Help me understand stocking a tank more deeply

[Kirschy17]

I've never kept a flame angel, as they're not apparently one of the hardiest species. That was my impression from when I worked at a shop; hardiness of fish can change over years depending on where they're collected and such. They're probably also more of an impulse purchase fish (compared to other Centropyge) and that will skew the overall data on survival downward.

I did keep a pygmy cherub (C. argi) -- they're not for a peaceful tank, but they are hardy. I kept a coral beauty (C. bispinosa) for some years before losing it in an extended power outage. I currently have a rusty (C. ferrugata) for about 4 years that's been really nice. This is all in a 90g, though, so you're right to have some concern about the tank size.

I feed a mix of flake, and assorted prepacked frozen to which I usually add Selcon. I've not done much experimenting with food over the 30 years I've been doing this, but my impression is that variety seems to get a good response from the fish, and that probably feeding a few times a day is better than less frequently.

Yea thats what i think - the pygmy ones are too aggressive - maybe a coral beauty would be worth a try. They stay smaller right?

 

[Kirschy17]

All my fish are fat and happy. I do not feed frozen. Omega One is the only brand I use, I switch it up Pellets, Flakes, Brine, Mysis. My goby gets fed crushed Hakari wafers daily, tang/foxface get nori daily. Every couple of days I soak the food in Selcon and I only feed one a day. All my fish are quarantined, put in an acclimation box and closely monitored weeks after adding to main tank. All fish have territory and tank mates they share territory with, they won’t all share well so have a good amount of rocks. Do research on your stocking, best advice I can give.

 

[BryanM]

How do you do that practically speaking? I do prepare homemade mixtures of moxed frozen food. Do you let them thaw once per day and drop sone food in the tank every time you pass it? I usually let it thaw in a bowl with rodi water and sieve it off before putting it in. I also have my pumps off when i feed for 20-30 minutes so corals and inverts can feed on it too.

Autofeeder. I feed 3x a day TDO Chromaboost.

I feed mysis 1-2x a week, primarly spot fed for corals, but the fish get plenty of that as well.

I don't know if you're thawing the frozen food or not, but if not you should be.

 

[Kirschy17]

I have to look into these dried foods. I literally never used any because i thought its no good. I have to check if i can get high quality one here in europe. Besides omega obe are there brands you can recommend?

A acclimation box is also a good idea. How long do you keep your fish in there? Do you always use it or only if you add docile species or some that can show aggresion with related species?

 

[BryanM]

@Kirschy17 I would also say that when I was feeding once a day I had significantly more aggression. I likely had a similar mindset to yours, how do people feed 3-4x+ a day, especially with a job, etc.

An autofeeder will be your friend, and I suspect many of your losses are from aggression and malnutrition.

 

[Kirschy17]

Autofeeder. I feed 3x a day TDO Chromaboost.

I feed mysis 1-2x a week, primarly spot fed for corals, but the fish get plenty of that as well.

I don't know if you're thawing the frozen food or not, but if not you should be.

I am thawing - a pellet autofeeder sounds like a good idea. Do you feed with pumps fully on?

 

[Kirschy17]

@Kirschy17 I would also say that when I was feeding once a day I had significantly more aggression. I likely had a similar mindset to yours, how do people feed 3-4x+ a day, especially with a job, etc.

An autofeeder will be your friend, and I suspect many of your losses are from aggression and malnutrition.

That seems to be the consensus here - thank you and everyone else. I will look into getting one and high quality pellet food.

 

[BryanM]

I am thawing - a pellet autofeeder sounds like a good idea. Do you feed with pumps fully on?

I feed with returns off, ATO off (because if it stays on I get a high alarm sound due to the return being off), but I leave the wavemakers on.

Fish don't get served food on a plate, I figure they need to go after it.

When I spot feed mysis, all flow is off.

 

[MikeReefs]

I have to look into these dried foods. I literally never used any because i thought its no good. I have to check if i can get high quality one here in europe. Besides omega obe are there brands you can recommend?

A acclimation box is also a good idea. How long do you keep your fish in there? Do you always use it or only if you add docile species or some that can show aggresion with related species?

