can decimate a pod population in short order if that population hasn't had much time to grow. At night, or if you haven't cleaned your glass for a couple of days, do you see little white dots all over the place? If so - good news - you are probably good to go for a mandarin. If not - there's a good chance your pod population is not well enough established to withstand the grazing habits of a mandarin yet. Mandarins are like hummingbirds, they hover constantly, have very high metabolisms, and feed pretty much nonstop. I was once told that you want to see your mandarin pecking every 3-5 sec. Most mandarins won't recognize frozen food of any sort, so the frozen liquid pod solution is not likely to elicit a response. As mentioned above, Tigger Pods are a cold-water species and won't establish a breeding population in your tank. The Reef Pods product RCA carries, or the Pods+ from ReefCleaners (get in on our group buy ending tonight!), are the best option for getting the pods in your tank going, but you'd need to remove the mandarin first to give the pods a fighting chance to breed before getting wiped out. There is a method for training a mandarin to eat frozen brine/mysis/etc., but it involves access to live food (Aquatek and AquaDome usually carry live brine), twice daily feedings, and a breeder net. There is a great thread here:

http://www.dfwmas.or...hp?f=47&t=91200

on this exact subject. The frozen-foods training method is about 2/3 of the way down. You also want to avoid other pod-eating fish such as wrasses and hogfish while you're trying to get the pods to establish themselves, and you want to have a place where the pods can breed without predators such as a refugium, cryptic zone, or LR rubble pile.

You might consider, for the good of the fish, rehoming him until your tank is better established. Mandarins are gorgeous but need to be considered an "expert only" fish as they require a well-established tank. Once they find the nooks and crannies of your tank they can be quite reclusive so you may not have the opportunity to get him out later if he starts to look skinny. If you start to see the lateral ridges on his sides stick out, or his belly looks sunken in, it's time for him to go to another tank before he starves to death.

This link is EXACTLY what I was asking - thanks.

Thanks guys - I want to learn all of this but my whole tank appears to be going crazy now. It looks like I now have aptasia all over the glass out of no where.

I will try to get the book that you mentioned Timfish and read what it says.

As I think someone else said, if it was 48 hrs the fish was on its way out already.

However, question for you... where are you keeping your salinty and how are you checking it? Hydrometers can give falsely low readings (i.e. your salinity may be high) and many fish stores keep their salinity low to save money. If there is a big enough discrepancy it could be really hard on a fish that has already gone through a number of changes (wholesaler's tank, shipping, store's tank, bagging, etc.) in the last week or so and may have gone a week without eating much before getting to you. The fish may also have been bullied in the store's tank and may have been bullied in yours as well. You might look into drip acclimation.

I actually did pick up a drip kit last time - Our salinity is 1.024-1.025 we do have a hydrometer, but we had them test it at RCA two weeks ago and it read 1.024. I DO know this is higher than most fish stores but I've read that corals do better at higher salinity as well as anemones.

Now - I did NOT drip acclimate the goby. I put him in after 2 hours of adding 1/4 a cup every 15 minutes (also let him temp acclimate 20 minutes before I did anything else).

So my substrate I purchased from someone else breaking down their tank - my live rock was from a 200 gallon tank that was being broken down - also some of it from mrrobb I believe - my fav rock too.

The bacteria in my sump/filter isn't there yet but with 130 lbs of live rock, I thought we had an okay bio filter already set up since our readings have been spot on for over a month.

This all being said - I really think what i need to do is

1) add live pods and establish them on our rocks with what we have for a few more months

2) set up our extra hex tank as a holding tank and put live rock/pods into that

3) pray that what we have in there now makes it I'm awful attached to what we currently have.

There are a number of factors that make a 1 year old tank substantially more stable than a 2 month old tank.

Reef tanks are very complex eco-systems. Because of the closed systems we run, one of the most important things is nutrient control. This happens through a number of outlets; including micro-fauna, plankton, foam fractionation, chemical filtration, mechanical filtration, bacteria, etc. Without a doubt, the bacteria and micro-fauna are the most important two elements of the system. We often forget this and focus more on the sexy items (like skimmers and reactors). However, bacteria and microorganisms perform most of the work.

Your rock was purchased from other hobbyist; this is good. The rock should be full of bacteria and other micro fauna. However, the rock is the only thing full of life at this point. It takes time for the sand to become teeming with creatures. It also takes time for bacteria to coat the tank, plumbing, walls, sand etc... As time goes on and these processes take place, the tank becomes increasingly more stable and "mature."

This is not to say your mandrin died because the tank is two months old. If he died in only a few days, he was on his way out already.

Also, I would be a little suspect of your test kits if everything is testing 0 already. Most new tanks with that stocking load, even with good live rock, would still show some ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

The first week we DID show nitrates - only a small amount. We did water changes every week for the first two weeks because of that.

Last week we did have a 'trace' of ammonia - the guys at RCA said this would show up due to our 'fish peeing' for lack of a better word. This week I didn't even show that.

We are taking water in to RCA and having them do testing - also Im testing it myself.

