Good morning! I am a newbie! Both to the forum & to SW. I have a brand new tank (Biocube 29). I just set it up on Sunday and added the live sand & water. Monday I added 32 lbs of live rock from my LFS. I've been dealing w/ a BF/GF couple that work there that seem to have quite a bit of knowledge. So last night I noticed a hitch hiker.... From what I can gather it appears to be a brittle star fish (red striped). I called LFS this morning to ask if I should be feeding my hitch hiker something until the tank has time to cycle. The BF/GF are on vacation so the guy I talked to said no he could survive from the live rock but he didn't sound convinced. Is he correct? Should I be feeding him until the tank can establish? Please help.....
Brand new tank & I have a hitch hiker....
- Thread starter Sj7880
- Start date
gunther13mt
Starting to help others
Chances are he wont survive very long any way as you cant feed them proply. However you can ghist feed your tank to help get a cycle going if you perfore but you dont have too i cycled my tabk with just the rock and let the hitchhikers stay i had one crab that survived the thing.
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gone fishin
New member
a pic would help with the id, how big is the star? Have you started your cycle yet? Since you bought live rock you may not have much of cycle. This depends on how the rock was transported and how long it was out of the water.
If you need to go through a full blown cycle then I would suspect the star's chances are not good for surviving that. Also, you could feed the tank a bit food for the star.
If you need to go through a full blown cycle then I would suspect the star's chances are not good for surviving that. Also, you could feed the tank a bit food for the star.
I haven't added anything but the LR to the tank. The rock was placed in a styrofoam box with water & brought directly home (15 minutes from LFS to adding it to the aquarium). I haven't tested the water for anything yet either. I mixed the water myself from filter well water & checked it w/ a hydrometer. Refractometer is suppose to arrive today. I'm still trying to research and figure everything out. I can add a pic but its not a very good one.
Grimreaperz
New member
Yeah I got about 27 LBS of LR from my LFS.
All my hitchhikers are still alive and thriving 19 days later.
My cycle has complete but I did a tank stand swap 2 days ago so am giving it another 2 weeks before i intentionally add Livestock.
So far I have 3 bristle worms.
4 brittle star fish
a bunch of either zoa or button polyps
and what I believe to be another type of coral sprout. to small to tell.
They may survive they may not. but I would be testing water at least every other day if not daily to see what your tank is doing. took 3 days for ammonia/nitrites to show in my tank(probably from die off) next day they were gone and showed some nitrates about 5ish. This lasted for about 3-4 days now everything tests 0.
I am going to confirm with an LFS and wait for my lighting before I add anything but it may be worth it to get in the habit of water testing if you can. I find it fun feel like a chemist for 20 min lol
All my hitchhikers are still alive and thriving 19 days later.
My cycle has complete but I did a tank stand swap 2 days ago so am giving it another 2 weeks before i intentionally add Livestock.
So far I have 3 bristle worms.
4 brittle star fish
a bunch of either zoa or button polyps
and what I believe to be another type of coral sprout. to small to tell.
They may survive they may not. but I would be testing water at least every other day if not daily to see what your tank is doing. took 3 days for ammonia/nitrites to show in my tank(probably from die off) next day they were gone and showed some nitrates about 5ish. This lasted for about 3-4 days now everything tests 0.
I am going to confirm with an LFS and wait for my lighting before I add anything but it may be worth it to get in the habit of water testing if you can. I find it fun feel like a chemist for 20 min lol
