Peach02’s 33G Reef

[ngoodermuth]

Just to give you an idea of the nutrients you will need to be dumping into your tank to keep a pair of mandarins alive with nutrimar ova or other frozen foods:

That was my QT tank for my current mandarin. I kept her going for quite some time in a 20g tank using ova while my main tank was running fallow (twice, first fallow period failed) But that^ was the result of the number of feedings required to do so... algae literally covering every single surface.

And she was still “thin” going into my main tank :/

 

[Peach02]

That’ll be tricky due to shipping. The stuff is just prawn roe and Australia has a strong shrimping industry, so you might want to check with your local fish market to see if they can get it for you.

should I look for it live or would frozen etc work two?

 

[Peach02]

Here’s an update sorry for the delay
I added a torch coral, leather coral and male mandarin fish between updates, I plan on getting another mandarin fish but it’s next to impossible to catch them in the tank they are in at LFS even the owner was surprised when they caught this one
The leather coral had a sook when I added it and looked pretty bad but made a full recovery
The mandarin fish is hiding a lot but I’ve read that’s normal, it’s not skinny but I’m yet to observe it eating but I have put tons of food near it and it’s moving occasionally
Here’s the photo spam,

 

[samparker]

Nice thread. I'd probably ease up on the fish side of things now and just let the tank settle. Keep up your water changes, perhaps review the lighting you currently have (looks very warm spectrum?) and perhaps start to introduce some basic frags to the tank to see how they go. Once you have some corals growing all around the tank, with that fish mix you have already - it will be stunning

 

[Peach02]

Nice thread. I'd probably ease up on the fish side of things now and just let the tank settle. Keep up your water changes, perhaps review the lighting you currently have (looks very warm spectrum?) and perhaps start to introduce some basic frags to the tank to see how they go. Once you have some corals growing all around the tank, with that fish mix you have already - it will be stunning

Thanks! I just plan on getting one more mandarin since the one I have now seems to be missing its friend that was in the tank with him and after that I'm thinking of adding some zoas or a hammer coral next

 

[Peach02]

Sorry for no updates recently been going through a rough patch with mental illness but I think I’m on the way back up, mandarin fish is going good, Corals are good, haven’t tested in a little but planning to tommorow As well as removing these worm things and a aspacia I noticed thismorning

 

[Peach02]

Update 13/4/19 DD/MM/YY

Tank is going well only problems I’ve noticed are my thermometer and food clip section caps have started to fail but that’s easily fixable. And there seems to be a string like creature moving around but I haven’t seen any damage done oh and my firefish are hiding but that’s natural

New additions
2kg of dry rock
2 nassarius snails
2 trochus snails

Next additions
Thinking of adding a peppermint shrimp or two to manage algae, dead fish skin, detritus, potential aspacia and I’ve heard they attack whatever the white line thing is
And some corals so future additions are
1. Peppermint shrimp
2. Another Leather coral but diffrent type
3. Zoanthids
4. White hammer coral
5. SPS frag
6. LPS orange coral if my LFS get another in that I like (photo of one I liked below) and a hammer coral I liked

the placements I was thinking where

 

[Peach02]

@samparker @ngoodermuth @NY_Caveman @Katrina71 @tdlawdo @Crustaceon

Sorry for the long gap between updates had a lot of crap going on.

Good:
Kept up with water changes and needed testing. Ive added some zoanthids, a hammer coral and a sps frag also added a deep sand bed and light to my refugium also saw my mandarin fish take mysis shrimp!

Bad:
one of my hermit crabs died, likely due to a hermit crab fight as it was found outside its shell. A fire fish of mine has also died and I saw no sign of what killed it apart from a small black mark behind its right fin but that could of been decay, the other firefish has become quite shy now

thinking of getting another fire fish, another mandarin, a blue sps frag and another coral that I couldn't ID that I saw a while ago at my LFS

 

[tdlawdo]

@samparker @ngoodermuth @NY_Caveman @Katrina71 @tdlawdo @Crustaceon

Sorry for the long gap between updates had a lot of crap going on.

Good:
Kept up with water changes and needed testing. Ive added some zoanthids, a hammer coral and a sps frag also added a deep sand bed and light to my refugium also saw my mandarin fish take mysis shrimp!

Bad:
one of my hermit crabs died, likely due to a hermit crab fight as it was found outside its shell. A fire fish of mine has also died and I saw no sign of what killed it apart from a small black mark behind its right fin but that could of been decay, the other firefish has become quite shy now

thinking of getting another fire fish, another mandarin, a blue sps frag and another coral that I couldn't ID that I saw a while ago at my LFS

Good to hear the mandarin Is eating!!

