55 gallon clean up crew?

[linz13]

hey guys,
so my 55 gallon fish tank is finished cycling.. it was a small one.. so i put the fish in the tank. there is a purple pseudochromis, a coral beauty angel (who i think has ick... im gona try some kick-ick maybe.. any thoughts on that?), and two percula clown fish, and a feather duster. there are also two peppermint shrimp a cleaner shrimp and four turbo snails and a sally lightfoot crab...

should i add anymore snails or like hermit crabs or anything? there is brown algae growing all over my sand and rocks... all of my water peramiters are in check... no phosphates, nitrates, or nitrites... any suggestions on how to get rid of the algae.. or just for adding more of a cleanup crew in general?

Thanks!

 

[HumanIMDB]

It sounds like your tank is still cycling. How long has the system been running?

Also, that is likely a large bioload for that size of a tank. Are you running a skimmer? How much live rock do you have in the system? Do you have a sump/refugium?

 

[FredTheCat]

A handful of nassarius snails work wonders on the sandbed. A few cerith snails should do well on your rocks. Just watch the peppermints around them since mine seems to be molesting my ceriths from time to time (your Sally likely will too). I also have a lawnmower blenny that handles all the stuff the snails miss and has a lot of personality.

-FredTheCat

 

[linz13]

my tank has been up and running for over a month now... i saw the spikes and stuff in the nitrates and nitrites... and i got all cured live rock and i have about 60-70 pounds of live sand and maybe about 60 pounds of live rock in there. i dont have a skimmer or a refugium but i am running a filter.. the filter is an aquaclear 110... it filters like 500 gallons per hour i think it said.. and it has mechanical, chemical, and biological filtering all built into it.

 

[linz13]

this is a wicked newby question too but do the nassarius snails only do the sane or do they do the rocks too? and would a lawnmower blenny get along with all my other fishies and the rest of the cleanup crew?

 

[HumanIMDB]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12991883#post12991883 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by linz13
my tank has been up and running for over a month now... i saw the spikes and stuff in the nitrates and nitrites... and i got all cured live rock and i have about 60-70 pounds of live sand and maybe about 60 pounds of live rock in there. i dont have a skimmer or a refugium but i am running a filter.. the filter is an aquaclear 110... it filters like 500 gallons per hour i think it said.. and it has mechanical, chemical, and biological filtering all built into it.

Tank startups vary and are considered "new" for long after the initial cycle. It does sound like your tank did cycle you may just be experiencing "new tank syndrome". If you added all of those specimens at one time or within a short period of one another, you may have triggered another major cycle while the bacteria reaches a level to handle the bioload.

What are you using for your water? If you are not using RO or RO/DI, I would strongly recommend switching to that. For a 55gal, you'll probably pay for a RO/DI Unit in no time at all.

Have you been doing any water changes? If so, what volume?

What test kits are you using?

 

[linz13]

well.. i originally had a 13 gallon tank... that was doing great and i got the 55 gallon for my birthday... so i used a tiny bit of sand in that to try to put some of the bacteria in there and i used some of the live rock too from that tank. i had the clown fish, a cleaner shrimp, and the coral beauty angel in there... and they were all doing great. originally, i did not use ro/di water to fill it, but i have been planning to use it to do the water changes in hopes that eventually there will be mostly ro/di water in there. i havent changed the water yet... because i wanted to let the bacteria grow and everything... but i plan on doing a 20 percent water change in the next few days or so... i plan on doing a lot more to try to get rid of the ich and the algae but how often should i do them?

 

[HumanIMDB]

The algae will likely go away with time and maintenance, I don't think you need to do anything more at this point. Maybe add a few ceriths and nassarius snails. If you find that your turbos are dying, you likely go the Mexican kind that don't do well in warmer "reef" water; Astreas are better.

Now, for ich...I am not an expert but the popular method of getting rid of ich in a display tank is to remove all the inhabitants and place them in a hospital tank. You may need to dip one or all of them and then treat them with hyposalinity. You will likely have to keep them in the hospital tank for at least 6 weeks for the ich to completely die off in the display tank. If you search, there are several threads on ich treatment.

Good luck.

 

[linz13]

Thanks for your help! ill let you know how everythings doing and hopefully next time i talk the algae will be going away! =] ill look up caring for astereas and take care of my icky fish. thanks for your help again!=]