Help For The Confused One

[Crazy fishes]

Greetings,

I have kept freshwater fish for the past year (I have a rio 180 with bread and butter fish and record 96 for the puffers) and have now also got the nano reef bug!! I have recently bought the D&D 24g nano cube and am awaiting it's delivery some time this week. I have been reading the threads and have come to believe that most people are using about 10kg of live rock, is this correct? My main concern is water circulation; everyone changes the stock pump. I was wondering if it would be too much to put a hydor koralia (1500l/h) in addition to the stock pump or maybe the hydor koralia nano (900l/h). What do people think? My intended stock list is:
Cleaning crew: 3 nassarius snails, 1 turbo snail, 2 Astrea snails, 3 red legged hermit crabs, halloween hermit crab, 2 skunk shrimp.
Fish: 2 clowns ( percula or ocellaris), firefish and a scooter blenny.
Corals: Green star polyp, Pulsing xenia, leather toadstool, finger leather, colt coral, chilli coral and if possible a green open brain and sun polyps.

I am interested to hear what people say and the experiences you guys and girls have had. LFS are all contradicting each other and it is very frustrating because all you want is sound honest advice.

Regards

 

[Lynden]

Live rock can be as little or as much as you find acceptable. As for flow, 20x per hour is typically recommendable, but seeing your planned coral list you should try for a little less than that.

Regarding the stock list, I see two problems, the first one being the scooter blenny. These eat tiny creatures called "pods" and can quickly remove them from small (or large) tanks. To rectify this you must make sure it is eating frozen foods at the store.

The other problem is the coral list. The toxins given off by soft corals can be quite noxious to stony corals (such as the open brain and sun polyps); activated carbon or protein skimming will keep this to a minimum.