Getting Back Into Marine

[KittyKat]

I have finally had the patience and time to give my little 45 l * 30 d * 40 h cm nano some attention.. it has been in "disrepair" for some time, since I moved house and shortly afterwards the beautiful frogfish I had died due to something going wrong with the water while I was out. Since then, I have been running it as a coral only (not even any clean-up crew) tank.. but I am now feeling up to getting some more animals for it. I have a very mild hair algae sprouting over everything every couple of months and at the moment, I am removing it manually (yes, all nitrate and phosphate tests I have tried show both at 0 ppm). I did used to have a Clibanarius tricolor that I liked quite a lot, but that was many years ago.

So, help me get a CUC together! I would like another blue hermit, but am very open to suggestions.

Temperature 25 C, all other parameters are tropical reef averages. Tank has 54 litre volume, probably 30 litre water after decor.

 

[sorgan]

A handfull of hermits, various snails are all good.

Look for donyas thread about cuc In here

 

[MrLiam]

Well to rid hair algae you will probably need a mixture of CUC along with regular WC and maybe a phosphate remover (your phosphate will be 0 as the GHA will be soaking it all up). For CUC you could go for 2 mexican turbos, 1 emerald crab and maybe 2-4 blue hermits. Hope this sort of makes sense and is helpful.

 

[fishy55599]

do you know how many litres your tank is?
for hair algae i would stongly suggest mexican turbos

 

[KittyKat]

Look for donyas thread about cuc In here

Thanks for the pointer, will read!

Well to rid hair algae you will probably need a mixture of CUC along with regular WC and maybe a phosphate remover (your phosphate will be 0 as the GHA will be soaking it all up).

I've tried filtering with ROWAphos, made all of zilch difference to the rate of growth, the water going in has no phosphate either, of course.

For CUC you could go for 2 mexican turbos, 1 emerald crab and maybe 2-4 blue hermits. Hope this sort of makes sense and is helpful.

How do you think that will fare in the long term? The single hermit I used to have made a good enough job of it on his own.. of course, more is better! My other problem is that I travel a lot, sometimes for a few weeks, so feeding regularly is not always an option.

do you know how many litres your tank is?

45*30*40 cm, which is 54 litres, but I expect it holds more like 30 litres of water, after the decor.

 

[Donya]

1 emerald crab

Mithraculus sculptus need a large foraging area even when small. Sounds like this tank has a pretty small footprint that seems like it would be a bit cramped for one of these crabs. If one of these crabs goes in, safest choice would be to avoid any other crustaceans.

 

[KittyKat]

1 emerald crab

Mithraculus sculptus need a large foraging area even when small. Sounds like this tank has a pretty small footprint that seems like it would be a bit cramped for one of these crabs. If one of these crabs goes in, safest choice would be to avoid any other crustaceans.

I think that may have been the reason I avoided getting them before.. by the way, the hermit crab essay is quite interesting!

 

[ALW]

For CUC you could go for 2 mexican turbos

Mexican Turbo snails are subtropical animals and so do not survive long when placed in a tank at noramal reef temperatures. You want those from the Indo-Pacific.

 

[Donya]

Mexican Turbo snails are subtropical animals and so do not survive long when placed in a tank at noramal reef temperatures. You want those from the Indo-Pacific.

Are you referring to Turbo fluctuosus, and what exactly does not surviving long mean in this context (since whenever I hear this with snails it usually refers to a few months)? T. fluctuosus is what I am familiar with being called a "Mexican Turbo." They have a largely tropical range through places like Baja California, although they have a fairly wide temperature tolerance in the aquarium (typical of many animals in tidal ranges). Regarding the time, of the the ones I have now, many have been with me about three years so far, were purchased at a pretty good size, and they're still ticking. It has seemed to me that most of these snails that die after such short periods of time probably do so because of starvation and/or being subjected to poor water quality. Most people don't give them anywhere even close to the amount of food they will consume daily in environments where they can eat whenever hungry.

 

[KittyKat]

(Note: my water is at 25 C and I am not interested in anything which can't be kept alive in the long term, I want a CUC which will *not* outgrow my aquarium and will flourish for years to come, please!)

 

[fishy55599]

4 hermits
4 nass snails
3 turbo snails
2 cerith snails

think that would be a good mix.

 

[KittyKat]

4 hermits
4 nass snails
3 turbo snails
2 cerith snails

think that would be a good mix.

That definitely sounds enticing.. could you explain how you arrived at these numbers and species? It is more than I would have expected, from my very limited experience of stocking marine. What sort of feeding regime can one expect to need for these creatures?

 

[fishy55599]

hermits are good for cleaning the rock and some also clean the sand.
nass snails help turn the sand for you
turbos help with rock and can help glass
cerith are good as glass cleaners.

feeding wise just drop a prawn or flakes in every few days, they mainly eat algae anyways

i came to these numbers, going by what i was reconmended and thinking of their sizes

 

[@ombomb]

a rough rule of thumb is one member of CUC per USG

electric blue hermits would be my recommendation, much more interesting that standard hermits

 

[fishy55599]

electrics have a bad reputation of knocking things over and killing snails