55 gallon fuge

[quader94]

seahorses in newyork i never would of expected that i assumed they needed warm water

[Reeftanker3295]

I dont know if they are pushed with the gulf stream like the rest of these fish or what but there are actually alot of them, just need to look. We do get alot of tropical fish around the inlets and sometimes people catch fish like cobia which are just lost, these fish just get stuck in the gulf stream and it drops them off here and they head into the bays straight through the inlets

[Cuttlefish]

eh.. im really hoping these baby seahorses find something to eat. I put a dash of everything i had in there with just enough current (air bubble flow) to keep things moving. phyto feast, live brine, phytoplex, reef plankton, microvert, zoo plankton, arctic pods.. havnt seen the lil guys eat anything but then again they are so small i dunno if id be able to tell. Anyway I realy want to save some of these guys so anyone know how i can get some live baby sh food by tomorrow?

I kept the other SH who was pregnant but did not yet give birth, so at least I'll be ready even if it happens tomorrow. But I was hoping to save some out of this litter.

last question bout SHs, all about reef from here on in I swear. someones gotta know

[Cuttlefish]

thats right fishboy told me baby brine and pods. Problem with brine is I was able to buy 2 portions of live brine from a LFS but they all seem to be adult brine. I have a good number of pods in my fuge that the adult SHs are munching on but they looks too large for them. PLus theres just nothing in the water column, all pods are crawling on something. Also Id have to sut the fuge down to keep them in there. Eventually they all wind up at the overflow. I put a sponge over it to block them, then just cleaned the sponge off in a bucket and out came 30 babys.

I just feel too guilty not to follow up on this. Even though 90% of these things will be gobbled up within a week in the wild, I still feel a responsibilty to 'em.

Will have to learn how to hatch brine shrimp is all. The LFS sells brine shrimp eggs so Ill have to wait whatever time it takes for them to hatch. Perhaps thats the best I can offer. Strong survive and weak perish. Maybe a few strong ones will learn to eat the phytofeast or somethin. Just ogt to hold out til I hatch some food fer yas..

[Cuttlefish]

K.. after doing a good amount of research I have concluded that it is extremely hard to do this and if I cant, it was certainly expected. I'll keep adding the best food I can get for them but its extremely doubtful any will survive.

take a look at the lengths this person went to and still like a 1000 deaths. Im still gonna give it my best shot though when the other SH births his brood.

http://www.aquatictech.com/captive.html

[Reeftanker3295]

I would love to keep one of the pipefish that i catch, they are small and greenish, you probably know what i am talking about. The lookdowns are absolutely beautiful, i would love to have some of those, ill try and keep one and im just hoping my tomato clown wont give him any problems. Does your lookdown eat brine shrimp? How do you collect these fish?

[Reeftanker3295]

I think small things like seahorses are too much to care for as babies, i think itd be better if you just caught adults or juveniles that are readily eating brine shrimp instead of raising all this food and having 100s of the seahorses die

[Cuttlefish]

Originally Posted by Reeftanker3295

Does your lookdown eat brine shrimp? How do you collect these fish?

Yea he eats em now. The first couple times i dropped some live brine in there he ignored em, but his buddy gobbled a few. The lookdown actually chased down a few falling piscine mysis but then backed off. The 3rd time i dropped live brine in he ate them up. The problem will be, as it always is with live brine shrimp, that the nutritional content stinks so Ill need to get him on something else. The pods in that section are almost extinct after 24 hours. Between all the seahorses and those local fish, they have been depleted. The left section still has tons of pods but these seahorses just dont let up. Ive been readin that each of them can eat like a 1000 a day. Thats not too coo. May have to only keep one or two seahorses as spposed to 3. I want to keep a large population in there and Ive now turned my predation free fuge into hunting grounds.

Will have to see if a balance of SH predation and pod reproduction can be sustained. Doesnt look like it though.

BTW I caught this LD with a seine net through eel grass and around rocky coves.

The pipefish appear to be quite hardy as well. They are one of the first locals that chowed on the live brine. I think i saw one eating frozen mysis too.

As far as the baby Shs. Id be getting into a whole other world of live culturing and crap that I really dont have the time or money for at this point. Wouldve been cool to tank raise SHs but too much work, even to the expert. Maybe another time Id give it a real shot, but culturing live rotifers and what not is major time/$ expense in itself, no less caring for the actual SHs. Not sure what Ill do with the next birth but im beginning to think short of rounding them up and dropping off back at the beach, the best all around use for them is live food for my MT. Dont think i can do that though lol, feeding live baby SHs to my fish.

