One thing I found that helps a lot when drip acclimating is to do it in a styrofoam cooler with a lid. More consistent temperature and the lid makes it darker to reduce stress on the fish
They are nice, but proving challenging to feed so far. The muelleri is eating smashed mussels, but the Coradion hasn’t eaten anything I’ve offered. He’s constantly grazing the liverock, but a little skinny for my liking
Hi mate i saw you came to my channel where i collect my own fish ect for my hobby,,seems ppl like watching that kind of stuff,,sometimes i just don,t get the chance to respond to messages so i thought id come and see what your all about :)..from the wild as i do not buy fish, acclimatizing them i use a simple method using a drip line,,what you would have in your arm in a hospital so i can adjust the flow to very slow for fish that are not so hardy that would stress to adjusting to temp and ph to a faster one ,,i never use chemicals as from the sea they normally have nothing,,and if they did a cleaner wrasse does the job for parasites ..ich is normally controlled in a tank with uv (when they are free swimming)) and fish having a healthy immunity..yes as you said to me about breath holding,,i still snorkel to collect mostly in qld waters where i live but prefer my tank or hooker ..i normally collect reef safe fish and inverts for myself as i have soft corals so no butterfly fish although i do have dwarf angels that do not touch it ..i like your channel where you try to help ppl happy reefing :)
Looks like you and I share pretty much the same hobby! There is something different about having collected the fish yourself, and in some cases gone back to “ that spot”, weekend after weekend to try and catch it. Funny how with even difficult to catch fish, with enough time and experience you eventually find a way to net them. I would chase convict tangs all over the reef with snorkel, until I discovered they are easy to net at low tide, at night with a head torch in rock pools.
Dwarf angels are one group that have alluded me so far. Actually I only spotted my first, about 3 weeks ago- a bicolour down at Nambucca. Mind you the last few summers have been terrible for collecting with all the rain and chocolate coloured waters
when i lived in sydney myself and a friend collector used to go spend a weekend at nambucca 20 years ago,used to clean up there ..yes i agree when we got the flood water after the storms up here all the best shore dives for collecting were wiped,,and there were so many coral beauties ,key holes a few bi colors ,purl scales lots of koran,s,,fairy basslets but the viz is returning and last i was in a few weeks ago there were some fish there i liked ,,i have been in this hobby in and out for between 30 and 40 years ,,took a while to learn how to catch diff fish and how,,less stress is important but im good at it ..i try to stay away from tangs they stress just looking at them lol where we go in the bay its amazing what you see..atm lots of copper bands a few j baby personifiers tons of diff butterflys ,, wrasse and its not seasonal ..water is very warm this year 27c in some places this means the currents from the reefs have come closer so hope it brings lots of diff stuff we will see soon in the next months ,, :)
I always have a look in the bucket afterwards to see if there are flukes on the bottom. It’s hard to say if I’ve seen any- my eyes aren’t great these days! There is “ floaties” sometimes, but could be flukes, could be scales or mucous. Just another step I follow and doesn’t hurt. I’ll be doing it as a interim step as I add the reef fish to the new tank I’m working on
No. It’s possible, but does anyone really know which, if any would be transmitted. It’s possible the whitebait have external parasites, but they would be digested by the fishes digestive tract. They may have intestinal worms, that theoretically could be transmitted to the fish, but who knows. I think the benefits outway the possible risk. One thing I’d like to point out is that, is that I look at feeding whitebait as a nutritional benefit, and do not gain personal pleasure from the act of feeding live foods. I’m not one to enjoy the old goldfish, to the Oscar scene.
I think most reef keepers are "managing" parasites. I nearly left the hooby due to ick, although buying an oversized Pentair UV has helped me manage the population of ick, hence why im still in the hobby!
I’m glad to hear it. I freaked out, many years ago, when I first saw ich on my fish. I took them all out, did a hyposalinity for a month, and left the display fallow for 2. Now I look for more natural and holistic methods of keeping fish
