20g Macro Algae/Seagrass build

[nawilson89]

Mollies are a hard fish to acclimate. Both new Females acclimated fine. I fed them when i got home from work, let out some water and added more. After a few hours I added them to their respective tanks. They swam around. At a bit at night and I turned off the lights. The next morning both were dead.

My current female however gave birth! So my saturday had its ups and downs.

Today I was able to get my Belted Sandfish. Three beautiful fish. I added them one a time. Fed some frozen mysid (they are great eaters), one has even begun hunting the babies. Exactly what I was hoping for.







@Eienna, I may have to start hitting you up for some mollies :3

 

[Eienna]

Mollies are a hard fish to acclimate. Both new Females acclimated fine. I fed them when i got home from work, let out some water and added more. After a few hours I added them to their respective tanks. They swam around. At a bit at night and I turned off the lights. The next morning both were dead.

My current female however gave birth! So my saturday had its ups and downs.

Today I was able to get my Belted Sandfish. Three beautiful fish. I added them one a time. Fed some frozen mysid (they are great eaters), one has even begun hunting the babies. Exactly what I was hoping for.







@Eienna, I may have to start hitting you up for some mollies :3

Perhaps so, if I can figure out how to ship them all the way out to Florida, and you can afford the cost XD
For whatever reason, some mollies don't make the change. I've lost two that way. Pregnant females in particular, it seems. This last batch I slow-dripped overnight and had no losses.

Anyway, the last batch of babies totaled 55, so whenever you want them, I have 'em, lol.

 

[Eienna]

Neat sandfish, by the way. Hadn't heard of those before.

Perhaps some of your fish fell prey to parasites...who knows...always qt though!! I appear to finally be on top of a velvet outbreak...hopefully there are no more fatalities.

I've had issues with macros for as long as I've been reefing. Could never get it to grow. Now I seem to have some halimeda doing okay and my chaeto appears to be doing decently well, too. YAY!

 

[nawilson89]

Perhaps so, if I can figure out how to ship them all the way out to Florida, and you can afford the cost XD
For whatever reason, some mollies don't make the change. I've lost two that way. Pregnant females in particular, it seems. This last batch I slow-dripped overnight and had no losses.

Anyway, the last batch of babies totaled 55, so whenever you want them, I have 'em, lol.

Probably would have to do overnight shipping. Eh may not be worth it. I'll just have to purchase more mollies. I feel real bad when they pass though.

Neat sandfish, by the way. Hadn't heard of those before.

Perhaps some of your fish fell prey to parasites...who knows...always qt though!! I appear to finally be on top of a velvet outbreak...hopefully there are no more fatalities.

I've had issues with macros for as long as I've been reefing. Could never get it to grow. Now I seem to have some halimeda doing okay and my chaeto appears to be doing decently well, too. YAY!

I went into these sandfish knowing almost nothing about them. A friend of mine sells live rock from the gulf of mexico and he always has those little goby i like them. He had a few and I really wanted them so I asked him to get me out some. Well unfortunately he couldnt find any, but he did find these sandfish. Doing a bit of research I learned they are related to basslets. They're from the genus Serranus, which holds Chalk and tobacco bass. I love basslets almost as much as I do gobies. I instantly wanted them, but I had no fixture for my light. He had a solution and built me a light fixture from PVC! So a few weeks ago I went up to his shop, fished out my goby with his help and then went home and put up the tank.

There is almost zero info on belted sandfish. No one really keeps them. They aren't the pretty basslets that everyone love. Their local fish too all over the western atlantic and I may have seen them whilst collecting in the gulf in rocky areas. They eat smaller fish (reason why I got the mollies for breeding, shrimp and crabs). I wanted two because they set up a hermaphrodite pair, but I have three. Immediately the smallest one began devouring baby mollies, my oh my these guys are hunters, actively searching the tank for prey. It was amazing too see. I decided to experiment with a smaller peppermint shrimp from my 20g. To see what size prey they could take down. The peppermint shrimp was just as big as the fish itself. I dropped it in and before it could even hit a rock or algae it was snatched in the water column. Living up to it's name, it's a bass. The little guy (named Oberyn) came out a cave, grabbed the shrimp and then went right back in the cave to finish its meal. So on top of mollies, I'm going to have to start breeding ghost shrimp.

Needless to say my girlfriend is upset with me for having the baby mollies eaten...

 

[Eienna]

LOL I'm not surprised...it's gonna be hard for me to let that happen myself XP

 

[Flameback Pair]

I like the looks of those sandfish, any idea how big they get?

