Better than a 20L: My 33g long lagoon style

[sayn3ver]

well, i did some research and posted some links above, that scooter blennies are found in lagoon settings. I suppose lagoon does not equal seagrass bed but i like to think they do.

http://home2.pacific.net.ph/~sweetyummy42/zone1.html

 

that link is amazing if you check out the other sections of the reef tour, he focuses on all varying sections of his local reef habitat, from shallow grass flats to the reef and all that is between.

 

finds dragonet on grass/macro

http://tidechaser.blogspot.com/2007/07/changi02072007.html

 

 

Google book preview. Page 503 i believe is the start of relevant talk of fish of seagrass beds but does not discuss specific species, but a good read non the less in terms of seagrass habitats in general.

 

 

Seagrass Google Book

 

 

Bingo(wow, just stumbled on this, although this may be the same site linked from the 30g biotope in the member gallery).

http://www.wildsingapore.com/chekjawa/text/g000.htm

 

 

thats it for now. Lunch time. I also emailed wetwebmedia in reference to scooter dragonet habitats.

 

Worse comes to worse, i keep an interesting pair of golbies and pipe fish instead along with my cardinals.

[dshnarw]

Wow!! Good to see another research intensive tank! You've found some good links for lagoons.

 

Fishbase lists the Scooter Dragonet as a lagoonal species (similar to all other dragonets I can think of):

Inhabits sandy areas of lagoon and seaward reefs (Ref. 1602). Also in sheltered rocky reef habitats in few meters depth, usually in small loose groups (Ref. 48636).

 

http://fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary...sname=ocellatus

[sayn3ver]

yea, I was trying to get it admitted on a technicality such as that (the dragnet into my tank's inhabitants lineup).

 

The scooter blenny i saw at my LFS was really the fuel of this tank's fire if that makes any sense.

 

Right now its currently not much to look at, but I'm going slow and trying not to screw up anything too early on.

 

BTW, you're thread really inspired me a lot and it is your tank i mentioned in my previous post.

[dshnarw]

yea, I was trying to get it admitted on a technically such as that (the dragnet into my tank's inhabitants lineup).

 

The scooter blenny i saw at my LFS was really the fuel of this tank's fire if that makes any sense.

 

Right now its currently not much to look at, but I'm going slow and trying not to screw up anything too early on.

 

BTW, you're thread really inspired me a lot and it is your tank i mentioned in my previous post.

 

No need for a technicality...a lot of species that we normally associate with the reef are actually lagoon species. The exclusively pod-eaters like seahorses and dragonets, the algae growers like some of the damsel species, and the anemone hosters - clowns/damsels are more common in lagoons, along with the burrowers like gobies. The bangaii is another great choice for a lagoon setup, and a hardy fish once it's acclimated and eating.

 

I understand that spark - It's like that Moen commercial "build a house around this faucet" - see one thing and everything else works around it.

 

Slow is best - it'll give the tank time to settle in and give you time to consider each purchase. Be careful of the impulse buy, especially if you want to keep it true to the lagoon idea. I have a couple of extra tanks in various stages of setup and such just for my impulse buys that won't fit.

 

Thanks for the compliments! I'm looking forward to seeing how this tank progresses

[sayn3ver]

yea, impulse buys aren't too difficult for me since the tank money is budgeted. I know that probably doesn't hold a lot of water on here as a defense but its the truth. Being in college and what not limits funds.

 

I also had a impulse buy today though on some yellow polyps that were marked down to 10 bucks but i waited since i didn't want to start running the lights again until I am sure my water quality is tight.

 

I am beginning to rethink the dragonet a tiny bit as there are two healthy specimens in the LFS display reef, a 180g AGA with a ton of liverock. I have like a 1/8 of the rock in my tank. haha so i dunno if I want to risk one, even with a mature tank and fuge because weening them onto frozen is tough from what I have read and even then you still need a lot of pods. I was planning on setting up the extra 10g I have now(split it with a glass baffle) for a dual pod breeder but how easy is it to transfer them to the display?

[soyadrink]

Great ideas! I got my old scooter eating frozen within 2 days:D Dont go too big with dragonets in a 33g or some people on this forum will go ballistic!(seen that a couple of times)

 

keep up the good work

[dshnarw]

yea, impulse buys aren't too difficult for me since the tank money is budgeted. I know that probably doesn't hold a lot of water on here as a defense but its the truth. Being in college and what not limits funds.

