29g Low Tech Lps/softies

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Ok, PH is at 8.4.

I found my old hagen test tubes, much easier to read the chems with.

Fed corals 7 hours ago params are-
Kh-8.4Kh/150ppm (lower than I would like)
ammo-0-0.2ppm
nitrate-10ppm
grav-1.025
calcium-460

Next week I'll add 1 maybe 2 more critters. Pretty sure I lost a nassarius, doesn't surprise me; I have read that they should be one of the last ones in as they eat lots from the sand and I don't have that much for them to eat(despite tossing in half a algae wafer a few times).

Don't think I'm ready for fish. I may add one either basslett or goby eventually, but not for a few months. Considering other herbavore inverts atm and checking for compatibiliy wuth my CBS
 
Nassarius are obligate carnivores. Algae wafers won't help; they need meaty food. They also don't feed from things directly in the sand like a sand-sifting animals unless there is something meaty and decaying that has been buried. The usual pattern of behavior is that they hide in the sand and then come out to feed when they smell food.

No need to worry about compatibility with grazing inverts with a CBS unless you are putting in something really, really tiny like a Stomatella snail or something that could possibly be had by a stray nip. They leave snails alone and I've had them in with plenty of fleshy grazers too like sea hares with no problems.
 
Ya, I just read that about nassarius lol. Makes sence why they come out when I feed the NPS :p.

What is your oppinion on peppermint shrimp and red crabs? I would like to get a red crab to start chewing on some of this bubble algae.

Also, what is tyour take on Cerith snails and nerites? I'm rather hard pressed to find info if they will eat my coralline algae or not, I don't have enough of it yet and cannot afford to have a ton of things grazing on it.
 
What is your oppinion on peppermint shrimp

Great animals. Sometimes they are a bit of a PITA in smaller tanks (like 5gal and under) if in large quantities. Short of that unusual situation though, they are usually nocturnal and shy. Taking out Aips requires quite a lot of them sometimes; they are unlikely to exhibit the behavior with <4-5 in most tanks, sometimes requiring more in bigger tanks.


and red crabs?

Species ID first! Never buy a crab without an ID to at least the genus level. I have no idea what a "red crab" is...there probably a billion crabs that are red lol. Maybe one or two are good reef inhabitants and the rest are no-nos. For example, things I can think of that contain red species (or species that have a lot of red on them):

Mithraculus, Chlorodiella, or closely related -> great stuff*.

Uca & other fiddlers -> not fully aquatic, so bad for a reef tank, but sadly show up in the trade anyway. Often it's females, so the giveaway big claw isn't there.

Graspoids -> nasty fast predators, great fun in a species tank but a devil in most other tanks. Successful cases in community tanks usually involve pretty big tanks.

Anything else -> leave it at the shop unless you have a species tank for it.

*Mithracids and such are great stuff when properly fed. No crabs are herbivores and the vast majority of bad Mithracid crab behavior results from people trying to keep them as grazers rather than as the omnivores they really are. A crab that wants meat and can't find it by any other means than predation will eventually explore that option.


Also, what is tyour take on Cerith snails

Good for the substrate. They go where the tastiest munchies are though, so some people get them for the substrate and then grumble about them spending all their time on the rocks/glass instead.


and nerites?

Gotta be careful combining them with some hermits (namely Calcinus species) but otherwise good animals, although you also have to be careful with the species of Nerite as well. A lot of them are tidal and like to leave the water, so in uncovered tanks with high waterlines they can end up escaping. I keep my waterlines very low in my Nerite-inhabited tanks.

Nerites are also not very effective CUC animals compared to larger Turbinids like Turbo, Tectus, etc. species. Itty bitty mouths are just not as good at cleaning large areas, so it takes a lot of Nerites to do the job of a single Turbo. And finally, they also lay little white calcareous eggs all over everything. Flat surfaces are a favorite place to put them. So, if you want totally clean glass...lol.


