Tank birthday, 47+ years

[SpartaReef]

Nutramar Ova is made from 100% natural frozen prawn eggs
http://www.nutramar.com/ova.html

found this for you Greg

 

[gregcoyote]

That's what I thought originally then went to a site where they reviewed them as lobster eggs. The Internet. I will agree, prawn eggs.

 

[Paul B]

Mandarins

SloppyWhenWet, read this

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/106089-thoughts-mandarins.html :suspicious:

Then if you feel like it, read this: https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/154713-fattening-up-mandarin.html:becky:

 

[gregcoyote]

Ordering the white worm culture. Don't even have a mandarin, but will test on the other fish for a bit. Then I want to try a copperband again after 15 years. Do you feed just baby brine in the feeder, or does making one with bigger mesh for worms make any sense?

 

[Paul B]

It will not work for worms as the blackworms die in a few seconds in saltwater and the white worms are to stupid to get through the holes. The worms and everything you put in your tank should be fed with something like this. I just fill it with worms and start on one end of the tank slowly squeeze it across the tank. I target feed the mandarins with it using whiteworms.

 

[gregcoyote]

You sell the squirters? How many times per day do you feed the mandarins with the white worms?

 

[Paul B]

I do not directly sell the squirters but Marine Depot will have them shortly. I feed the mandarins once a day with whiteworms and once a day through the baby brine feeder. The rest of the time they hunt pods and jackrabbits.

 

[gregcoyote]

So you harvest both daily? For decades? Yikes. That's really impressive and dedicated.

 

[Eienna]

My scooter's pretty big on the prawn eggs (nutramar ova) as well.

 

[Paul B]

I have always few live blackworms even for my freshwater fish in the 60s, the whiteworms I am only using for about a year or two. I have also always used live baby brine shrimp.

 

[Paul B]

I decided to do a little maintenance today but I have to do it very gently as bluestripe pipefish don't survive these typhoons. Every time I have done this I lost them and they are a breeding pair so I want to keep them. Once or twice a year my tank depends on stirring up the gravel all the way down to the UG filter plate. Because of the pipefish I can only do a small section at a time so it will take all day. That is not a problem as I don't have to sit here and watch it. I just blow some gravel with my diatom filter, then go out someplace and wait for the tank to clear, then I do another section. If it were not for those pipefish I would do the entire tank at one time.
Of course I can't do a really good job unless I removed the rock and I am not going to do that as that was much easier before I started growing SPS which are very delicate but every ten years I like to at least try to remove some rock to do a better job. The fish love it. I have 4 diatom filters and out of the 4, I have one working model as the rest I use for parts. They are not really designed to work in salt water and rust badly. They are also not designed very well and leak like a sieve so I always run them in a large bucket. No matter how many times you replace the seals, they start to leak very soon but they do such a good job that I keep using them. When I get time I will design a better unit that will last.:hat:

 

[vlangel]

Paul, can you explain more about your diatom filter, like what it does and how it does it? I am interested since I am reading more about diatoms since I am participating in the free trial sample of Nualgi and it works on the principle of creating a diatom bloom to feed phytoplankton.

 

[Paul B]

A diatom filter doesn't have much to do with creating diatoms to feed phytoplankton. A diatom filter uses the skeletons of dead diatoms which looks like talcum powder as a filtering media. You fill the diatom filter with the diatom powder and it is a very strong canister filter able to remove even bacteria and ich paracites. That is not what I use it for as I don't really need to filter that small but I need a strong filter to stir up my gravel. I have two Eheim filters but they have a weak outflow and don't mix up anything very well.

 

[vlangel]

Ohhh, like a swimming pool filter. I understand now. That explains about them rusting and leaking. So you use them when you are cleaning your UG plate and gravel,( which I'll admit I don't quite understand since you call it a 'reverse' UG). How is a reverse UG different from a regular UG with the gravel on top?

 

[gregcoyote]

Diatom filters. The kind with the black metal housing? Man, that is old school. I had them decades ago in my FW hatchery. They work fine, but as you noted they weren't designed for SW.

 

[Nano sapiens]

I guess Pipefish are still too fast to be caught by net and removed to a separate container before cleaning starts.

Every few months I remove my SPS covered rocks to clean the sand underneath. They do well as long as it isn't over an hour. The only damage I get is on M. setosa tips that tend to dry out a bit, but within a few days they look fine again.

 

[Paul B]

Reverse UG filter

How is a reverse UG different from a regular UG with the gravel on top

A regular UG filter pumps water up the tubes and the water goes down through the gravel. With a reverse flow you pump water down the tubes and the water goes up through the gravel. The advantage is that with a reverse flow you can put a filter on the intake of the pump so you only push cleaner water through the gravel and it doesn't clog nearly as fast .I can't catch the pipefish, I rarely even see them

 

[vlangel]

A regular UG filter pumps water up the tubes and the water goes down through the gravel. With a reverse flow you pump water down the tubes and the water goes up through the gravel. The advantage is that with a reverse flow you can put a filter on the intake of the pump so you only push cleaner water through the gravel and it doesn't clog nearly as fast .I can't catch the pipefish, I rarely even see them

Ohh, OK. Yes I see the advantage, especially in a reef application. You don't have the detritus build up as fast.

 

[Chris Aldrich]

You don't come across many people using a reverse UG filter, but as we've discussed before Paul, I always appreciate it when someone has success outside of the norm.

Oh, and for everyone following along...Paul mentions it here and there throughout this thread, so here's a more thorough writeup he put together about fish biology: A Fishy Biology Lesson From Paul

 

[FLipp]

#reefingainteasy