 

I also had a impulse buy today though on some yellow polyps that were marked down to 10 bucks but i waited since i didn't want to start running the lights again until I am sure my water quality is tight.

 

I am beginning to rethink the dragonet a tiny bit as there are two healthy specimens in the LFS display reef, a 180g AGA with a ton of liverock. I have like a 1/8 of the rock in my tank. haha so i dunno if I want to risk one, even with a mature tank and fuge because weening them onto frozen is tough from what I have read and even then you still need a lot of pods. I was planning on setting up the extra 10g I have now(split it with a glass baffle) for a dual pod breeder but how easy is it to transfer them to the display?

 

I understand budgeting...grad school isn't much better on funding than undergrad. I also understand eating chicken noodle soup and chef boyardee for about a month because of an expensive impulse buy

 

I think the key for a dragonet would be to make sure it eats frozen before you buy it. No sense in wasting time and effort (and a fish) on one that refuses to eat frozen foods. Find an LFS that'll let you drop some Cyclopeeze in the tank, and make sure it's chomping down on it - it seems to be the best bet for difficult feeders, and it's in the best size range for a dragonet. You'd still want a pod fuge - I just pile some rocks and macro in my sump, they'll get pulled through the return pump, and no worries if they get shredded during the trip, because they're going to be food anyway.

[cavipower1]

pics! i just need pics to keep me inspired at least till mine gets here and i can start building a stand or something for it lol

[Thristan]

I love your 33g sofar. Should check out my 33g long. I have had it for about a year and a half now. I will be following this forum. Keep up the good work.

[Nanocubeking]

Ya know what would be cool? If you grew a bunch of mangroves right out of the back of the tank and had the seagrass bed... It would be juzt like a lagoon in Indonesia.

[sayn3ver]

Update: The son-of-a-b*tch isn't eating. Anything. Live brine, frozen brine, frozen mysis, pellets, etc. Nothing. It was eating almost everything the first 2 days and then its decided not to eat anymore. It had a few live brine i believe last night but not enough for a substantial meal(they're not very nutritious anyways but its nice to have the live mixed in with the enriched frozen).

 

gah. My luck. i swear I buy fish and then they decide to stop eating on me. Just for once could I buy a fish and it just eat everything that I toss in the tank.

 

ALso, on a strange note, has anyone had any issues with waterbugs in your tank/fuge. Two days in a row now I've found what I believe is a waterbug (sorta flat, brown creature, 6 legs, floats, hard (picked 2 out with tweezers...tried to ID online which appears to be a water bug Belostoma sp from the looks but I am not bug specialist). Definitely not an insect I have seen before in or around my house. Ideas?

 

looks like the one on the right.

 

 

 

This was surprising to me because outside of crickets in the basement during the summer and the occational spider, our house has been bug free since I've been born (21 years).

 

 

 

Edit: Upon further research it may be a stinkbug. Like i said I do not know insects too well not care too, and after examining the thing with a pair of tweezers i flushed it. They were dead upon removal and not moving either in or out of the fuge which makes me think they might be stink bugs rather than the larger water bug pictured above. Total length of the bug i found was about 1/2 inch.

 

 

This is closer to what i found. I have a feeling they might have hiked in on some of the potted plants my rents bring in from outside (when winter comes). Apparently they have invaded new jersey with the last 10 years.

[spanko]

Whoa. They fly, they bite yuck!!!

http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/bugs/giant_water_bugs.htm

 

Whoa I take that back, they have a wicked bite!!!!

http://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/insects/020037n.html

 

 

Giant waterbug or "toe-biter," Belostoma sp., family Belostomatidae.

[sayn3ver]

i believe, with the size that they were, and upon a ton of hits and descriptions on stinkbugs+NJ that they are indeed a stink bug. I didn't realize the giant water bugs were well, so giant. The ones i found were 1/2inh or less.

[spanko]

Whew? Good news then I guess.

[sayn3ver]

Well, this is not looking good.

 

The Cardinal is looking pretty bad, chilling on the bottom then hovering near the surface, and there appears to be a semi clear to white, long, thread like item either attached to the body or coming from the anus. Parasite? Worm?

 

Just my luck.

 

I suppose thats the game.

 

I guess by the time i get back from working out it may well indeed be over.

