On a tank holding 76 gallons brim-full, but with a lot of live rock and live sand. I have about 6 community fish in it, too. I have a green brittle star that lurks in the rocks at the bottom of my tank. I also have a half dozen blue-leg and one red-leg hermit and a Coral banded shrimp. I have 5 Ceriths. Am I going to have any problems with adding more snails? I had some other snails in the past, I think they were turbos, but they seem to be living on the rocks, and a few disappearing over time, I can see some empty shells around. I am considering taking out most of the hermits and leave only a couple. I want to get the sand stirred up more, and I can see some areas where some darker algae (brown?) grows on the sand. I recently had a spike of red algae/cyano, but several water changes and changing the flow and vacuuming it out seems to have conquered that. I have a HOB fuge with Chaeto and red algae, and a skimmer on this tank. No sump yet, it is in the works. So, I need to know if the Coral banded shrimp or the brittle star will make snacks out of snails, if the hermits are a waste of time, and if some more Ceriths and nassarius will do the job with the algae on the sand and stirring up the sand. I am also wondering if a canister or a power filter is a good option while the sump is in the design and assembly stages. I vacuum the gravel and change at least 15% water weekly with RO/DI. During vacuuming I still see a fair amount of debris in the vacuum. I don't want to be vacuuming up anything beneficial in the sand like pods, but I also don't want to let it be a harbor for waste and eventually affect water quality. At this point, my Nitrates and Nitrites are perfect, I think there was a phosphate spike, I had a friend do a phosphate test during the cyano issue and again yesterday and I think that is almost over. I am keeping an eye for any spots of the cyano that need to be sucked out. Any suggestions?
snails, cyano, filtration, sifting sand.
- Thread starter Steverino
- Start date
papagimp
COMAS Rocks!
Snails: Short life spans typically, hermits will kill off, and they'll need to be "restocked" occasionally. Add a nice varienty to cover everywhere in the tank. Cerith are some of my favorites, but I hate the turbo's. They knock over my frags to often. Look into some standard Astrea's, some Nasarrius, and maybe some trochus, since they look so cool. You'd be fine adding a few more to that large of a tank with that small amount of current snails.
Why gravel in the tank. Gravel is a no-no in marine tanks. Adds highly to rising nitrate and phosphate levels. And works as a detritus trap. Keeping alot of crap in the tank that you want out.
Sandbed would be better or bare bottom. No crushed coral or similar "large" sized substrates. Also, with a sandbed, dont' vac it at all. If you must get rid of a very small dead area build up, do just that small area and only an inch or so of the sandbed. Doing the whole Gravel Vaccum thing on a sandbed will just pull out any beneficial bacteria and micro life that you WANT in there. Also stirring up the sandbed can cause nitrate and phosphate spikes. Better to just have natural sand stirriers working for you, like the nassarius and cerith snails.
Even without a sump going yet, you still want some mechanical filtering going on, either with a canister or power filter, or regular maintance on the Pre-filter sponges on any powerheads. Without the mechanical filtering, all the crap just stays in the tank and gets moved around from one area to another as flow allows. Skimmer will help some, but not enough to combat no mech. filtering at all.
Why gravel in the tank. Gravel is a no-no in marine tanks. Adds highly to rising nitrate and phosphate levels. And works as a detritus trap. Keeping alot of crap in the tank that you want out.
Sandbed would be better or bare bottom. No crushed coral or similar "large" sized substrates. Also, with a sandbed, dont' vac it at all. If you must get rid of a very small dead area build up, do just that small area and only an inch or so of the sandbed. Doing the whole Gravel Vaccum thing on a sandbed will just pull out any beneficial bacteria and micro life that you WANT in there. Also stirring up the sandbed can cause nitrate and phosphate spikes. Better to just have natural sand stirriers working for you, like the nassarius and cerith snails.
Even without a sump going yet, you still want some mechanical filtering going on, either with a canister or power filter, or regular maintance on the Pre-filter sponges on any powerheads. Without the mechanical filtering, all the crap just stays in the tank and gets moved around from one area to another as flow allows. Skimmer will help some, but not enough to combat no mech. filtering at all.
thanks for the reply. I tend to use the terms sand and gravel interchangebly. I actually have about 70% sand and about 30% crushed coral, which I sifted when I was rinsing and removed the largest particles, so I have "small grain" coral gravel.
I originally had a HOB power filter (Emperor 400), but removed it to put on the HOB fuge. I used replaceable pads and changed them almost every week, I was worried about nitrate problems. I still have it, but it takes up a lot of hang-on space. I have access to a canister filter which would sit below the tank, which might do the trick for filtering out the particulate and provide more flow down deeper in the tnak if I can get the plumbing right.
I sometimes see some darker color (algae?) growing on the surface of the sand, and also along the front of the tank glass below the top level of the sand. I can't get at it with my magnet cleaner due to the wood stand it sits on. I use a long-handle scrub brush. My tank is almost 30" deep, so it is challenging when it comes to water movement and cleaning.
I originally had a HOB power filter (Emperor 400), but removed it to put on the HOB fuge. I used replaceable pads and changed them almost every week, I was worried about nitrate problems. I still have it, but it takes up a lot of hang-on space. I have access to a canister filter which would sit below the tank, which might do the trick for filtering out the particulate and provide more flow down deeper in the tnak if I can get the plumbing right.
I sometimes see some darker color (algae?) growing on the surface of the sand, and also along the front of the tank glass below the top level of the sand. I can't get at it with my magnet cleaner due to the wood stand it sits on. I use a long-handle scrub brush. My tank is almost 30" deep, so it is challenging when it comes to water movement and cleaning.
