Minimum Tank Size

[Donya]

anyone who starts small with marine ends up upgrading after atleast a year

Except those of us that start small and go smaller

You could also run two small tanks that are completely separate from each other, and switch balls of chaeto from each tank every two weeks or so, therefore giving the copods time to thrive free of predation.

Not sure how well that would work. A partition accross which pods could travel would almost certainly be better than swapping macro. I find that my pods tend to pretty much abandon ship and hide elsewhere as soon as the macro gets disturbed much, so I'm not sure how many you'd be able to carry over.

 

[chrissaysyes]

I think one quick swoop, grab the chaeto, hold it over a bucket while you move it to the other tank, then add it to the tank and dump the water from the bucket in. Should work. Doesnt matter if they jump off the ball from the mandarin tank while you're taking it out to put it in the growth tank since they'll just make more food for the fish.

 

[Donya]

There'd be no issue going from the fish area to the macro-only area...it's more of a problem going the other way. Really, all it takes is a slight jostle of my macro and the pods are up and running. Once they're in the water they don't stick to the macro and just slip through. You'd probably not get much more than a small snack for a mandarine each time you move the macro unless you plan on moving a truely gigantic amount of macro each time. It might work as a temporary situation if another option isn't immediately avilable, but would seem rather unreliable as a permanent solution.

 

[chrissaysyes]

Hmm...unless, you have your chateo in a bowl in a chamber, them just remove the whole bowl and place that into your tank.