 

 

Edit: Its 7:40pm and the cardinal has died sometime before this time I'd imagine, I imagine TOD to be around 5pm-5:30pm as i did not see him swimming when I got home around 4:30. COD is undetermined at this point, but the refusal to eat combine with what I saw early suggest an internal parasite + the stress of transportation from catch to exporter to wholesaler to LFS to my house had made things worse. And yes, i realize that these either are or have been placed on the red list, and my hopes were to breed he/she, but I felt I did all I could to save the guy. Earlier this morning i tested for nitrates, ammonia, and my CA levels and th first to were at 0ppm according to the test kits, and the CA level around 340-360ppm. Water temp around 79 degrees.

 

I can am going to wait awhile before adding any larger livestock to the tank cause apparently I cannot keep fish alive. My snails are doing great though...haha. I had the 1 peppermint shrimp die on me as well, both that and the cardinal fish were from the same LFS, who is close but hasn't been known fort he best livestock.

 

 

I know the tank is new, at only 4 weeks old, but the parameters are fine, i top off daily and have not missed a day so the SG has been pretty stable IMHO at 1.025.

 

Bah. I need to find something that wants to live and eat like a pig and is found in lagoon/sea grass bed settings.

[soyadrink]

updates?

[axia55]

I'd like to see an updated FTS. I am trying to decide if I want to try setting up my 33L as my next reef.

[sayn3ver]

nothing new to update, looks the same and I haven't added anything to the tank since, just top offs and such and some occasional fish food to add some food for the bacteria.

 

I am dealing with diatoms in my fuge, thick diatoms. Definetly not the same as the small cyno outbreak i had in the main tank. Definetly light, fluffy brown diatoms. The snails eat some of it but its a forest. I removed some of it but it grows back. I am hoping it will die out soon.

 

 

Tanks looks like it did in the older setup pics. Nothing new yet. Gonna wait it out until after i go away for spring break (middle of march) before I add anything big since its a week trip and don't want to have something new and attention needy in the tank while I am away. I might pick up some mushrooms soon though, as they are pretty hardy.

[Monkfish]

Your tank looks great your doing a really nice job.

[sayn3ver]

Update: Not much. Still struggling with diatom algae. I think I am going to break down and use a skimmer for this tank, nothing large, but something. The way i have my return plumbed when i take the filter sock off to prevent plashing involves 2 tee's and an elbow and the "bubble" trap i created was acting like a skimmer, foaming and pouring out this brown funky gunk so i think a skimmer is in the future.

 

I've done some water changes but with only snails, sponges and a butt load of feather dusters that have popped up i can't imagine the bio load is too much.

 

I need to wait for spring before i can find a place that has some seagrasses in stock.

[sayn3ver]

Update: school and crew and such really put this on the back burner, and only working one day a week + inflation has really stopped me dead in my tracks. Luckily, it is summer and with a new full time job paying rather well, i have some extra funds starting to show up.

 

I am ordering a few small things tonight (korilla 3, high flow kit for my maxijet, and one of those plastic u-tube outlets).

 

I will be re plumbing the underside of this within the next week. I am waiting for friday to get payed and then i will be ordering a tunze osmolator for my top offs, as they have gotten really old really quick(roughly 2 gallons per day).

 

I am not happy at all with the current way the 15g fuge dumps into the 10g sump. It evaporates from the 15g and the 10g at different rates and makes for maintaining water level and salinty a pain, not to mention the non constant sump levels have done nothing to help me tune in my skimmer (only a used asm mini-g which i need to by a new pump for as the stocker is a joke).

 

Thus, i am buying another 15g, installing proper glass baffles and only running a skimmer/sump setup. I also am going to go from the rigid return to vinyl hose + u tube return (i will upgrade to a glass lilly point at some point but I do not have an extra 100 dollars right now for such a frivolous piece, as i want to build the stand and get all the 40g breeder gear out of my bedroom soon and that will coast under 100 if i can help it cause the clutter is killing me not to mention i want to get as much crap out of my room as possible because I want to paint and either get new carpet or refinish the hardwood underneath as it has been a long time coming in regards to a room make over. In addition then, the current return drain setup will be morphed into the Herbie method and i think then I shall be happy with the plumbing.

 

My photography hobby is turning more serious as well(might be getting paid and published), and I have invested more than i care to mention on new glass so it has been an interesting few months.

 

The only real change is that my Caulerpa prolifera has grown and spread a bit on the sand bed. I suppose with basically no bioload, it hasn't grown a whole lot and has made me wonder why everyone is so scared of it, but once I get something in the tank I will keep a close eye out.

 

Pictures soon enough.

 

I also think final stocking may end up being a pair of false percs and a pair of scooter blennies.

