Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down

[Murphs_Reef]

8 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Patrick the starfish showed up:

 

 

 

And boy, can he move! 😮 :

 

 

Sinking back into the sand:

 

 

 

 

I want one of these next 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Patrick under heavy blues: 

 

 

Boss fish looking over his reef:

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good morning. 😊

 

Thanos:

 

 

 

This pic came out rather blurry, but I actually kinda like it: 😅

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took a few shots of the fish this morning. 💦

 

Poseidon sustained a nasty tear in his lower fin around two weeks ago, and the fin is still regrowing:

 

 

 

 

 

Just before snicking up a pod:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bella:

 

 

Orion:

 

 

 

CUC cleaning up algae on the rocks, glass & back wall:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon eating pellets:

 

Tank is okay - fish are all alive, fat and healthy. Have two very large aiptasia that popped up in the rocks, but in a weird way I find them incredibly pretty (they're white and look like flowers), so I left them as it is for now. Need to WC the sump very badly - my floss is covered with gunk. Will do so once I'm stronger. 👍

 

[RoyalGramma001]

How often do you pod your reef and how big of a jar of copeopods do you get. I was thinking of having pipefish possibly in my next tank.

[Snow_Phoenix]

14 hours ago, RoyalGramma001 said:

How often do you pod your reef and how big of a jar of copeopods do you get. I was thinking of having pipefish possibly in my next tank.

I actually stopped seeding my tank with pods for a while now. I do however, add in fresh macro (taken from my LFS) once a month, which already tags along with a lot of microfauna including pods. My refugium is at a stage where it's enough to support the needs of my dragonets, so I don't tinker with it anymore.

 

But when I first started keeping dragonets in this tank, I was seeding anywhere up to 500ml to 1L of copepods per week to keep up with the demands of the fish (this was very expensive). This was until I could safely wean them onto prepared food, and they grew healthy enough to a point where they were comfortable with eating less live, and more frozen/dry food - *without losing weight. This whole process of weaning took months - in the case of my male scooter, Illaron, it almost took a full year before he was completely stable on prepared. 

 

If you're getting pipefish - I'd suggest scaping the tank according to the needs of the fish (adding a lot of macro, for example). Also, pipes are more delicate than dragonets and can get sick very easily. I find them more challenging to keep long-term than dragonets, actually. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Patrick on the glass:

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon right now:

 

 

 

And yes, that bristleworm is huge! 😮

[Jerad81]

Have you named the bristleworm yet? 🤣

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon with a full belly after dinner today:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

My reef-dragons today - Poseidon, Illaron, Bella & Orion: 💦🐲🐉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shrooms on mushroom mountain: 🤗

 

 

 

[Sharbuckle]

Beautiful pictures. The fish look great.

[Snow_Phoenix]

32 minutes ago, Sharbuckle said:

Beautiful pictures. The fish look great.

Thanks! 

 

This tank is now more focused on fish than corals. My nano is the opposite - more focus on corals than fish. 

 

I think with less corals, the overall maintenance is much easier and I can stretch out WCs to once every 4 to 6 weeks without issues. I do have a bristleworm problem though - but that's probably because I feed the tank heavily to make sure everyone gets to eat. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon eating pellets yesterday: 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good morning. 😊

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

My new dragonet pair added today - Hunter & Zoey:

 

 

Hunter (male):

 

 

 

Zoey (female) :

 

 

 

 

Hunter has been with me in my 10G for a few weeks. I neglected all my tanks because of health issues, including his care, and he has lost more weight (he was thin from the first day of purchase, but is now downright skinny 😭). Zoey is new and was acquired yesterday - she's actually a gift from a good family friend, and what are the odds that the new mandy was female (???) 😮😮😮

 

Was quite shocked, but happy at the same time. 

 

Hunter has started to accept pellets. Zoey is so far eating live only. They both have a long way to go to recover fully (and I truly hope they do). 

 

I originally wanted to keep them in my nano for a few weeks, but the bioload will be too high, and the tank is too small to accomodate a mandy pair (+3 other fish). 

 

I decided the best chance of survival these two will have is a direct-transfer into my 60G. As expected, Poseidon was/is giving them - especially Hunter, a hard time, since he is the largest & most dominant dragonet. 

