Species Spotlight- Spotted Mandarin

It is easy to see why the spotted mandarin (Synchiropus picturatus) is sometimes referred to as the psychedelic mandarin.  It's incredible color combinations, small size, and availability make it a fairly common addition to the home aquarium, but it is also one of the species that often doesn't survive past a few weeks after bringing it home.  This isn't because they are disease prone or especially fragile, but rather due to inadequate human care.  In their native western pacific reef habitat, they spend their time continuously foraging for copepods, worms, and other inverts.  Though some individuals can successfully be weaned onto frozen foods, many won't and they are best kept by someone committed to ensuring a sufficient quantity of live copepods.  But if you do your research and provide proper care, this fish is an incredibly interesting addition to a reef system.  Their beauty and habit of "climbing" around the rocks and corals make them fascinating to watch for hours.  

Amanda's Updates

Progress!  Amanda’s tank is coming along nicely with the addition of live rock, and two damsel fish (the anemone was a 1 day temporary resident Aunt Sue was moving to another environment).  Once the kalkwasser trouble was resolved, the tank settled and cleared beautifully.  Once cleared up, it was obvious how poor the stock lighted hood that came with her tank kit was.  She purchased a new, inexpensive, much brighter LED light for just under $50.  While it made a significant difference to the visibility and beauty of the tank, it is only appropriate for a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) tank.  As Amanda intends to add corals at a later time, we would have advised spending the money now on reef appropriate lighting.  Even though it is a significantly higher expense, she’ll need to spend it at some point and she’ll be out the $50 on the light she bought now as she’ll have no use for it.  Hopefully they can make use of a site like Craigslist and re-coup some of the money when it is no longer needed.  Luckily, she won’t have to spend quite as much on a smaller light for a tank of this size than most of us do for our larger reef systems.  She’ll soon send detailed pictures of her fish.  Because of their popularity, we’ll be adding them as our first two “Spotlight Species”, a series where we’ll discuss individual aquatic species, from fish to inverts, in depth.  Check back soon for these additions.  As you can see, she's made quite a lot of progress since day 1!

Kalkwasser

Kalkwasser (German for “lime water”) or kalk, is a calcium hydroxide solution that is a beneficial additive in reef environments.  It adds buffering capacity to the water neutralizing acids and maintaining a high pH and adds calcium to the benefit of corals.  It is very cost effective and easy to use.  From any online pet supply retailer, one can buy a supply that will last months if not a year, depending on tank size, for around $12.  It is beneficial to use kalkwasser every time evaporated 

water is replaced.  It comes in powder form and a small amount is added to freshwater.  Similar to making a protein powder shake at home, the kalkwasser powder won’t dissolve into the water just by stirring.  It helps if you are able to shake the mixture for about 30 seconds in a container before adding to your tank or sump. 

The benefits and use of kalkwasser were described to Amanda and her parents.  They had a misunderstanding and thought they should use kalkwasser not just when replacing evaporated water, but when replacing ANY water; e.g. a water change.  They mixed their replacement water properly, but then added the designated amount of kalkwasser to the solution before adding it to the tank.  This resulted in a large quantity of undissolved kalkwasser making the tank extremely cloudy.  Luckily there wasn’t any livestock in the tank, and the water parameters haven’t been effected negatively.  The plan to slowly resolve the problem and salvage the water and sand that was already in the tank was to turn off the filtration for short periods, allow the kalkwasser to settle, then siphon it out from the bottom.  This was done about five times total with a great result.  This is a good lesson learned for all.  For more detailed information about kalkwasser, read an excellent article HERE at reefkeeping.com.

Nano Reef- Day 3

Today is day three with water in the tank.  Day two looked much the same as day one.  This morning Amanda turned off the filter to allow faster settling, then did a small water change and used that opportunity to clean out the mechanical filter and siphon out some of the cloudy water.  The water change was needed as 100% of the water came from a tank that was due for a change anyway.  Below is a picture of the tank during the water change, next to the shot from day 1.  As you can see, it's cleared up quite a bit.

Yesterday Amanda bought some API test strips, water conditioner, and her own small siphon, spending a total of $40.95.  She's already at just under $100 and has only a small percentage of everything she is going to need to turn this into a complete reef environment.  We'll continue to include every cost along the way as an example to any aspiring aquarist of what to realistically expect to spend.   

New Nano Reef Series

I'm excited that we are going to be working with the niece of Sue, one of our contributors, on setting up her first tank.  Amanda is 10 years old, has an interest in science, and intends to create a nano reef to use for an upcoming class science project, as well as future projects.  She will be making all of the choices and decisions on her own, with the guidance of our group to steer her clear of pitfalls.  I think we are all going to enjoy thinking like a kid again and will only benefit from learning more about what others, especially children, find interesting and attractive about fish tanks; particularly for those readers in retail or aquatic services.  For both Amanda's project, and our purposes, every step will be documented and shared on this site including purchases, costs, set up, livestock introductions, maintenance, etc.  Amanda is shouldering the cost 100% on her own and will therefore be creating her environment as cost effectively as possible.  It should be very interesting to new salt water hobbyists to see what work goes into a new aquarium, along with the costs.  Amanda's plan is to start simple with fish only/live rock using only what comes in an inexpensive boxed aquarium kit, and add features as she saves.