Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster
Thank you, JLynn, for your input!
On the Lookdowns, I agree my tank is maybe too small. It is 30 inches tall and 5 and a half feet long. The DSB will be confined to the left two thirds of the tank with the berm/planter I am building for it, so no seagrass in the right third around the fake root. The reason I thought I might get away with it is the gyre flow. Did you look at the Lookdown/gyre tank in Atlanta I mentioned? Those fish were basically swimming in place.
My thinking is that having a strong gyre flow around the tank, in effect, makes it larger. Think treadmill, hamster wheel or lap pool. To swim from one end of the tank to the other against a strong current is like swimming a much greater distance. So that's why I'm thinking I might be able to pull it off. So I may still try it with small fish, and see how they do as they get bigger. As I said, I have no problem removing fish if they aren't 'working'.
That Maxspect Gyre pump is cool! I may get one to supplement what I have already.
I had not seen that about the male Angelfish reverting to female. Was it the Cherub Angelfish? Well, if that happens in my tank, it's probably OK. It's the males that are the problem. I'd be more concerned if they all decided to turn into males! So, I'm not necessarily trying to breed them, as much as observe natural behaviors, and keep more than one peacefully in my tank.
Yes, I've considered the Cardinalfish. The great thing about them is their willingness to breed in captivity. On the other hand, to me this fish is boring. They barely move! Maybe with my large(ish) tank and the gyre flow, they'd be more interesting. A school might be cool though.
I've looked at Horned, Red-Lipped and Eyelash Blennies, which are all Caribbean species. I think one of these will work. I just have to dig a little deeper to find a winner. This would be a champion microalgae grazer, that doesn't pick on other fish. These fish tend to get added early to help the cleanup crew. Maybe I could hold off until later to add one, so my other small, timid species could get established first.
I think there are Caribbean Scooter Blennies (Dragonets). Not as colorful as psychedelic ones, but they are interesting little guys. The main concern with these fish is making sure they don't starve. Since I plan to build a large and diverse population of plankton, it could work. The tricky part will be maintaining population levels to support all these little fish. I do plan to have a refugium to help in that regard.
I'd love to do a Frogfish or other stealthy predator, but I'm afraid he'd eat all my small fish. As I said with the Lookdaowns, maybe a breeding school of feeder shrimp would help. I'll think about it.
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As I matter of fact, I seem to have missed your reference to the Atlantan tank. But that is an interesting theory... it seems plausible that a strong gyre could create a sort of treadmill for the fish. In that case, go ahead and give it a shot!
However, I think you should wait until the lookdowns get larger to amp up the gyre action, because if you had such a strong current from the beginning, it would move the sand around and make it harder for the seagrass to take root. If you wait, on the other hand, you would give the seagrass time to develop a stronger root system and grow a bit so that the current would not pose a threat to them and their roots would halt sand erosion. I would be worried that perhaps some of the other, smaller fish would have trouble swimming in such a strong current, but if the seagrass had grown to cover the part of the tank you planted it in, those fish would probably be ok if they swam in the seagrass, where they would be shielded from the current.
As for the angelfish, it was not just one particular species, but rather a note that no one seemed to have been able to maintain a harem of ANY angelfish species in a community tank (in the long term, at least). Still, if you are fine with a sorority, that's not a problem.