Jestersix

Peter's Garage Tank

Coral reefer said:
I know you are trying to feed pods and rotifers etc... but I bet a ball of chaeto would do better for nutrient export.
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Chaeto may in fact be much better at nutrient export. Peter bought me a Gorgonian and as I was looking into how to care for it, I realized that our tank was missing the first 2 rungs of the food chain - phytoplankton and zooplankton. And if corals feed on these, shouldn't we try to keep them living in our reef tanks? and if they lower nitrates and phosphates all the better.
 
Living things in our tanks incorporate nutrients when they grow, but nutrient export only occurs when you harvest them out, like is done with Chaetomorpha when you remove the excess as it grows. If you let them stay in and they degrade or get eaten, like you would food phytoplankton or like people do when they don't take out the chaeto as it grows, you are not exporting any nutrients. In fact, if you grow them in a separate fed system and then add them to be eaten, you are just adding nutrients to your tank.

If you grow the phyto IN the tank in a refugium and export some with skimming, it could contribute to nutrient export.

The question of using them as food source for filter feeders is a separate issue and of course having more food for your obligate filter feeders would be expected to help them.


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Forgot to mention that we finally picked up a fish for our tank. We ended up with a six line. Seems to be a good fit for this tank. Thinking of possibly getting a Mandarin down the road a bit. Depending on how well we can keep the Rotifers and pods reproducing.

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six line eats pods, will compete w/ mandarin, and they get mean. i have one in my frag tank to keep the flatworms under control
 
Kremis said:
six line eats pods, will compete w/ mandarin, and they get mean. i have one in my frag tank to keep the flatworms under control
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Right, you'd have to have an over abundance of pods to keep both happy. The six line will hunt the pods down where as the mandarin just casually pecks at them when it happens across them.

As for your experiment, is your hypothesis that the nitrates and phosphates will go down from where they are now with the addition of the phytoplankton?
 
Gonna be real tough to measure any change downwards w those test kits. They both seem real low to start with. Or maybe I just can't read the colors on those things very well. One of the reasons I don't use them
 
Our latest coral additions (Thanks Ranjib Dey):

A Liam's Clove

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and a Green Pocilopora
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On a bummer note, I noticed that the Sea Hare hadn't moved in a couple days. Oh man-he was dead and stanky
 
Darn! The 6 line is nowhere to seen. We worked in the garage for several hours today and it never showed its face. There is a lot of rock in the tank so he may be hiding? If it jumped, we can't see it on the floor anywhere or the 3rd possibility - the LTA had him over as a special guest for lunch :eek: Oh well.
Made good progress on "the lab" today. We are up and running cultivating Rotifers, Tisbe Copapods, and we have the first two batches of Phytoplankton started. Our first batches are a mix of Isochrisis, Pavlova, Thalassiosira, Tetraselmis, Nannocloropsis, and Synecchococcus.
 
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