 

[nawilson89]

I like the looks of those sandfish, any idea how big they get?

Some sources state 4 inches, others state 6. Either is fine for me since they're not huge fish. The only thing big about them is their appetite.

 

[nawilson89]

Was at my desk yesterday and happened to look back at the 29g to see something really peculiar.

The largest of my sandfish has a habit of chasing around the third one. It's rarely seen and isn't as fat as the other two. Which has been pretty normal for the few days I've had them. What wasn't normal of how the big one looked. It's entire body was covered in vertical stripes! I only had a quick few second glimpse at it, but I could make out the stripes clearly.

So I'm wondering. Could this have been a territorial look? Breeding colors? If it were the docile one then i would have assumed stress from being chased, but it was big mama, or papa.

This is what I enjoy about keeping less popular fish. With next to nothing to read about them I can see their behavior for myself.

 

[Eienna]

I know bettas get vertical bars when they're ready to breed....

 

[nawilson89]

I know bettas get vertical bars when they're ready to breed....

Very true. Female betta's sport a nice set of stripes.

This one only lasted for a bit though. Not sure what it could mean.

 

[Eienna]

Hmm. Probably dominance "flashing." That'd be my guess.

Can you get any video of them? I'd love to see your sandfish better.

 

[nawilson89]

Hmm. Probably dominance "flashing." That'd be my guess.

Can you get any video of them? I'd love to see your sandfish better.

I can definitely try in the future. Currently the tank is extremely cloudy. Seems to be a bacterial bloom. I'm running old carbon to try and attempt to clear it up. New carbon comes in the mail this weekend. I've wanted to do videos in the past, but haven't because there's always a baby crying at home!

 

[Eienna]

I see.
Watch your ammonia and nitrates, and make sure the tank is well-aerated...but it should clear up on its own.
Looking forward to one when you get it!
I couldn't get macros to grow for the longest time, but now I have a small patch of halimeda growing nicely. Yay!

 

[nawilson89]

I see.
Watch your ammonia and nitrates, and make sure the tank is well-aerated...but it should clear up on its own.
Looking forward to one when you get it!
I couldn't get macros to grow for the longest time, but now I have a small patch of halimeda growing nicely. Yay!

Going to do a 10 gallon change of water, in a bit.

 

[nawilson89]

Currently the 29 is incredibly cloudy. I've been running Carbon since Friday to clear it up but nothing has gotten better... so i'm kind of at a loss. If my daughter gives me a change today and doesnt decide to stay up until 10pm tonight i'll do a water change. I'm hoping I can keep the macro alive in the cloudiness. I've moved some to the 20g already just in case.



So no new pics yet.

 

[Eienna]

It should pass on its own. Just make sure you keep the water well-aerated and keep testing for ammonia and nitrite to be sure it's not toxic. Really no need to panic and start throwing water out.

 

[Eienna]

It looks scary, but I've been through some extremely foggy water before and it has always cleared up without incident. Just part of tank maturation.

Now, I WOULD be concerned about it if you had added a large amount of nitrifying or denitrifying bacteria all at once, but it doesn't look like you did that here - and even if you did, a couple of airstones would probably be sufficient to keep everyone safe until it clears.

 

[nawilson89]

It should pass on its own. Just make sure you keep the water well-aerated and keep testing for ammonia and nitrite to be sure it's not toxic. Really no need to panic and start throwing water out.

I'll test the water this week.

I'm really just worried about the macros.

It looks scary, but I've been through some extremely foggy water before and it has always cleared up without incident. Just part of tank maturation.

Now, I WOULD be concerned about it if you had added a large amount of nitrifying or denitrifying bacteria all at once, but it doesn't look like you did that here - and even if you did, a couple of airstones would probably be sufficient to keep everyone safe until it clears.

i added no bacteria supplements. just leftover rock and sand.

It may be the sand. When I got closer to the bottom the sand was looking a bit dark. Like a DSB going bad now that i think about it...

Circ pump and HoB is doing alot of aeration at the surface.

 

[Eienna]

Then they should be fine. Sounds like you needed to rinse the sand, but it'll be okay as long as it didn't have a decay smell. Might have to replace the filter sock with a finer-micron one for a while.

 

[nawilson89]

Then they should be fine. Sounds like you needed to rinse the sand, but it'll be okay as long as it didn't have a decay smell. Might have to replace the filter sock with a finer-micron one for a while.

Ah i see. I have no filter sock. I only have carbon.