little critters

[daveyburt]

hey all! been meaning to join, just did.

....got a situation, open to opinions

46 bow reef/small fish (hawk, gobie(s), clown 2) LR out the butt, 2"mixed size LSB, 10g sump partitioned w/7gal refug.

on to the critters.......*pods, stars, etc.
heh, i dont have many .
i made the mistake of underfeeding my tank for a while and the fishies ate 'em up.
great water quality......but no little critters.
dont get me wrong....i have some, just dont see as many as i used to.

any hints on reseeding my tank with these crawlies?

dave

....glad to be a part of all this, i'm sure i'll learn a lot.

[Scott Merrill]

check out greg hiller. he might be able to help you out.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=203156

[Heavydc2]

as far as the pods go, if you have some and your feeding your tank well, theyw ill come back. Might be worth setting up a small refugium, either hang on, in the sump, or above the tank (my choice), where the bops can grow protected from the preditors in the tank.
How is your invert population?

[daveyburt]

awesome link ** thank you

invert pop. - I imagne you speaking of crabs/shails type of thing.
i'm guessing 20-30 various hermits and 10-15 various snails- seem to fare well-except when hawk gets hunting.

-i've been upping the phyto feeding frequency as well as my mush mix.
-time will tell.

I do have an isolated refuge. in the sump with about 3-4" of sand and rock as well as calpura.....populations here are not what they used to be either. i try to feed phyto to my overflow so the sump gets the concentrated dose of food.

contemplating more sand in main tank, any opinions on a supplier would be welcome.

thanks again for the info!!

will serpent/brittle (kinda large) stars eat these valuable little critters?

[Heavydc2]

If you do have an isolated fuge, make sure there are some pods in there and you should be all set. Don;t be affraid to feed it some flake food too. My pods go nuts when I feed my fuge.
As for the inverts I would say your fine wiht the hermits but I woudl make sure youhave some snails in there too. The searpent might (I just don't know) eat some pods but if you keep it well fed it will be fine. I feed my serpents once or twice a week with some hcunks of shrimp and squid and they are pretty happy with that. If you see some pods try to grab them and throw them in the fuge, you should see that population skyrocket.