Moving from a 55 gallon to a 20 gallon......

[cdeakle]

I want to move everything that I can from my 55 to a 20 for my girlfriend to have. Also wanna break down the 55 and start up a 75 predator tank.

Let me know how much from the 55 I can safley cram into a 20 without any ill effects:

Fish:

Six-line wrasse
Lawnmower Blenny
Green Mandarin

Inverts:

Cleaner Shrimp
Sand Sifting Starfish
approx.30-50 asst snails
approx. 10 asst hermits

Corals:

Zoo'z
Branching Frogspawn
Hairy Mushroom Corals

75# LR

Tell me what you guys think.....

 

[Anonymous]

hey 420 i have a 20...The fish are good to move into the tank, i think they'll do fine...cleaner shrimp and crabs are fine, prolly have to reduce the amount of snails to about a 1\3..Corals are definitely ok for the 20....this is IME of course...i have a few more fish in my tank then you do, that seem to do ok...i cant ask them how theyre feeling but their liveliness leads me to believe theyre doing fine....

 

[Anonymous]

BTW obviously you wont be able to fit 75lbs of LR into the 20

 

[reefann]

I would loose the Mandarin, unless you are ready to keep up with his "pod needs" Or he is accepting prepared foods other than brine...
_________________
Honda Transalp

 

[Anonymous]

i dont think mandarin at least(s. splendidus) will accept any other food than pods..ive had two..and neither will..i still have one in my 20 420puff and he does fine in there, since his needs are easily met being the only one competing for pods...my first mandarin jumped outta my tank...

 

[cdeakle]

So should I cram as much rock in there as I can or just a little bit? I would wanna pack as much in there as possible but I would probably only have about 2-5 gallons of water volume left 8O

I would move the refugium over to the 20 as well for my mandarin, I am having problems phattening him up, contemplating getting rid of my starfish and or six-line due to food competition. Either that or give my mandarin away to a fellow reefer. I didn't even know till it was too late that six-line's and starfish also eat pods.

I have a 175 watt ballast I can hook up for the 20. Everything in the 55 is currently under a 250watt 12,000k sunburst. Think the corals and livestock would be happy in the reduction from 250 to 175?

 

[Anonymous]

i'm not certain that a 20g aquarium will farm enough pods to sustain a mandarin. you wouldn't believe how fast my mandarin ate up all my pods. it was evident, obvious. i was farming them for around 6 months. i had a super refugium going on. it was pod mania. i considered that my reserve stock. in the main aquarium (30 gallons) i had all kinds of rubble rock and whatnot. at any given time of the day you could look and see that the rock and sand were covered in at least 5 or 6 species of small crawley things, probably about 100 or 200 in view. i'm not kidding, i turned it into copepod city USA.

it only took the mandarin about a week to eat up all the pods. the aquarium was devoid of crawlies. i had a hard time spotting one even at night with a black light etc.

 

[Anonymous]

yes hwarang a 20 will sustain a mandarin..IME with two, my first one committed hairi kari(however its spelled) but never showed signs of starving...at the same time it also has no other competition for pods...and 420, i have roughly 25lbs of LR and a 3" sand bed...youd be surprised at how many pods live in such a small volume...

 

[Anonymous]

Let me know how much from the 55 I can safley cram into a 20 without any ill effects:

Fish:

Six-line wrasse
Lawnmower Blenny
Green Mandarin

i have the feeling your Mandarin won't last very long with a Six-Line Wrasse in the same tank, especialy with such a small size tank.
the Six-Line will very likely go after the Mandarin as they feed at the same level, rock critters ... they could get along but i seriously doult.

otherwise i have just set up a 25G four weeks ago with a Mandarin which is doing very well. rock comes from the 60G i just broke down and is full of life. i will add a refugium pretty soon to keep up with diversity and pods population ...

Toine

 

[Anonymous]

I agree antoine, however i am not familar with anything in the wrasse family...i did how ever let chris (420) know that the mandarin would be ok in an established reef tank...

 

[Anonymous]

I think all three of those fish, at max size, are too much to keep in a 20 regardless of their other husbandry issues. Just my 2 cents...

I've stated my views on mandarins in nanos repeatedly, and I won't bore you with them here. In short, you're going to find it difficult, if not nearly impossible, to keep it alive long term with a 6 line and a sand sifting star in the same 20 gallon tank.