[sayn3ver]

update: i never put the order for the power heads and u tube in, i forgot to and shut my pc down so the stuff never got ordered.

 

On the other hand, i did place an order for 50lbs of rock from marcorocks.com and 15lbs of rubble. Most of the 50lbs will be heading towards my 40breeder project but I want some more rock in the tank as i only have 20lbs right now. Some of the rubble will be used in fuge and some as accents throughout the scape.

 

I also picked up a scooter blenny on wednesday after work. He/she started browsing and pecking immediately upon placement in my tank. I saw it eat live brine in the pet store, but it refuses to do so now, so i figure it likes pods better than the brine shrimp. i figure this will be a challenge for awhile until I can get it to eat frozen/pellets as a suppliment. The tank has been running since the end of dec, and this is the only inhabitant outside of the snails so i figure its like a big quarentine tank situation. I picked up some of those instant baby brine shrimp but haven't found a good way to deliever them to the mandarin golby.

 

What was sad though is that the pet store has 3 tanks of mandarins...the typical green/blue, spotted, and the scooter blennies and I know that most if not all of them will not make it.

 

I am hoping the scooter will be more willing to accept a variety of food, and if it goes well i may be looking for another in a year or more and make this a species tank.

[sayn3ver]

pics

 

my new scooter blenny

 

some rock

 

return

 

some caulp

 

my tiny ball of chaeto

[Cali-girl]

After reading this thread it sounds like this tank will be wonderful! Don't get discouraged! It's tough being a college student with no money and an expensive hobby, i get ya! i'm in the same boat.

 

I have to give you big props for putting all that research into the ecosystem you plan to recreate, a lot of people don't ever do any research before they leap into this and the outcome is never good. so Good Job!

 

Send us some more pics!!

[sayn3ver]

Thanks for the reply. I have done a whole lot of reading but despite all of that I haven't had much luck in implementation. The death of the bengai cardinal was really discouraging. I mean, I feel I am very capable of caring for these creatures and have never ever come close to overstocking or cramping my tanks, etc etc (if you believe aquariums aren't cramping fish to begin with) and I read and research a lot but when a death occurs it makes you wonder what you're doing wrong. I was hesitate about picking up the scooter blenny and I will be until I can supplement it with non-pod food it will always be on my mind(but he/she was as good as dead in the fish store...and i realize that is a poor excuse and just shows the LFS to order more next week but still) The last thing I would want to do is be cruel and starve the creature, which is why despite having an adequate amount of rock for my landscaping purposes, I ordered more and will try to add as much as I can in order to provide more places for pods to breed. I may also order one of the hang on fuges from orca (just like a CPR hang on fuge) in addition to what I have going on now. I just want to insure success with this animal before I do anything else now.

At the moment, I feel my tank is rather mature in the micro fauna department. My calcium and alk are low due to using instant ocean salt alone. I would like to start 2-part to bring my tank with specs and hopefully hold it with kalk alone, considering I don't plan on having sps in the tank (except maybe a monti cap) but if i pick up a clam in the future I would need to dose 2-part for sure. I don't know how i want to go about doing that yet since I am just ready to redo the plumbing and finally get some osmotic stability to the tank.

 

I also have a diatom problem still on the sand that shows up instantly from running the lights more than 2 consecutive days (the tank gets natural sunlight as well most of the day from the window behind the tank, not a lot but i wasn't running lights for a few months now and the chaeto and caulerpa have been growing fine not to mention the color on my liverock has improved very nicely as well. I haven't figured out how to fix this. It is a brown that covers the sand, the cerith snails have been eating away at it but they just can't eat fast enough.

 

This has been harder than the FW tanks that I have had in the past. I still have one 10g planted tank, its low tech, no fish and has been growing painlessly for months now, with only the need for topoff and the occasional addition of some ferts. I enjoy watching my tank (even empty as the amount of tiny feather dusters and other strange organisms that have cropped up over the months is astonishing) and despite everything, will continue to plug away at this before adding any water at all to the next tank. I really like the hobby, but its one of those things where two people could do everything identically and still get different results.

 

Tomorrow though, i will be starting the build of the 40br tank stand. I am gonna try to get the framing complete, and then spend the next few weeks skinning and trimming. I have to order a few wood working items as well. I've been working with a friend of the family doing general contracting and am learning a lot, and am hoping to use this stand as a building block in woodworking (will be trying my first dovetail joints) and an excuse to buy more tools.