I left out a few details:

There's no other fish, but lots of tiny starfish and small brittle starfish, snails, and at least two bristle worms.

There are also many 1/4 inch amphipods. So many that I say my tank has roaches.

There's about 40 pounds of live rock with tiny bits of coral trying to grow and 4 large hairy mushrooms.

I just bought a 1.5 inch mandarin for my tank, but I wonder if she'll get enough to eat. I see it striking at least once every 5 seconds, but only see it expel leftovers through its gills once in awhile. When it does, it's a good amount, like a small white cloud.

I'm new to the hobby and the LFS wouldn't sell me the mandarin till I convinced them it would have something to eat, I'm just concerned that I oversold the amount of pods in there.

Here are the details on my tank:

I bought an established Red Sea Max 130 with live rock and sand. I transported most of the water, and left some green goo in the bottom of the tank and sump on the back. The previous owner had installed an InTank media rack and placed the ceramic tubes in the bottom of the sump under the rack and where the protein skimmer would go.

When I shine a light in the bottom of the sump, I can see hundreds of tiny specks zipping around the ceramic tubes. There seem to be more every day.


My questions are:

• Should it expel leftovers with every strike?
  
• Should I add more pods to the tank, like the pods+ from reefcleaners or algagen reefpods.
  
• Do I need to feed the pods?

I'm thinking of adding some plant life to the area where the protein skimmer would go and lighting it up with a bulb up top or a submersible.

Thanks for the blog!

James

good info! i have a 125 and a 55 gallon sump. i will never go with a calcium reactor i just want to use kalk. right now i have no coral but i plan to start with lps and then move on to sps and pack the tank with it, i know this will be using alot of calcium so what if i set up a rubbermaid bin for regular top off and then a separate bucket or something with the max amount of kalk and just dose it as i see its needed. will this work?