Dry food especially flakes and pellets are fine especially if you soak in vitamins such as Selcon. Acclimation box is used for at least 1 week maybe 2. It lessens aggression and gets fish used to the new member, in my opinion it works fantastically. Can agression still happen sure but it’s way better then just dumping them in a praying they’ll survive the night

 

[littlefoxx]

I do want to try again but i run a mixed reef in a 60g tank so i am limited to a golden dwarf or other small moray which i have not been able to get so far.

This has been like 5 years ago but i started in quarantine to get it eating - failed. In quarantine tank the moray did not eat. I think this was when i was still preventively treating general cure.

So i moved to the main tank because i was afraid it did not line the medication and it was a 300$ fish. In the main tank i started offering frozen krill and frozen stint which was readily available to me from my lfs. The frozen stint worked very well. The moray took it pretty mich from the getgo. I fed like once a week. I frequently tried different stuff i could get. Frozen mussels, salmon filet and other fish from my supermarket. I even got fresh fish from the market.
I dont recall if she took to the different food but mostly it was only the small frozen fish. Then rather suddenly it stopped eating which i was told happens from time to time. Weeks passed, months passed. After 2-3 months i stopped seing her and found her dead later.

In that time i tried offering food daily i Think and there were even tankmates that she could have cought which i would have prefered over losing her.

I would love advice on moray keeping as its my favorite fish.

Have you looked into a chestnut moray? Those are smaller as well. I personally do not QT morays. They are intolerant to copper. I use a very very very low dose of copper safe in my DT when I add a new fish and remove with carbon. The morays tolerate that well. I dont do that often; just if I see something on a new fish. No inverts so I can get away with that. As for feeding baby morays should be offered food every other day until they start to bulk out and grow in length. I then transition them to every two days, then every 3-4 days. When they are adults I let them tell me when they ate hungry. They come out and swim and look for food; then I feed them until they are full. Usually 2 to 3 times a week, sometimes once a week. All my morays have different feeding schedules. My two older ones dont eat as often as my zebra who is still growing, and my white eye likes to eat every 2-3 days right now. He is the youngest and still bulking out. I feed mine table shrimp, LRS chunky, silversides, and sometimes rod’s predatory blend. All those foods have a variety of foods that morays eat and they all do very well! One of mine really only takes silversides, so I soak those in vitamins and will sneak other food in at the same time as the silverside and he will usually eat it and not know other foods were there next to the silverside

 

[The Ugly Phase]

Have you looked into a chestnut moray? Those are smaller as well. I personally do not QT morays. They are intolerant to copper. I use a very very very low dose of copper safe in my DT when I add a new fish and remove with carbon. The morays tolerate that well. I dont do that often; just if I see something on a new fish. No inverts so I can get away with that. As for feeding baby morays should be offered food every other day until they start to bulk out and grow in length. I then transition them to every two days, then every 3-4 days. When they are adults I let them tell me when they ate hungry. They come out and swim and look for food; then I feed them until they are full. Usually 2 to 3 times a week, sometimes once a week. All my morays have different feeding schedules. My two older ones dont eat as often as my zebra who is still growing, and my white eye likes to eat every 2-3 days right now. He is the youngest and still bulking out. I feed mine table shrimp, LRS chunky, silversides, and sometimes rod’s predatory blend. All those foods have a variety of foods that morays eat and they all do very well! One of mine really only takes silversides, so I soak those in vitamins and will sneak other food in at the same time as the silverside and he will usually eat it and not know other foods were there next to the silverside

Do you not feed salmon its like a super food for eels

 

[littlefoxx]

Do you not feed salmon its like a super food for eels

No. None of mine will touch salmon, and the one eel who tried it ended up throwing it back up and never touched it again. The LRS chunky has a blend of salmon in it though, so they get it in that food source. Same with squid, they dont like the chunks but the small blended parts of that in Chunky give them that food as well.

