How do I approach this situation??

[Doan]

Today I am getting 2 bags of bugs for my goby. One contains 100 mysis shrimp one contains 100 copepods. I was just gonna dump um all in my fuge and be done with (after acclimating them of course) but I was told that the mysis will eat all the copepods and I don't want that ... you know the defination of fuge being a predator free environment all that would mess everthing up. So I was told to put the copepods into the fuge and dump the shrimp in the main tank. Here is my quandry... How do I get them in there and at least give some of them a chance to survive for a little while? It would be really cool if I could sneak them in and my little goby could find them on his never ending hunt picking some off but also having some of them get into the rocks and breeding thus renewing the food resource after time. Is there a way I can sneak them in? or do I just dump them in and hope for the best?

Suggestions?

Doan

 

[michealprater]

I would submerge the bag and then spray them into your rock work. There will be a feed frenzy at first, but this will give them a slightly better chance being closer to hiding spots.

 

[BBReef]

i have tons of mysids living and breeding in my LR. i don't have any fish predators for them though, just a brittle star, two cleaner shrimp a bunch of crabs, and they arn't the best at catching them. you'll want to get them into the rock to give thema chance to survive and breed. just dumping them in will allow some to get in, but also a lot to get eaten by fish, etc. i would try the turkey baster thing. suck them all up with a turkey baster and skirt them into a direct hole or near a piece of porous LR. doing this at night or when the lights are off will also help their chances. HTH

 

[Biggen]

You could also feed your fish well before hand. Also putting the critters in with the lights out will help.

 

[SquishyFish]

why not feed the fish as your putting them in...more food in the water increases their chance of survival.

Squishy

 

[ellisz]

Doan: What did these critters cost? I need to do the same thing ...

 

[Doan]

I got them here http://www.aquaculturestore.com/swinverts.html and they cost me about $40.00 I actually found this link in a post here on monday. The seem real easy to work with and if everhting shows up alive I would say it's well worth it.
I'll let you know the condition they show up in when I get home.

Doan

 

[Brisc0]

Everyone here has the right ideas, feed your fish well, turn off your flow, get the baster and gently blow them to your rocks, give them about 2 hours before you kick your circulation back on. Thats what I did in my tank.

 

[Doan]

Thanks all Thats what I will do..


Doan

 

[ellisz]

How did your pods come out?

 

[Doan]

It looked pretty bad in the bag... Gotta say it was looking iffy but I put the pods in the fuge and did the lights out no flow baster thing on the mysis. Well I had mixed results... The mysis were just pummeled from what I can tell. Have not seen one since that day. But as a very postive side note it got my powder blue eating something other than algea on a clip. So it was worth it. Now I can feed her frozen mysis and live or frozen brine.. She loves the stuff. Will not eat flake or frozen food yet but that is another thread, back to the pods. I have to say I totally felt jipped when I opened the box to find a bag with about a cup of water in it with just a few little white specks. But about 2 weeks later My tank has literally exploded with pods... It is just unreal.. and they are much bigger (I guess from not being hunted to extintion by the goby) once they hit the main tank as well. So I have to say with the addition of the pods the carlupa and the cheatamorph algea the Fuge is the best thing I have put on my tank other than my Aqua C.

Thanks for all the help guys
Doan

 

[alarmguy66]

why not turn al the lights off before dumping them in? My fish go into slow-mo at night.

 

[ellisz]

Thanks for the update!

Do you let the pods migrate to the display via the pump or do you move some manually?

I need to get this set up for my Mandarin....

 

[Doan]

I had the lights off but I also did this at about 6pm when I got home from work and my fish know exactly what is going on at 6pm. I walk in count them make sure xenia is pulsing (I read somewhere that will be the first thing that will stop if something in the tank is wrong. Don't know if its true but I do it) Check the temp take little dish I use to thaw out food and take a little bit of water out to thaw out food and soak algea for tang. So turning off the lights did nothing to make them relax. They just had a little frenzy in the dark. Kinda like a fish Rave if you will. Also I let them just let the pods migrate in and they seem to be in there in abundence. No anthropods.. May try them next but copepods everywhere I have the algea stacked pretty high so mabye that helps but I have noticed quite a gain in my pod numbers since the purchase. It may just be a concidence cause I got it about a week after the fuge but I want to be positive and I think that it deff. helped jump start the population.

Doan