Fish with a job?

[DeniseAndy]

Love the nano gobies and pico gobies. Look into trimma, eviola, masked, and the shrimp gobies are always a great choice. Some pico gobies are more difficult to feed though, so watch out on those.

Molly miller are the algae eaters. Great little guys. I have/had one in my 40, but she was tiny when I got her and have not seen her in a while (two weeks), but she blends so well and I have tons of hiding for her, so not surprised I have not seen her. This tank is in my fish room and looked at all the time.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Pipefish are known 'useful pickers', as they eat flatworms and other pests. You mentioned you had one, so I would look at him as the reason for flatworms disappearing.

The contents of dragonets stomach have been studied and 'we' have a good idea of their diet.

Some mandarins will accept prepared foods, but their digestive tract is so short they need to eat almost constantly, so even ones that eat prepared foods get the vast majority of their nutritional needs from pods rather than prepared foods.

I agree. The nutrition is primarily pods. but the point is the ecosystem. my pods are well fed too. Gut loaded.
Buy supplying the system with adequate food the specific species survived. And we do watch him eat frozen rotifers oyster feast makes Fat boy come running

In our observation the mandarins eat a lot of tiny things we cant see. I think thats pretty useful. They evolved into a niche and without them the system would suffer. Its impossible to say what they are eating sorr IMO. Do they eat snail eggs? flatworm eggs?

I do l ove to learn so if you have the data on the fish I havent seen Id love to. The fish has a short track so youd have to dissect thousands to really see the variation of what the eat I would think.


But I have 2 tanks one had no pipe fish its possible they lived out thier cycle with lack of food. The second tank had a scooter blenny and picturesque dragonette.


.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I agree about ecosystem. If you make the ecosystem specific to that fish or type of fish, you will have a very good system and healthy animals. You have to start with the very basic of the food chain. Many of us forget about the actual animals natural ecosystem and habitat and want what we like. That is a discussion not belonging here though.

For your tank, you can have some pretty cool animals if you want mostly corals and a couple fish. Just make sure you look into compatibility. There are really cool shrimps and crabs and such out there great for a 20L.

 

[Mandrew]

I was hoping for a shrimp goby pair, and eventually a mandarin. Then from there just corals I think.

 

[Spit.fire]

What does the Molly do?

eats algae, and has an awesome personality
oh ya and they eat aiptasia

 

[Chrisfish]

eats algae, and has an awesome personality
oh ya and they eat aiptasia

I have one as well, my favorite fish in my tank, and your right awesome personality!!

 

[Mandrew]

Here's a picture of my set up as of last night. I just added the rocks and live sand yesterday.

 

[Naiad]

I would look at one blenny as well for keeping down algae. You may also want to research wrasse as some do a great job of eating pests.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Only downfall with a wrasse as many are not good in such small tanks. FYI. Naiad, you may have missed this is only a 20g L. Sixlines will get too aggressive. However some of the pygmies would fit, but they are a bit more temperamental. You want to do your reasearch first. I kept thinking I wanted one then kept researching and changing my mind. I did this repeatedly. Still cannot remember why. Those memory cells not working like they should after three kids.

 

[Naiad]

Yea that's why I said research into them lol. I was trying to think of a fit but couldn't come up with one off the top of my head. That being said I didn't trust my memory not to be forgetting someone obvious lol.