^his tank was young in all probability...i did the same thing. Don't add too much to fast, and some thing really shouldn't be added until after atleast 6months anyway

Im truly not trying to be a PITA - what's the difference between my tank being 2 months vs 6 months vs 1 year? IF my water tests right - what is wrong? What is going to happen between month 2 and month 6 to make my take magically 'ready' for this that or the other?

if it was only 4 days I doubt it was food. When you got him did it have a fat belly ? if so it takes weeks/months for them to starve.

I killed tons of fish when I started then after about 8-12 months the magic kicked in and no more fish losses.

And what was the cause of your fish dying?

Mandarin died this morning. Poor goby

48 hours...did he starve to death even with the red pods? Not sure what went wrong.

Our mandarin and other tank mates ended the day well

OH - fish wise we have 2 yellow tangs (babies), 2 clowns (also babies) and Picasso - We have plans to add 3 purple fire gobys in the future sometime.

My tank is only a few months old - I have 130 lbs of live rock in it - and it is all 'live rock' purchased from established tanks (most of it is very purpled).

This morning I had white dots all over my tank - the clowns were up nibbling at them.

I was thinking I'd try to feed the cold water pods every day and put in some live pods at night to get them all over my rocks.

Update - the crabs live!

I was sure they were goners as they didn't move or budge from their original location yesterday.

This morning both were climbing rocks and moving around. (I made my first post before lights on!) Crazy!

We purchased a mandarin goby and 2 emerald crabs at rca yesterday - the crabs to eat bubble algae as was recommended here and the goby because he just looked cool as heck.

I don't think the crabs made it. I'm not sure what I did wrong but I'm sure it was something to do with acclimation. I put the bag in without lights for 20 minutes then added 1/4th a cup of water every 15 minutes for an hour. As this point with the mandarin I pulled out 1/2 a cup of water and did another 1/4 cup of water for another 30 minutes but I tossed the crabs right in.

They never really moved from where I put them.

In terms of water I have 0/0/0 for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. My salinity is a bit higher at 1.24/1.25.

The goby has been poking around all the rocks and looking just fine. My husband named him 'Picasso' at rca which I thought sounded very cool. He looks just like an oil painting.

I know Picasso has finicky eating habits. We got a bottle of the 'pods' the refrigerated kind. I gave him a squirt of this yesterday evening but he ignored it.

SO my question is this - how often do I need to squirt these dead pods at him and will he actually eat them? RCA did not have the live pods and when we went by another store, we were told buying them live was a waste of money.

Thoughts?

I wish I would have seen this sooner - the mr. clean sponges are the best ever at this sort of thing. When I was selling my house my agent told me there was no way I was going to get the cloudy stains off of my glass shower door. A week later and two mr. clean sponges and she ate her words

We started with just the 3 pepperments (as part of the cleaning crew) then added the clowns and a kenya tree...then added the pulsing xenia and the shrimps (we decided we love watching the shrimp)...then a few weeks later we added the 2 tangs and the candy cane. We bought them young (the tangs) so they are little right now.

We knew we liked salt water, we didn't realize how much we'd all like it. We have moved our couch around so it's facing the tank - we sit and watch the tank for hours. We don't have a TV in our living room....we have a fish tank we watch.

I don't think this is too bad for a 75 gallon but yeah we don't have much room for anything else.

We still want an anemone and a mandarin fish. Basically what has been happening is every 2 weeks when my father in law comes over he decides he wants to add something - he sits and watches it for hours and falls asleep watching it as well.

As for a bigger tank....yeah I don't know - I have no idea how we'd move stuff from one tank to another. I'd like a tank that was drilled though instead of the acrylic overflow we have.

do emerald crabs eat your coral and such? I've been told to stay way from crabs because they aren't reef safe and yadda yadda....

Where does bubble algae come from?

My husband has found algae on one of our live rocks and it appears to be bubble algae. What eats this stuff? Will our cleaning crew take care of it?

Thanks!

Are the dimensions 50"l x 23.25"w x 10"h or 50"l x 18.25"w x 10"h?

You said it fit snugly on your 48.5"x18.5" 75g.

it does fit snugly on the 50" side, it hangs over on the back to help hide the overflow and wires, im sure it could be trimed if so desired.

it is still available.

But what kind of lights are on it?

I guess we will see!

I agree with Derrick. That looks like an un-opened Zoanthid.

are they good or bad?

We would like a set for our tank - thx

I have a 30 gallon glass tank that I used in my sump/refug system. It has a 2 inch hole in the back for overflow with bulkhead and pvc pipe. Im on the east side of Round Rock off Gattis.

Cool - you sound like a neighbor We are in Forest Creek.

My husband put together our sump yesterday so a day late for us

I'm clearly very new to this - but I was reading this article this morning regarding mangroves and thought I would share: http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/nitratecontrol/a/aa051398.htm

All my newbie books say when nitrates go up, I need to do a partial water change. I will do it again today but I'd like to someday have a better 'ecosystem' going.

Here are some pics now that we've put the new rocks in - Thanks Mike!

I pulled the shroom rock out and tried to break it - my husband did actually. And as he was hammering the rock with the scrwdriver....he missed and hit my poor mushroom

I am distraught - no mushroom Rock is out though.

OOOOH, so pretty! How big is it and when can I come get it!!! I need a big one to finish my rocks up.

Thanks for the good word Robb - you know I'm trying to keep my live rock super healthy here