 

A lot of flaring and a bit of chasing for the first few minutes, but I'll give it a few days for all of them to settle down. 

 

I've replenished my fuge with fresh macro & microfauna yesterday, and the refugium was too packed - I had to actually prune back some of the excess macro and tossed it in my 10G to create 2 mini macro 'forests'. 

 

I'm up for a major feeding session in a few minutes. Hopefully the new dragonets can adapt to the new tank quick enough to gain weight instead of lose more. Will probably increase the frequency of wet feedings over the next few weeks too. 🤔

[debbeach13]

Wow that is a great gift and how wonderful a female. I hope they both do well in their new home.

[Snow_Phoenix]

13 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Wow that is a great gift and how wonderful a female. I hope they both do well in their new home.

Thanks, Deb! It was quite unexpected, but wonderful regardless. 🥰

 

Hunter stood up to Poseidon though. He has an elaborate dorsal fin that when flared, is significantly larger than Poseidon's. Poseidon eventually left him alone, but I did catch Hunter eating several pellets in the 60G. 

 

Zoey still needs time to adjust. She's still very new to captivity and was breathing a bit hard just now. I hope she pulls through the night okay - the first night is always a trial period for any new addition to any of my tanks, because the fish either makes it (or doesn't) during that time. 😔

 

Bella & Illaron (scooter pair) are spawning again. Thinking of saving up to get a large LPS on the sandbed - just to break the line of sight between the dragonets. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hunter & Zoey made it through their first night in the tank. 😊

 

They're mostly keeping to the shadows of the central ledge though - they're still not too comfortable in moving out in the open yet, but I hope they do become more confident in time.

 

Poseidon isn't too thrilled, and seems to be picking on Zoey a bit. Since Hunter stood up to him, he leaves Hunter alone, but Zoey is a bit more skittish. I'll keep monitoring them. So far none of them are attacking each other, just a lot of posturing and flaring. 🤔

 

The scooters are the most peaceful so far. They keep to themselves. 👍 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Zoey:

 

 

 

 

Her lateral lines can be seen, actually. If she can adapt to prepared food, she should be able to thicken out in months to come. 😊

 

Grouchy boy because he now has to share the tank with 2 other mandys: 😅

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon after a full meal, under heavy blues:

 

 

 

Zoey exploring mushroom mountain:

 

 

Hunter eating pellets: 

 

Five out of my six dragonets:

 

The amount of food in the rocks tho: 😨

 

 

[debbeach13]

So glad to see they made it through the night. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I just wanted to share pics & a quick vid. of my very dirty fuge: 

 

 

 

As you can see, the fuge section is densely packed with macro and I seldom prune it. The macro is a mix of both good & pest algae, and I have no concerns in removing the pest algae (eg. GHA, cotton candy, red bubble etc.) because I figured more algae types = more diversity. 

 

A good portion of the fuge is actually full of small & medium-sized LR pieces encrusted with sponges, tunicates and other sessile inverts. Some of these rocks are pullovers from other tanks which I've shut down in the past, and have been with me since 2015/16. 

 

I have one critter in this fuge which has become extremely beneficial in spreading the algae around - my spider decorator crab, Spyder. 

 

He actually decorates himself with pieces of my macro and seeds different parts of my sump with various algae. He's quite elusive though, and camoflages himself very well in the fuge (I haven't found him for a week, but I know he's lurking somewhere in there). 🤐

 

Back to the fuge - it's crawling with various types of microfauna like below:

 

Yes, my fuge/sump is filthy, but I don't think it's possible to run a *clean tank when you have multiple dragonets - they actually poop a lot and require constant food. 

 

In the fuge/sump area, I've observed various types of pods, flatworms, bristleworms, microbrittlestars, asterina stars, collonista snails, hydroid jellies and other weird stuff which I honestly don't know the name of. The diversity of microfauna helps a lot. Some of them provide a constant supply of live food for the fish in the DT, others are simple CUC in the fuge/sump. 

 

I always, always replenish the macro in the fuge on a monthly basis because I *want a new influx of microfauna in my fuge, to preserve/increase the diversity that I already have. 

 

Fuge aside, here's a quick vid. of Illaron & Bella's courtship being interrupted by Cubert the conch: 🤦‍♀️