Becca's (aka MontanaDolphin) Boo-Boo Tank

[MontanaDolphin]

Can anyone tell me how often I should "feed" my tank? Thanks in advance!!

 

[Uslanja]

Hi Becca! Feeding is a live and learn kind of thing. Depending on size, type and effectiveness of filtration, water changes, etc..... Monitor the water quality to see how things are doing and watch the tank to see how fast or if any undesirable algae and stuff are growing as well as watching your critters to see how they are doing. Feeding the correct size food for your animals is also an important criteria. Have a good balance in regard to a clean up crew (CUC) to keep things in order. But..... just to give you an idea of our schedule..... we feed phytoplankton every other day (1 drop per gallon) and frozen food once per week (2 frozen Rotifer cubes, 2 frozen Mysis cubes, 1 frozen Cyclop-eeze cube and every now and then a frozen brine shrimp cube. As well we have home made frozen food that started as fresh raw clam, scallop, squid and shrimp that we will substitute for the frozen cubes every now and then. The home made stuff is mixed in a blender until we think the size is correct and then poured into a freezer bag to form a thin sheet that we then freeze). The frozen food gets eaten by our fish, worms, crabs and some of the snails while the phyto feeds our filter feeders. We generally feed an amount that seems to be entirely consumed in 10 minutes. If there appears to be too much, then we adjust the amount on the next feeding. If we see algae starting or our parameters begin to go off we cut back on the feedings, increase the water change volume and frequency until it gets back in order. We also use a filter sock to remove suspended particulate and that gets changed the following day after the frozen food feeding and twice a week otherwise.

 

[NEWBIEEV]

Hi,

Wow, you sound just like me! I even had a praying mantis once. She wandered into our screen porch one summer and set up housekeeping. She hung out all summer long in my house plants and kept them pest free.

Great pics. and I love your boo-boo tank.

One of my big worries was the non-reef-safe stow aways on the live rock. I can't kill anything and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but after seeing your tank I think I'll just give them a home in my old nano tank!

Thanks for the inspiration and for you help with my picture problems.

 

[MontanaDolphin]

You're welcome Ev!! I love them all...although, the crab is on my hit list for killing my angel wing . Still can't bring myself to kill him though. He was apparently hungry, so why should he be punished for eating? LOL. I'm just making sure from now on that he is well fed. Don't want him devouring any other living thing in my tank!!

 

[MontanaDolphin]

Two new critters spotted. Not sure what the first one is...some sort of shrimp or crab I think, because I could see it's front claws grabbing stuff. I'm no expert, though!! The second is a new tiny snail.

I've noticed some missing critters, as well. The rolly-polly looking isopods, for one. Haven't seen any of them for a while. One of my anemones is missing. With that said, that crab that began as big as my thumbnail can now fit in the palm of my hand. Wonder if that has anything to do with the missing critters??....hmmm.....

 

[Uslanja]

Very interesting looking crab/shrimp critter! It looks like something that we have read about but can't seem to remember what or where! Maybe someone can tell you what it is?