 

[Kirschy17]

Have you looked into a chestnut moray? Those are smaller as well. I personally do not QT morays. They are intolerant to copper. I use a very very very low dose of copper safe in my DT when I add a new fish and remove with carbon. The morays tolerate that well. I dont do that often; just if I see something on a new fish. No inverts so I can get away with that. As for feeding baby morays should be offered food every other day until they start to bulk out and grow in length. I then transition them to every two days, then every 3-4 days. When they are adults I let them tell me when they ate hungry. They come out and swim and look for food; then I feed them until they are full. Usually 2 to 3 times a week, sometimes once a week. All my morays have different feeding schedules. My two older ones dont eat as often as my zebra who is still growing, and my white eye likes to eat every 2-3 days right now. He is the youngest and still bulking out. I feed mine table shrimp, LRS chunky, silversides, and sometimes rod’s predatory blend. All those foods have a variety of foods that morays eat and they all do very well! One of mine really only takes silversides, so I soak those in vitamins and will sneak other food in at the same time as the silverside and he will usually eat it and not know other foods were there next to the silverside

How do you train them on pellet food? I used to wave the silversides in fron of töits mouth to attract their attention?

You think a chestnut moray might work in my tank?

 

[Kirschy17]

Dry food especially flakes and pellets are fine especially if you soak in vitamins such as Selcon. Acclimation box is used for at least 1 week maybe 2. It lessens aggression and gets fish used to the new member, in my opinion it works fantastically. Can agression still happen sure but it’s way better then just dumping them in a praying they’ll survive the night

thanks for the advice!

 

[littlefoxx]

How do you train them on pellet food? I used to wave the silversides in fron of töits mouth to attract their attention?

You think a chestnut moray might work in my tank?

You dont train morays on pellets... There isnt a pellet that is an adequate diet for morays. They should not eat just pellets, most morays wont even eat pellets at all. One of mine will eat a few leftover ones but he is a weird eel and will eat anything. But that is by no means apart of his diet, he is the one that likes to eat more frequently than the other morays I have. If you cant feed morays the food they need and the amount they need then its not a good choice for your tank. Im pretty sure your moray died from lack of nutrition and not enough food from the sound of it. All of the foods I mentioned above and frequency is how I have 4 very healthy morays.

 

[Euphylliaphyle]

Yea thats what i think - the pygmy ones are too aggressive - maybe a coral beauty would be worth a try. They stay smaller right?

My C. argi is not aggressive at all. He's been an outstanding addition to my 36 gallon tank.

 

[littlefoxx]

I feed with returns off, ATO off (because if it stays on I get a high alarm sound due to the return being off), but I leave the wavemakers on.

Fish don't get served food on a plate, I figure they need to go after it.

When I spot feed mysis, all flow is off.

I feed with everything on! Never thought to turn them off. It circulates the food all over the tank. Everyone eats their fill!

 

[Kirschy17]

You dont train morays on pellets... There isnt a pellet that is an adequate diet for morays. They should not eat just pellets, most morays wont even eat pellets at all. One of mine will eat a few leftover ones but he is a weird eel and will eat anything. But that is by no means apart of his diet, he is the one that likes to eat more frequently than the other morays I have. If you cant feed morays the food they need and the amount they need then its not a good choice for your tank. Im pretty sure your moray died from lack of nutrition and not enough food from the sound of it. All of the foods I mentioned above and frequency is how I have 4 very healthy morays.

My C. argi is not aggressive at all. He's been an outstanding addition to my 36 gallon tank

mind sharing your stock list? You have a mixed reef? Would love one!

 

[littlefoxx]

mind sharing your stock list? You have a mixed reef? Would love one!

Wasnt sure who you were talking to for the stock list

But my tank is a 300 gallon FOWLR.
Sailfin tang
Atlantic blue tang
Purple tang
Clown tang
Tomato clown
Blue velvet damsel
Staghorn damsel
Three stripe damsel
Hawkfish
Dog face puffer
Emperor angel
Girdled angel
Twin coris wrasse
Lunare wrasse
Foxface
Indian black trigger
2bannerfish
The 4 morays

 

[Euphylliaphyle]

mind sharing your stock list? You have a mixed reef? Would love one!

Banggai Cardinalfish (Pterapogon kaudernii)
Six-line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
Neon Dottyback (Pseudochromis aldabraensis)
Yellow Clown Goby (Gobiodon okinawae)
Atlantic Dwarf (Cherub) Angelfish (Centropyge argi)
Green Reef Chromis (Chromis viridis)

Mixed Reef yes, but so far the only SPS are Montipora, Leptoseris and Cyphastrea.

I also have Toadstool Leather, Hammer, Zoanthus, Yellow Parazoanthus Polyp, Caulastrea, Duncan, Goniopora, Green Star Polyp, Favia and Discosoma corals.