20L Lionfish Garden

[Corsair]

Edited to add current tank shot

2/26/11



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Original Post:

This is my little lionfish tank. The 'centerpiece' is this little guy, a Fu Manchu Lionfish. The aquascape and livestock selection was centered around that fish, and keeping him happy in such a tiny space.




The tank is a 20L, with a pretty basic T5 lighting. The filtration is a Subcurrent internal filter, and a 100gph pump with a rotating head for circulation on the other side of the tank.

The whole thing is kind of an experiment. I wanted a large amount of rock to give the lionfish plenty of surface area to play with. They are like their big cousins in the way they move around. The lionfish rules out alot of the usual clean up critters. No shrimp are safe, and I wouldn't trust that fish around hermit crabs either. I decided to toss in several types of macro, some softies, and let them all have at it to see who can take over the tank. Along the way I'll intervene as I see a need to, but I'd like to see how it sorts itself.


These pictures are about a month old






If you look closely under the center of those zoas there is a little bumpy yellow thing. It's a sea cucumber that hitchhiked in. There are at least two, but they are not very photogenic.




Current
*note: there is only one clown, the little bugger got in the panorama shot twice, lol






Everybody is doing well. There is the lionfish, a black percula, 3 blue green chromis, and a pajama cardinal. Astrea and nessarius snails help clean up, and 4 emerald crabs to go after the macro. I might try some tuxedo urchins to help out, but I need to glue a few of the rocks in place, and let the clam dig in better before I try.

The tank has been going about 6 months. I do bi-weekly water changes, and things stay pretty consistent. Nitrates are always present, but stay dead stable at about 20ppm. Not terrible for such a heavy stock load. Especially with the Fu Manchu eating live.

Let me know what you think.

[Jarob]

Its awesome!! I really really the look of the tank, very natural which is my favorite

[Mr Cob]

yes, great looking tank. Good job.

[Corsair]

Thanks for the kind words. Natural is definitely what I was going for with this one. It's an unconventional look to be sure, at least I don't see many tanks like it when perusing the web. I've been very happy with how it's going though. I'm a newbie to marine tanks. My background is in low-tech f/w planted tanks, which probably shows in what I've done with s/w. I like to let nature take care of nature to the largest extent possible, and figured the added biodiversity of saltwater would allow for a much more robust micro-ecosystem than freshwater could ever sustain. This tank has made me an absolute convert to marine systems.

The coolest thing so far has been watching the lionfish emerge from the shell it was in at the store. It was always shy and immobile there, and not very food motivated at all. Since hitting this tank, that little guy absolutely owns the space and exhibits much more of the interesting behavior this species is known for. It's also starting to take frozen foods. It's happened naturally, without any cajoling or intervention. Fu Manchus are notorious for refusing anything but live foods. Week by week, you can watch this thing slowly reprogram its way of 'hunting' to better track dead food moving in the current. All it's life it's looked down to track inverts moving along the bottom. It's learning to look up for stuff floating in current. Absolutely fascinating.

I've been doing some rescaping to open up the left side of the tank. Give me a couple of weeks to sort it out and I'll update the thread.

[justahobby]

Love the natural setting. I hope the clam does well for you. Are you feeding it anything? What live foods do you feed the lion?

[Europhyllia]

Very nice. I always like tanks that include macro, etc.

[Corsair]

Love the natural setting. I hope the clam does well for you. Are you feeding it anything? What live foods do you feed the lion?

The clam has been in there about a month and a half. I feed the whole tank DT's 2-3 times a week, but I don't target feed anything. Looking at the old pictures again when I put them up, it's grown a bit since hitting this tank. The ridges are more distinct, and the mantle is larger. It's not growing fast, but I don't really want it to either. The clam is my excuse to upsize this tank someday, lol.

The lionfish has been eating mostly ghost shrimp. Occasionally baby crayfish (very small ones), or peppermint shrimp. This particular one never cared for feeder fish of any kind. In the past couple of weeks it's been starting to peck at ordinary Hikari brine shrimp.

[Corsair]

Some updated pics. The lionfish wasn't using the big cave under all the rock anymore, so it was time to open up the aquascape a bit and add more coral. The tiny minijet was upgraded to a MJ1200 with the same hydor head on it at the same time.









I'm really happy with the changes, and the additional flow seems to have done wonders for the macro.