got ethical husbandry?

Peter's Garage Tank

So the Arrow Crab is hanging out with a large chunk of meat in his claw. It has to be the 6 line. Now the question is how did it die? Is it possible the LTA ate it and didn't fully digest it?
 
We floated him in the tank for 30 minutes and then released him. No quarantine. He was the only fish in the tank. He swam good for the first 2 days.. Besides corals the only other creatures in the tank are the LTA, an Emerald crab, a Arrow Crab, Sea hare, and a couple of Peppermint shrimp. Our plan is to re-home the LTA and them pursue some Mandarins.
 
Mark B said:
We floated him in the tank for 30 minutes and then released him. No quarantine. He was the only fish in the tank. He swam good for the first 2 days.. Besides corals the only other creatures in the tank are the LTA, an Emerald crab, a Arrow Crab, Sea hare, and a couple of Peppermint shrimp. Our plan is to re-home the LTA and them pursue some Mandarins.
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I think you said you got the six line from from Aquatic Collection. If so, they usually hold their six lines in tanks that have a salinity of around 1.021. dumping the six line in without drip acclimating it and getting the salinity closer may have caused some issues.
 
RandyC said:
I think you said you got the six line from from Aquatic Collection. If so, they usually hold their six lines in tanks that have a salinity of around 1.021. dumping the six line in without drip acclimating it and getting the salinity closer may have caused some issues.
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Yea, I should have thought of that.
 
Ran over to A.C. and picked up a male and female Mandarin Goby today. Man these fish are beautiful (I will post a couple pics. once they come out from the back of the reef) I was looking at one and it changed from predominately blue to fire orange - really cool. The down side is that they are wild caught and can be tough to tank raise. The tank looks to be well stocked with rotifers and pods but to be sure we ordered another million rotifers and a batch of tigger pods. Now "the lab" will be running 4 buckets of zoo plankton and half a dozen jugs of phyto.
 
Most tanks will take years to get enough population to support one Mandarin now you have two. They feed all day long looking for pods. It'll be a huge challenge to get them fat enough for long term stability. Especially your tank for being so new. Btw hope your lta is gone cause it will for sure eat that Mandarin.
 
scuzy said:
Most tanks will take years to get enough population to support one Mandarin now you have two. They feed all day long looking for pods. It'll be a huge challenge to get them fat enough for long term stability. Especially your tank for being so new. Btw hope your lta is gone cause it will for sure eat that Mandarin.
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Yes, the LTA has found a new home with ashburn2k. All of the 150+ pounds of live rock (including what I got from you) was old and there were populations of pods living on them. We have been adding healthy doses of phyto along with new copapods and rotifers and the populations have exploded, both in the main tank and the frag tank which is plumbed to the main tank and is a safe place for them to mate without predators. We also added a cryptic chamber. When we look at the tank closely, pods are all over the glass and every inch of rock has pods crawling all over them. We also have 4 buckets going with pods and rotifers. If by some odd chance the Mandarins catch up to production, I can always order more.
Cheers!
 
Flagg37 said:
I think this is the bigger concern than having 2 mandarins. I think you've got enough pods between what's already going in your tank and the extra cultures for two mandarins.
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No plans to add more fish at this time. They would have to start eating in order to clean out the tank. They are hanging out behind all of the rocks and I have not seen them actively feeding yet. Havent even been able to show them to the wifey yet
 
Finally got a pic. of the male. The iPhone camera doesn't do his colors justice.
mandar.png
 
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