Hi. I'm a newbie when it comes to saltwater aquariums, but am an "absorber of knowledge." as my friends say. When I get into anew hobby, I go all in. Not necessarily financially, but I want to be as prepared as possible. Especially when there are tangs, puffer, file fish, and the babysitter - watchman go by.
I actually started getting into it approximately 6months ago. I wasn't in a rush and basically had one piece of live rock and substrate in it.
The reason igot into it was a dragonet I saw at the local hospitals 1000 gallon tank. It moved around like a hummingbird through the water.
My tank is well established and I barely add any chemicals to it, except to some new fish. I also recently added copepods and rotifers to my tank. Igot 3 bottles of tigrio pods. One full, the other two they gave to me at Petco because there were only a few alive in them. I added the two partials, not to a refugium, but just dumped them in.
The full bottle I put in separate containers with airstone, phytoplankton and rotifers.
I wish I would have known how simple it is. You don't even need a heater.
So, for around one week I kept looking through the substrate profile that's visible on my 90 gallon aquarium.
Then I see naupilii at 10x magnification that settled right below where my crab died a few days previously.
A Refugium probably would have been a good idea, but I didn't get a dragon et yet, so didn't have to worry about having 5000 copepods a day to eat.
They are growing.
Ihave a few snails, hermits and the aforementioned pelagic creatures. I have had about 4 or 5 die because it takes a bit of hands on also.
Itried the corals and had a couple of starfish for a day. Ihad a fire shrimp die also. Every fish is different, I now realize, and am not investing in anything too fragile until I have less fluctuations. And more copepods!
Have a great day!
Chad