I'm rather hard pressed to find info if they will eat my coralline algae or not

They will not. No grazing snails are really equipped with the tools needed to make a dent in thick, calcareous algaes. Sometimes they'll be able to peck at little patches on the glass, but that's about it. Sea urchins are typically employed as coralline eaters because they can literally eat rocks by grinding away with their teeth. Snails mainly graze by "licking" surfaces, which is pretty ineffective at dealing with hard stuff. It takes an awful lot of licks in the same spot to have much effect on anything calcareous (and so my glass gets covered in annoying speckles of the stuff even though my tanks are full of snails lol). Sometimes big grazers can do damage to calcareous macros like Halimeda, but that usually happens when they're big enough to get their mouths around portions and start to "chew" more than "lick."
 
Sweet. I was looking At the mithra crabs for my bubble. The algae looked cool at first, now it's getting annoying.

I have a few HH crabs, fany to pull an ID? I have given up lol.
http://i.imgur.com/tlspY.jpg
If behavior is any indicator, they rarely leave their cranny if ever.


As far as LR is concerned, 38LBS too much? I almost want to add another 8-10 lb piece for the scape.

I'm also seriously considering a sump and skimmer, or at least a HOB skimmer. My nitrates aren't going under 5ppm, although this could be from my HOB filters but I can see this being a serious issue in the future.
 
Emereld crabs are mean't to be good for bubble algae. Nitrates at 5ppm I would have thought is fine.
 
You won't zero out nitrates in a new tank. That's the sort of thing that often takes months to reach in a stable way. Why would you suspect the HOB filters of being a problem? 5ppm is really quite good.

I have a few HH crabs, fany to pull an ID? I have given up lol.
http://i.imgur.com/tlspY.jpg
If behavior is any indicator, they rarely leave their cranny if ever.

Claws shape (and collection region too sometimes) would be needed for absolute certainty, but this looks like a young Mithraculus forceps or very closely related species within the Mithraculus genus. Compare here, keeping in mind that relative sizes of the claws to body often change with age in Mithracids:
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/sertc/images/photo%20gallery/Mithraculus_forceps_S806.jpg


As far as LR is concerned, 38LBS too much? I almost want to add another 8-10 lb piece for the scape.

Because the density of rocks is so variable, there's not really a weight limit (within reason obviously; e.g. I'm assumig the stand isn't in any jeopardy). Just make sure you have sufficient flow around the rock. Dead spots and interior cavities collection debris can be an issue with large stacks of rock.
 
I was always under the impression that you wanted to keep nitrates at 2.5parts.

Donya, that is very similar, especial with regard to carapace shape. As for region, it came off my Tampa Bay LR.

I have been keeping my flow on the low side, the CBS seems to hate it with a passion.

Is 10 more ble legged hermits too much? It sort of seems like it, but then again I have heard people say 1 per gallon so idk. Any tips for a very very low bio load CUC stocking?

Decisions decisions
 
My experience with mixing blue legged hermits and red legged hermits was lots of 'missing' blues and lots of reds wandering about holding home extensions :)
 
I was always under the impression that you wanted to keep nitrates at 2.5parts.

:huh: Many kits can't even measure that accurately.

A lot of people have FOWLRs running at 20ppm (sometimes more, but obviously nobody's going to recommend higher!). For reef tanks, 10ppm or less is usually fine, with 5ppm and under being really good.

I have heard people say 1 per gallon

CUC per gallon rules are bunk. It's a waaaay to simplified way to think about marine tanks; just think about the tank as an ecosystem for a bit. One animal of one size/type can often do the job (or place the same demand on the system) of several animals of another size/type. Example: after redoing my 55gal a while back, I discovered that one large hermit was doing the job of 24 smaller hermits. If I put 1 per gal of the big ones in, there wouldn't be much room left for the water.

Stock as you see need arise in the tank, otherwise you'll risk CUC attrition. If there's no need at the moment, don't add anything until there is. It's not uncommon to need to add a few more CUC after the first few fish have gone in. The idea that CUC has to all go in first is an out-dated and again massively over-simplified approach to reef keeping that doesn't take the well-being of inverts into account much. The process is still CUC before fish in a general sense, that a few CUC animals are best in before any fish, but not the entire CUC that will be needed once the tank is fully established and matured.


