Hi,
I have an 8 gallon setup (sorry can't do pictures right now, will post later) housing a number of dwarves. It is actually two 8gs plumbed together with a power head moving water from one tank to anothe, and the "return" is a large PVC "U" with a built-in algae scrubber. Left tank is home to a small mantis and right tank is for the dwarves. No chance of mantis getting over.
The dwarves are fed purely off the microfauna in the tank and have been for a couple years. I feed the system live phyto and various small particle foods daily, goal is to seed the copepod populations. The remains from any mantis meal are always swarmed with benthic pods and the aquarium walls of both are usually thick with life.
Recently though, there has been an explosion in amphipods in the tank. They seem to be thriving off the copepods and I am worried about the horses starving now. Obviously pretty impossible to catch and remove this population, but are there any recommendations on fish that could be added that would enjoy the larger amphipods but leave the smaller copepods alone?
In the meantime I am adding a RDSB (sort of DIY canister filter) with 6 inches mud, 2 inches argonite and topped off with rubble. Since this was completely dry I am putting a sponge on the intake and seeding it with a mix of copepods only, hopefully making an amphipods free zone that will produce and serve a large amount of food. The DSB should help facilitate larger dosing eventually letting the populations become even more dense.
Thoughts? My best option at hand is to put a freshly hatched bandensis in there and let him go crazy on the amphipods and hope I can pull him out before he gets large enough to go after the ponies... ;-)
I have an 8 gallon setup (sorry can't do pictures right now, will post later) housing a number of dwarves. It is actually two 8gs plumbed together with a power head moving water from one tank to anothe, and the "return" is a large PVC "U" with a built-in algae scrubber. Left tank is home to a small mantis and right tank is for the dwarves. No chance of mantis getting over.
The dwarves are fed purely off the microfauna in the tank and have been for a couple years. I feed the system live phyto and various small particle foods daily, goal is to seed the copepod populations. The remains from any mantis meal are always swarmed with benthic pods and the aquarium walls of both are usually thick with life.
Recently though, there has been an explosion in amphipods in the tank. They seem to be thriving off the copepods and I am worried about the horses starving now. Obviously pretty impossible to catch and remove this population, but are there any recommendations on fish that could be added that would enjoy the larger amphipods but leave the smaller copepods alone?
In the meantime I am adding a RDSB (sort of DIY canister filter) with 6 inches mud, 2 inches argonite and topped off with rubble. Since this was completely dry I am putting a sponge on the intake and seeding it with a mix of copepods only, hopefully making an amphipods free zone that will produce and serve a large amount of food. The DSB should help facilitate larger dosing eventually letting the populations become even more dense.
Thoughts? My best option at hand is to put a freshly hatched bandensis in there and let him go crazy on the amphipods and hope I can pull him out before he gets large enough to go after the ponies... ;-)
