New tank clean up crew.

[Highside]

Hey guys, I have a 24gallon finnex with 36 lbs of rock. Been running about 3 weeks and the nitrites are finally zeroed out. I have been looking at these clean up crew packages online that have all the snails, crabs and clams that they reccomend all in one package. Do you think this would be to much of a shock to the system to put all of them in at once?? Seems like the snails put out quite a bit of waste.

Thanks

 

[danieljames]

I wouldn't think so with 36 lbs of cured out rock highside. With such a new system, i would focus on snails at first. You don't want to buy to many at first either, or they could possibly starve. I like turbo's, but the frags I have are not easily moved. If you are going to start with lot's of smaller frags, you might want to try astrea's. I'm not a fan of hermit crabs. With the amount of snails you will need to start with your 24, i would definately buy locally. The amount of money saved stocking a 24 with snails is next to nill when you consider the whole shipping thing.

 

[Highside]

I agree aabout not saving much money but I dont have any LFS. Nashville is about two hours from here. It sure would be nice to have the whole clean up crew show up at the doorstep. I am still a little leery about putting that much in at once though.

 

[Highside]

You may be right, there is not much algae growing in the tank yet. I do have one large rock with quite a bit of leafy green macro poping up and quite a bit of red twiqqy macro of some type. what can I get to rid the rock of this that wont starve as soon as it's gone?

 

[danieljames]

Depends on what type of macro they are man. Some larger types of macro can be a good thing to start, as they scavenge nitrates, etc. Do you have some pics of what you have? If it were my display, i would leave things as they are, get a few snails, and let it ride for a couple months. Your system is still balancing itself out man. Your nitrates are probably high as an end result of your nitrite being broken down (and reading 0). Give your system a chance to balance itself out by growing more anaerobic bacteria. Sounds to me like everything is as it should be. Don't stock anything right now. Just get a few snails and let it do it's thing for a couple months.