Left over hermit shells

[alligator]

Anyone leave the left over hermit shells in their tank once their octo eats them?

I've been leaving most of them in the tank, and now there are about 20+ shells around his cave.

I tested the water last night, and these were the readings:

Amonia: 0
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
pH: 8.2
Temp: 71
SG: 1.025

My bimac seems to be doing just fine, but I think keeping him is funny. I hardly EVER see him. In the last week, I've seen him once. I know he's doing fine because when I drop the hermit in his cave, he grabs it and pulls it in. Once the hermit disappears, I figure he's alive and must be eating it.

 

[Rudiger]

yea I leave the empty shells in the tank. They collect around his favorite rock and at night he retreats into a the rock a little and uses the shells as a door. If you ever look inside the octopuses cave there are probably some shells in there he uses for added shelter.

 

[OctoMonkey]

But now you have to tell us the secret of an octopus and zero nitrates!

What filter/skimmer etc you running in there?

Colin

 

[alligator]

First, he's a very small bimac in a 55 gallon tank with a 10 gallon sump. I have a precision marine protein skimmer running (doesn't collect much), kent marine carbon, and even a few left over bio balls (I was in the process of removing them from my reef tank, but since things were stable with the little I had left, I just left them in the sump).

I do weekly water changes of 5-10%, and top off daily. I only feed hermits. There are two peppermint shrimp and still 5+ ghost shrimp in the tank, plus about 5-8 snails that clean the glass.

I do have some algae in the tank, but it's not unmanageable. I'm also running a DSB (left over from my reef).

So in other words, I have no idea why I have zero nitrates. My octo is a VERY picky eater (no ghost shrimp, no peppermint shrimp, no frozen shrimp, ONLY hermits!).