Week three update with pics

[gistsc]

A little history for those who did not see my other post. I inherited a 55 gal marine tank with a poor set up. It only had 5 lbs of live rock and six fish. There where 8 snails and eight crabs. It had two shop florescent lights, and a Magnum 350 that was in poor shape. After keeping this tank for about four months, it started to leak and was not doing very good health wise. I decided to take the tank down. I took the fish to the LPS and put the rock and inhabitants into a Rubbermaid container.

The new tank is a 29 gal AGA, custom stand and light hood. 4x96 CF lights, 150 w heater, two Maxi-jet 900, two Maxi-jet 400, 45 lbs of fully cured live rock. The rock was purchased from my LFS and came to them from a customer who was getting out of the hobby. There where some signs of green hair algae, and a couple of bubble algae bubbles on the rock.

Now at three weeks, the brown algae bloom is gone. It only lasted one week and did not get that bad. The water parameters are still consistent. NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 5, pH 8.3, SG 1.026, PO3 0, and temp 78.

I decided to add the snails and crabs over the last week. I have been putting one snail and one crab in every day. So far they are all looking fine. I still have four of each to put in. I will put the rest in next week after the tank has some time to adjust to the first four.

I have no intension of adding any coral or fish for some time. I would like to work on getting rid of the algae. What little bit of algae there is looks healthy. So the plan is to set up a fuge. Before that I am going to get a new skimmer. I currently have a SeaClone 100 that does not seem to be very efficient. I hope this all sounds like the way to go. I would like to hear opinions.

Anyways, enough rambling and on to the pics.

 

[advice1]

Have any full tank shots?

 

[SaltyDr]

Get some more snails in there to handle that GHA. Sounds like your plan is a good one.

 

[frederickk]

Your getting nice purple colour on your LR that's a good sign and a good news. Things are coming along.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Looks great! What skimmer are you looking at?

 

[gistsc]

advice 1, there are some larger full tank shots here in my week two pics

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1074144

I think I will try the Emerald crab for the GHA. I hear they will ate it. I thought about a Sea Hare, but I do not think there is enough there to keep one feed.

I also think a few more snails and crabs would help. I hope I am not overdoing it with the cleanup crew. The crabs and snails I have came from the old set up, and I do not know what kind they are. You can see one of the crabs in my photos, and they do no look like any I have seen here before. They are some type of Hermit, but they are kind of pink and black. I was told by the previous owner of the old tank that the snails where called "Pink Caps"?

 

[frederickk]

Valonia might be a different case. No snails will get rid of them. This algae pest is more complicated to destroy. I think if I remember correctly the emerald crab will do the job.

 

[gistsc]

That was somthing I was going to ask about. I read that the Emerald Crab will eat the Valonia, is that bad? I remember reading somwhere that if it is popped that spores will poor out. Is thsi true? I only have 4 or 5 bubbles of it, but I don't want a larger outbreak.

 

[frederickk]

If it's done by the emerald crab everything will be fine but if you try to do it yourself better take the LR out and scrub it with a tooth brush but outside the tank.