ChaetoFarm_Kai
Community Member
**Skip to the second paragraph for my actual question, this week has been a rollercoaster with this guy and I kinda got carried away**
Hey everybody, looking for some help with my new Tuka Anthias. I got him on Sunday so 5 days ago now, I had never kept any anthias species but had admired them for years as a local lfs owner has always had a gorgeous male Bartlett in his display tank. Because of this, I was horribly ignorant of what I had gotten myself into. As a fairly experienced keeper of fish only predator tanks, a lifelong aquarist, and compulsive fact collector, I suppose I was a bit arrogant when I purchased this guy. I thought I knew a pod eating specialist when I saw one(which I’d never buy), but I just assumed this guy would take pellets or flakes like anything else. I got him home and was immediately enamored by his electric purple body accented by his magenta dorsal fin and a brilliant blue shimmer along his back as he moved under my LED pendants. I quickly concluded that this was the most beautiful fish I have ever owned, but was overcome with grief once I began to do some research on the species, and read peoples sentiments on keeping them. I’m not easily intimidated by delicate or “difficult” fish but this one had me nervous. He is very skittish of people and other fish, possibly because he’s a lone anthias. After trying every fare in my arsenal, and every trick to get the right particle size, I just finally got him to eat frozen calanus. Believe it or not I resorted to army crawling across my living room, as not to spook him, with a big syringe full of the suspension and squirting it into the return pump, as he gets spooked when I pour anything directly into the main tank. Upon seeing him eat, I was elated as I laid on the ground watching him go. So I kept on going till he started to lose interest. Just minutes before I had accepted the fact that I would have to return him to the LFS for something that could never capture my heart quite like he has.
Long story short, he eats calanus but only through the return pump and I have to be super careful not to spook him in the process. Would like to wean him onto a dry sinking pellet diet or something like that as he shows no interest in calanus on the surface. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I could set up an relatively inexpensive, low maintenance system to feed him automatically through my return pump? I saw another member on here say they got their Tukas eating brightwell reef blizzard A, seems like a good stepping stone to pellets. IDK but I believe this is just a bunch of freeze dried pods so I’m wondering how I’m going to get it to go under the surface and into my return pump if it floats. Maybe some kind of Venturi device sucking water into a funnel under an auto feeder. Put a directional inlet on said funnel to create a little toilet bowl cyclone? Maybe just a really strong powerhead in my return pump compartment will do the trick to get it mixed into the water? One thing I like about this idea is I think it may send the food into the tank a bit more gradually than a Venturi cyclone would lol. Any ideas? Not big on the idea of having to maintain a dosing pump reservoir with rotting plankton in it or a nano fridge under my tank for said reservoir
.
Hey everybody, looking for some help with my new Tuka Anthias. I got him on Sunday so 5 days ago now, I had never kept any anthias species but had admired them for years as a local lfs owner has always had a gorgeous male Bartlett in his display tank. Because of this, I was horribly ignorant of what I had gotten myself into. As a fairly experienced keeper of fish only predator tanks, a lifelong aquarist, and compulsive fact collector, I suppose I was a bit arrogant when I purchased this guy. I thought I knew a pod eating specialist when I saw one(which I’d never buy), but I just assumed this guy would take pellets or flakes like anything else. I got him home and was immediately enamored by his electric purple body accented by his magenta dorsal fin and a brilliant blue shimmer along his back as he moved under my LED pendants. I quickly concluded that this was the most beautiful fish I have ever owned, but was overcome with grief once I began to do some research on the species, and read peoples sentiments on keeping them. I’m not easily intimidated by delicate or “difficult” fish but this one had me nervous. He is very skittish of people and other fish, possibly because he’s a lone anthias. After trying every fare in my arsenal, and every trick to get the right particle size, I just finally got him to eat frozen calanus. Believe it or not I resorted to army crawling across my living room, as not to spook him, with a big syringe full of the suspension and squirting it into the return pump, as he gets spooked when I pour anything directly into the main tank. Upon seeing him eat, I was elated as I laid on the ground watching him go. So I kept on going till he started to lose interest. Just minutes before I had accepted the fact that I would have to return him to the LFS for something that could never capture my heart quite like he has.
Long story short, he eats calanus but only through the return pump and I have to be super careful not to spook him in the process. Would like to wean him onto a dry sinking pellet diet or something like that as he shows no interest in calanus on the surface. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I could set up an relatively inexpensive, low maintenance system to feed him automatically through my return pump? I saw another member on here say they got their Tukas eating brightwell reef blizzard A, seems like a good stepping stone to pellets. IDK but I believe this is just a bunch of freeze dried pods so I’m wondering how I’m going to get it to go under the surface and into my return pump if it floats. Maybe some kind of Venturi device sucking water into a funnel under an auto feeder. Put a directional inlet on said funnel to create a little toilet bowl cyclone? Maybe just a really strong powerhead in my return pump compartment will do the trick to get it mixed into the water? One thing I like about this idea is I think it may send the food into the tank a bit more gradually than a Venturi cyclone would lol. Any ideas? Not big on the idea of having to maintain a dosing pump reservoir with rotting plankton in it or a nano fridge under my tank for said reservoir
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