Greetings from not so sunny this year Arizona!
We are quite lacking in experts in the area, so I am hoping to meet some gurus here.
I started with a 29g salt November 2009. As of today, it is the 29 + a 110 + 2 breeding tanks, 1 with target mandarins the other with ocelaris clowns, both 10g. I also grow my own phyto - tetra, nanno and iso, as well as my own brine, pods and rotifers. Among the population in the 110 are a pair of scooters and a pair of target mandarins. I have successfully hatched from the scooters, but I haven't perfected the post hatch set up to get the fry to survive. In the 29, along with 6 bangaiis that have yet to show me a single pair, I have a female green mandarin and a male scooter that have yet to be paired. I think it safe to say I got the bug bad.
My hope out of these guys is to get successful fry that can be traded to LFS to support my habit (the selfish reason), and, since these particular fish are almost never captive bred, to produce tank raised critters to reduce demand, at least locally for wild caught (the altruistic reason). Lofty goals I know, but one can never tell what one can do unless one tries.
To that end, I have been able to keep scooters and mandarins in smaller tanks without much live rock through intensive acclimation and training. My first targets lived 9 months in a 10g with timed jar feedings before a serious and sudden crack in that tank had me get them into the 110 post haste - the 110 only being about 2 weeks old at the time. I think we can all agree, once they were released into the larger tank, there was no hope of EVER catching them again. Live and learn - I now keep empty spare 10g's and breeder nets so that I have a place to put them in case of emergency without losing them forever. (that being said - those particular targets are still alive and well in the larger tank). They were replaced a couple of months ago with a female, and more recently a male, both trained to frozen, and both fat and sassy in a tank that by rights, they should never survive in. Last week they even started rudimentary spawning behavior.
Anywho, I hope to link up with other budding breeders to exchange successes and failures. If you are a breeder that can offer some advice, please feel free to do so!