 

[Peach02]

9/6/19
Sorry for the delay in updates been pretty busy and mental health is being a pain in the ***
In the meantime I’ve added a few more frags thanks for the idea @samparker I’ll have some photos below, I also upgraded my light to a AI prime HD which is wonderfull. The frags have been in there Thebes longest one about a month the newest about a fortnight, they all are doing well but the green star polyp seems to be getting too much flow one minute then happy the next. I also finally managed to get a female mandarin goby that was fat, coincidentally they where originally in the same frag tank at my LFS but we couldn’t catch the female because it swam under the corals a lot until it finally got caught in the whir somehow. The two are seemingly friendly and notice eachother but no signs of dancing yet. One hermit crab is growing super fast and the others seem to be plateauing (there are spare shells available)

Planned additions
Chaeto algae
New skimmer
Blood shrimp (in a few months maybe)

Only problems I’ve had is the male mandarin fish got bit by somthing on its front fin but it’s healing and I haven’t seen any further signs of aggression and no impaired swimming ability
The anemone also turns out to be a bubble tip and also decided to attach tch itself to the clam before I removed it when the clam started to show signs of stress

Photos below:

 

[Peach02]

Quick update, added some chaeto algae about a tennis ball and golfball size worth

And got a great deal on a blood red fire shrimp and its aclaimating now about 1 drop a second likely for 2 yours #reefsquad any advice for drip aclaimating this is my first time doing it

 

[tupes]

Think you'll be good how you are doing it.


Also want to note, now that you have the cheato dump a bunch of pods in there and they will populate to help feed the mandarin because they can go through hundreds a week, especially a little fat one like you have there. She looks to be in a lot better health than how I've seen some in a long time.

 

[Peach02]

Think you'll be good how you are doing it.


Also want to note, now that you have the cheato dump a bunch of pods in there and they will populate to help feed the mandarin because they can go through hundreds a week, especially a little fat one like you have there. She looks to be in a lot better health than how I've seen some in a long time.

Thanks for the advice the problem is getting live copepods in Australia is a pain in the *** but I'll look into it once the chaeto settles in

Also how do you get the reef squad badge?

 

[tupes]

Try algaebarn.com, podyourreef.com, aquariumdepot.com and Ebay for live pods.

I highly recommended both Pod Your Reef and Algea Barn. Both have great customer service and product

For reefsquad badge you have to be a member of the Reef Squad.. To be a member you have to be nominated by another member of the RS.

 

[Peach02]

Try algaebarn.com, podyourreef.com, aquariumdepot.com and Ebay for live pods.

I highly recommended both Pod Your Reef and Algea Barn. Both have great customer service and product

For reefsquad badge you have to be a member of the Reef Squad.. To be a member you have to be nominated by another member of the RS.

Nether of them ship to Australia but I'll find some
Is there like a guideline to get nominated? Like what you have to do

 

[tupes]

Be active, courteous, knowledgeable, helpful, welcoming

 

[Ron Reefman]

Nether of them ship to Australia but I'll find some
Is there like a guideline to get nominated? Like what you have to do

Being here at R2R for a while, show that you have some knowledge about the hobby, some specialized knowledge about some area in the hobby is helpful, and a history of being helpful to people who are asking questions... even spending some time welcoming new people to the forum.

As an example, in my case, I'm retired and spend some time here every day answering questions based on my 15 years in the hobby. I have a pretty strong general knowledge, and I've done some DIY projects along the way including building my own 40g cube DT and 40g sump/refugium. I also worked for an aquarium led company for a couple of years answering questions on their sponsor forums at 3 different sites. I also do some livestock collecting in the Florida Keys and have a fairly good background about anemones, especially Rock Flower Anemones.

None of these kinds of experiences are required, it's more about your over all experience, knowledge, helpfulness and willingness to commit time to it.

 

[count krunk]

And also somewhat of an expert in a subject, or very knowledge in several

 

[SPR1968]

Nether of them ship to Australia but I'll find some
Is there like a guideline to get nominated? Like what you have to do

Although this might not be an ‘official requirement’ (but I think it is) you will notice that most if not all (and now I will need to check! Lol) of the reef squad have the R2R Excellence Award, and to get this you have to be very courteous, friendly, helpful, welcoming and generally a good member of R2R and try to make it the great and friendly place it is. If your experienced in certain things that will also help. And then you ‘may’ get nominated and selected and it will generally come as a great surprise out of the blue, and honour, when you do.

We’re all here to try and help out were we can and I called in because someone put out the reef squad ‘bat call’ and I think the acclimatisation question has been answered as ok.

 

[Peach02]

Being here at R2R for a while, show that you have some knowledge about the hobby, some specialized knowledge about some area in the hobby is helpful, and a history of being helpful to people who are asking questions... even spending some time welcoming new people to the forum.

As an example, in my case, I'm retired and spend some time here every day answering questions based on my 15 years in the hobby. I have a pretty strong general knowledge, and I've done some DIY projects along the way including building my own 40g cube DT and 40g sump/refugium. I also worked for an aquarium led company for a couple of years answering questions on their sponsor forums at 3 different sites. I also do some livestock collecting in the Florida Keys and have a fairly good background about anemones, especially Rock Flower Anemones.

None of these kinds of experiences are required, it's more about your over all experience, knowledge, helpfulness and willingness to commit time to it.

Ok cool thank you