Are we ready to start adding?

[petoonia]

The skunk cleaner shrimp are more active. Get at least 2 they are more active in pairs. I started out with one and it just sort of sat around. Then I added a second one and they are always out and about. Another good thing is they will clean your fish, if the fish are willing.

 

[gburton]

Cool, thank you petoonia, I will check them out when we get stuff on thursday. Our kids will like the ones that are real active.

 

[bbehring]

You stareted your tank about the same time I did mine. Except I added RO/DI fist, then salt to get my SG correct, then dead sand, then Live sand and live rock pre-cured on the same day. I am all cycled now and have a great cleaner crew in. Several snails, narsarious, margarita, & turbos, 2 emerald crabs, a sally lightfoot crab, 20 mermits, 1 orange serpent star and a small brittle star. I have had this crew in for some weeks now. My kids love them all. I thought I'd never see the serpent star again, but he's out quite a bit, mostly before/after the lights are out. I also just added 3 small frags about 2 weeks ago. Some Zoanthoids, torch coral and frog spawn. All are doing well! Take your kids with you and let them help pick the critters out, I did, and they had the time of their lives. Heading to pick up a couple more corals this weekend and already my kidds can't wait. Enjoy the ride GB

 

[gburton]

bbehring, do any of the crabs bother the snails of those kinds? How about any of the other stuff you listed, anybody bothering them. Sounds like you have a bunch of cool stuff. The kids do like this stuff, my 7yo probably knows more about the critters than I do. It may help that his mom is a freshwater fish bio. Thursday is our big day!

 

[bbehring]

So far my hermits haven't bothered the snails. Most of my hermits are small. I even have some dwarf hermits, that are real tiny. I have 1 medium size blue legged that's pretty cool. I have seen him try to accost a few times, but he does give up after a few minutes. The Narrsius (sp) snails are super cool. They dig under the sand, come out at night and at feeding. I have about 6 of them. I haven't seen my brittle star in a few days? I also have a skunk cleaner shrimp and coral banded shrimp that I added initially with most of the snails and hermits. Both are very cool. They are both out and about. The cleaner shrimp will take food from my hand. He will also clean my hand. I have no fish at this ponit. I am waiting until May at least to add any fish. Right now just inverts. I also have added a package from IPSF, mostly sand sifters and cleaners. Also added small bristle worms that I bought from somebody on RC here. I have a refugium with Cheato algae with tons of pods and goodies. All seems to be going good. Feel free to PM me if you need anything.

 

[gburton]

Thanks a lot bbehring for all the great info. What do you feed those guys? I haven't really thought about that part of it yet.

 

[PatMayo]

Re: Are we ready to start adding?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9575369#post9575369 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gburton
We added live rock that was cured on 2/9, live sand on 3/1. We had also added the proverbial dead shrimp around 2/15. Our SG started at 1.018, pH 7.8 and ammonia, nitrites, nitrates at zero of course. As of 3/7 the SG was 1.025, pH 8.0 and ammonia, nitrites, nitrates still zero. We started to get a covering of brown algea that got worse as the days went by. On 3/20, SG was 1.025, pH down to 7.8 and everything else still at zero. It seems that our cycle would have started and have been finished by now. Can we start adding snails to clean our tank of the algea? We would like to also add a couple of crabs knowing that they can be aggressive and take out the snails if they don't get enough food. We want to start adding, can we? What do you all think? Also, is there something that we can do to get the pH level to increase?

Let me help you out a little. With cured live rock chances are you will not have a cycle. This is typical. Adding the shrimp was not helpful. Typically you will only have a cycle with uncured live rock. When the rock is cured and you put it in a tank you would want to wait a week or two and monitor for any ammonia spike. If your parameters stay zero you are ready to roll.

I see you keep mentioning SG when you tell your parameters. The SG should not change at all unless you are adding salt water as top off water. It also might change just slightly if your evaporation is too great before adding fresh water to top off.

I would not worry too much about that. Your SG is too low. It should be at natural seawater which is right at 1.026 or so. I can give you a link for proper water parameters.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

You need to get more fresh air to the tank. Do you have tops on the tank? Keep the top of the tank water agitated and take the tops off if you have them. As well a good skimmer will help.

You want to limit ph swing to very small amounts.

I would add a cleanup crew and if you have any of that shrimp in the tank take it out.

There are many good links out there that can help. As well you may want to spend some time in the chemistry forum to get your chemistry skills up to speed.

Regards,

Pat

 

[bbehring]

I agree that your chemestry issues should be delt with per Pat's response above and make adjustments accordingly. In regards to what I feed my inverts, I feed every other day, mysis shrimp and Formula 1 soft pellets. Just a small amount. Make sure they consume all the food. The shrimps will eat daily. I do not have any fish yet, so there is no food res left overs from that source for the inverts as you would normally have.