[Reeftanker3295]

All the lookdowns i catch are gold or silver, none like the one you have, great specimen! How do you catch all of the other fish? Where in shinnecock would be good to go catch some of these fish? I love snorkling but waters always so dirty. Put some baby american eels in there, they will eat anything on the ground, i have one about 3 inches long that the second i drop in food he smells it and sniffs the sand until he finds the chunk, they are very easy to catch and raise and cool to watch, and also at the small size they are harmless, pretty easy to find too, i caught like 20 in a couple minutes at the great river near sayville last year.

[Reeftanker3295]

Cuttlefish whatre you using as your lighting? Im going to make the same setup as you except it wont be split, just one 55 gallon with lots of macros and some fish and my eel. What light would you reccomend for good growth and a light that looks good in the tank?

[Cuttlefish]

I use a 4ft Perfecto 216 watt T5 and two Current 24" Dual Bulb T5s for supplementation. I use 2 whites, 2 blues in the 4ft and one 24" has 10k/Act. combo, the other has 67k/Act. I was thinking about playing with a slightly different spectrum combo but so far this combo is workin out pretty good.

Heres what the refugium looks like today. 3 months since the first photo dump at photobucket.com, looking back on page one it seems ive made a few changes..

thats a stringing machine there btw, i find this to be a perfect place to string up some racquets



A few shots ot the rock section..






I tried quite a few settings on cam/phone but I just cant even close to a proper color rendering. The color contrast you see in real life just isnt there but i tried to get as much definition as possible.





The piece I i wanted to try and swap back to the owner has actually turned out to be my favorite.



This is the first Porites encrusting rock I added, about 2 months ago.


This little guy is my fav worm in this tank. It also shows a truer view of the encrusting coral's color and texture. Those little pink holes have what I call the "micro hands" that pop in and out to capture nutrients and plankton.



This rock was the last one i added, about 10 days ago. It seems its color is already changing, just as the last rock did. These corals will actually take on the spectrum properties of the lights above it. When I first got this guy it was light brown or tan. Its started to lighten up and im excited to see how much it changes.




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[Cuttlefish]

Tunicates:


Xenias:




CocoWorm:



Algae Section:


Lonesome Jim:

[Reeftanker3295]

Looks great, more like a main tank then a fuge now! haha

[Cuttlefish]

True its more os a display tank now but still possesses all the properties of a refugium. Refuge for things Id like to keep while helping out in maintaining water quality. Did another harvest in the macro side so startin to look less like an overgrown rainforest. Also more nutrients removed from the system. The guys at my LFS asked for some the next time I havested so I get to feel better bout not throwing all these pods n stuff to the landfill. Also lets me pay them back a lil for all the good deals theyve givin me. My LFS really is the fairest prices on the island, the livestock they get is high quality too and they basically just strip the whole operation down to good livestock at good prices and leave all the Bs out of it. Of course this means you have to educate yourself in other ways but if you prove to be a good customer they will offer up more wisdom voluntarily, cuz they definetely have it. Not a single living thing ive bought there in the past 4 months has been pulled out of my tank dead (except for my first mandarin which was my fault for not grounding the tank and not barricading the overflow. So quality is just as high as that big place on the south shore with prices sometimes twice as high.

[Reeftanker3295]

Im not sure on my native tank this year sadly.. I think im going to make my 55 a reef tank and upgrade within the next few years and then turn the 55 into a native tank, i just dont have enough time to collect this year and my kingfish died for an unknown reason so there really isnt a reason to start it up. Ill be better prepared next time, ill stay in the Hamptons alot and go collecting in the inlet every day to get select fish. For now, ill just have a 10 gallon with hermits, some plants, crabs, starfish and my little eel whos a total tank, hes never even been close to dieng in the year ive had him and he went from saltwater to fresh back to salt and lived in a water bottle for days.. Im hoping this winter will be a good one and i get the tank of my dreams with no algae problems and my little section of the reef and for now that native tank will just have to hold off and who knows maybe in the next couple years ill find an awsome deal on a big tank and get a huge tank and be able to keep all sorts of native fish.