Feather star diary...

[Gweeds1980]

Day 8... still going strong

Golden pearls arrived today... honestly the dodgiest looking thing I've ever been sent!

I just received a white, unlabeled padded envelope. Inside, again unlabeled and unbranded is a Ziploc bag full of fine brownish powder... thank god I didn't order it from the states... that would never have made it through customs Lol.

On the plus side, the FS seems to enjoy 'chasing the dragon'...

 

[Gweeds1980]

Day 8... still going strong

Golden pearls arrived today... honestly the dodgiest looking thing I've ever been sent!

I just received a white, unlabeled padded envelope. Inside, again unlabeled and unbranded is a Ziploc bag full of fine brownish powder... thank god I didn't order it from the states... that would never have made it through customs Lol.

On the plus side, the FS seems to enjoy 'chasing the dragon'...

The dubious package...

 

[Grey Guy]

Day 5... good arm extension, feeding observed and looking good... no arms dropped as yet

Following the advice from @AcroNem I have emailed Phyto Plus here in the UK (www.phytoplus.co.uk) to see if they can supply T. weisflogii and T. pseudonana, paracoccus and L-type rotifers.

Awaiting reply.

Couple of pics... not a lot else done today as it's my eldests 8th birthday

Isn't that also called a Chrinoid?

 

[Gweeds1980]

Isn't that also called a Chrinoid?

Yes, spelt crinoid... the class is crinoidea, hence the name. Crinoids include the basket stars and sea lilys too.

 

[AcroNem]

Correct, it is a Crinoid, also called a feather star.

 

[AcroNem]

The dubious package...

Geez, that is sketchy. Where I buy it from they at least label it. That's funny.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Day 10... no arms lost, good feeding response still...

Doser still hasn't arrived tho

And the FS is still around the back of the tank... grrrr.

 

[AcroNem]

Day 10... no arms lost, good feeding response still...

Doser still hasn't arrived tho

And the FS is still around the back of the tank... grrrr.

Gotta let it be where it wants, which sucks but that's the way it is. I can't see half of mine in the system at work. And all of my flame scallops in my home system are behind the rockwork in cracks haha.

 

[Salahunreal]

How its going with the FS. Hope everything is going well

 

[Gweeds1980]

How its going with the FS. Hope everything is going well

All good thanks. Today is day 14... 2 weeks and no dropped arms

Doser finally arrived on Saturday so today's job is to get it calibrated and set up, will hopefully make life a lot easier! Ordered more RBO yesterday too. That seems to be working well mixed with the golden pearls. That's still supplemented with each feed of the fish with my homebrew food.

 

[Salahunreal]

Good to hear that. Well done

 

[Gweeds1980]

Doser set up!! I've gone for a week's worth of food... 700ml when mixed with RO. An airline without an airstone for movement in the container.

I'm dosing 100ml per day, every 2 hours, total of 12 feeds.

I thought about setting my skimmer on a timer to come on for 30 mins before each feed, but I'm going to monitor the nutrients and see how we go. So far, so good on the nutes. I've upped WCs to twice per week of 10% instead of 10% per fortnight.

May have to invest in an auto WC... changing out 240 litres per week is doing my head in!

 

[AcroNem]

Looking good! I do have to say I feel like your food bottle is going to get nasty after that long without refrigeration. 24hrs has been fine for me but the times I've done 2 days worth (more food with smaller doses) my dosing container smelled like death itself when I rinsed and refilled it. Also what amounts of food do you have in the container?

 

[Gweeds1980]

Looking good! I do have to say I feel like your food bottle is going to get nasty after that long without refrigeration. 24hrs has been fine for me but the times I've done 2 days worth (more food with smaller doses) my dosing container smelled like death itself when I rinsed and refilled it. Also what amounts of food do you have in the container?

Hmmmm... good point. I've put in a teaspoon of the dry foods per day (combined, not each) which is what I've been feeding so far. May have to keep that one in the fridge and top up another container each day then...

 

[Gweeds1980]

The FS has shuffled further around the rock and is now just about visible again, hurrah!

 

[AcroNem]

Hmmmm... good point. I've put in a teaspoon of the dry foods per day (combined, not each) which is what I've been feeding so far. May have to keep that one in the fridge and top up another container each day then...

I'd do that. Prep your weeks wort, keep that refrigerated and add daily to your container. There's a limit to keeping foods out of the refrigerator without fouling, but I think a week is definitely over that limit.

 

[AcroNem]

Glad you can see it again! In that picture did you just feed it beforehand? The arms look folded in which is part of their feeding response.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Glad you can see it again! In that picture did you just feed it beforehand? The arms look folded in which is part of their feeding response.

Yes, it shuffled around as I was testing the doser set up and priming the lines, put about 20ml into the tank during the process.

 

[Breadman03]

I'd do that. Prep your weeks worth, keep that refrigerated and add daily to your container. There's a limit to keeping foods out of the refrigerator without fouling, but I think a week is definitely over that limit.

You might look into modding a dorm refrigerator to hold your food. In foodservice, 4 hours is the maximum time to hold food at an unknown temperature. Putting the food in the fridge with holes drilled to allow the dosing tubes to pass through might help improve your food quality and safety while reducing the amount of time you need to invest in maintenance.

 

[AcroNem]

You might look into modding a dorm refrigerator to hold your food. In foodservice, 4 hours is the maximum time to hold food at an unknown temperature. Putting the food in the fridge with holes drilled to allow the dosing tubes to pass through might help improve your food quality and safety while reducing the amount of time you need to invest in maintenance.

I change mine every 12-24 hours and don't have fouling issues. It also takes 5 minutes to prep and fill food, which compared to how demanding the rest if this systems maintenance is I'm not worried about it. If I was loading a weeks food at a time and didn't want to change it daily I'd have it in a fridge.