My experience with mixing blue legged hermits and red legged hermits was lots of 'missing' blues and lots of reds wandering about holding home extensions

Indeed, mixing species is usually a bad idea because of the risk factor. Paguristes cadenati and Clibanarius tricolor are also the combination with the absolute worst record for starting wars. If there are P. cadenati hermits in the tank right now, C. tricolor is best avoided.
 
I think I have C.tricolor aka blue legged hermits.

Still slightly unsure of SW stocking, it seems as if the bioload is kept at less than half of that of FW.

How does this sound as tentative stocking?:
4-6 Blue legged hermits (total)
1-2 peppermint
1-2 nassarius (total)
2-4 cerith
2 FL turbos
1 Liopropoma sp.
might trade in the CBS, saw a full grown one; they get kinda big and I have to keep the flow down or it will never come out.

My mushroom finally took root \o/ yay (noticeable growth in the little one, maybe). My corals also seem to be doing rather well to boot
Y2dEr.jpg


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owleE.jpg

UGnVU.jpg

hPVEd.jpg



As for magnesium test is concerned, Red Sea or Sailfert? Or are they the same?

Red Sea has a nitrate test with a resolution of 0.06, kinda awesome.
 
Well, something is drinking up my calcium and carbonates.

Grav=1.025
KH= 7.4
calcium=420

Also how would I go about removing hydra from my tank, mostly Lytocarpus and lookalikes.
 
Oof. Hydroids can be a pain, although not all are aggressive in such a way that they'd need to be gotten rid of. Lytocarpus isn't one I'm used to hearing people complain about. Usually it's the digitate varieties that are a real nuisance. If you've got the digitate ones they will burn everything around them. When getting rid of the pesky types, it's usually something cuastic like kalk paste (which you can't do if it's near something fragile) or just a matter of patience and keeping your fingers crossed. Unless you can totally burn them in-place, the pest varieties tend to be darn near impossible to get rid of - at least as long as you're trying to get rid of them. Most of the time they spontaneously dissappear after a while for no apparent reason. It's like the lack of attention is what kills them lol. I had digitates in my 55gal for a while, and sure enough they all vanished after a couple of months of me totally ignoring them.


they get kinda big and I have to keep the flow down or it will never come out.

Try twiddling flow direction a bit or allow it a protected zone with some strategically placed rocks to deflect the main flow. Although, it looks like your system should already have something like that from the last FTS. Does it not hang out in the gap in the rocks on the left?
 
All my dead spots had 'swirls' in them to some degree, the mushroom ended up dismounting. I have the mushrooms in a floating breeder box till they re-attach I also put my zoa in another breeder box. I saw a hermit pull the zoa off its mounting in order to eat something under it, gonna let them grow a bit before I put them around the hermits.


I re-scaped again. Scrubbed the hyra with a toothbrush + pure reef salt lol. Did something somewhat useful with the hunk of dead acro(or porites, I can't tell). The amount of mulm that is collecting in the nooks was appalling. I also cleaned my hob filters, which I am now renaming to nitrate dossers. No matter how many times I clean them, the leaching of nitrates is inevitable :angry:. Now I see why no one uses these things. Foam fractionation is a must.

On that note, starting a skimmer for Greg foundation - selling 2 month old L.ornatipinnis juvies (no official count, but I have easily 20+) and Panaque maccus (6 adults mixed sexes \o/).

One of my nitrate dossers has accumulated a sufficent amount of sand in the impeller, it now permanently makes a grinding noise :<



And, I call it the Kraken- http://imgur.com/a/prWFw
 
Clean that impeller chamber! :crazy: Unless something has chipped in it to cause asymmetry somewhere, you shouldn't get a big rattle unless there is still stuff knocking about. Last thing you want is to have the impeller to freeze when you're out and have the motor overheat because of the lack of water circulating over it.

Are you still at 5ppm nitrate? If so, other people start singing the praises of their skimmers when they get DOWN to that level. :lol: Seriously, don't be obsessed with zeroing it this early in the game, you will just drive yourself insane until the tank matures. I'm not saying don't get a skimmer, but once you get some fish in there don't be surprised if you suddenly see it creep up to 10ppm for a while even with a skimmer.
 

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