Hello! New to site, salt and our relationship :-))

[Ericandcasey]

Quick update,,,, We got 2 bottles of the copepods, a 1 gal nano tank set-up for them, and we added to our tank 2 lil cups of sand/gravel of copepods and amphipods for our manderins, they love it. We are setting up the nano as a breeding station so to speak to for the pods.

We tonight, and we are so happy we did, got a hand picked female psychadelic manderin for "Sal" our male... it was hand picked by Dr. Mac of Pacific East....... its still in the bag as we speak getting acclimated and let me tell you its a sight. Sal(short for Salvador; as in Salvador Dali the artist) is kissing the bag, piping gas, and just putting on a show for our female named "Dali". It is really really cute how he's already getting attached to her.

Well more to update later!

Eric and Casey

[Bifferwine]

That's cool, post pics of the mandarins, please!

[JellyMan]

Hi Eic and Csey just wanted to drop a line and find out how things are going.

[Ericandcasey]

We will be taking some pics today of the couple and other critters and such in the tank.... Our tank is doing so well, knock on wood. I wanted to ask something as i dont want to screw up the good thing we have going. We live about a mile from the atlantic ocean, now I know its winter here and like was wondering is there anything we can add from the "natural ocean" like water, sand etc that would help our tank or would adding stuff like that only hurt it?

thanks

[JellyMan]

I would actually reccomend it My first 55 gal was set up to cycle using ocean based properties ie water and sand it was beautiful knowing that I lived in tn and still had a piece of home (florida) in my tank. In august of next year Im going back down to gather livestock for my new tank as well. If you have the option to do it I would highly recommend it.

[Ericandcasey]

nice, we are about a mile from the ocean so i will do that.... do we need to like let the water / sand sit in a bucket or something for a day or two or anything like that?

thanks in advance
Eric

[JellyMan]

Mine did due to the drive I would go either way it already has bacteria look how long it has cycled

[bobby]

There is a chance of contaminating your tank with sickness or polution. From what I've read, anything you get should be from farther out in the water, when its closer to shore thats were the polution gets to it.

[JellyMan]

Thats should almost seem to be impossible with the water movement and biological filteration the ocean has.

[bobby]

It doesnt matter how good it is, there can still be parasites, a diseased animale, or polution. Parasites and disease are not only in our tanks its in the ocean too, also with all the peopel poluting its all over, sure it might not be out farther as bad because of dilution and filtration but its still closer to shore none the less.