My BC14 is coming along.

MJ900 mod
Hydro Flo output
Koralia Nano
Titanium heater
Media basket in chamber 2 with Purigen and Chemipure Elite plus filter floss (no chaeto yet)
Tank has been set up for 4 weeks

4 Cerith snails
4 Astae snails

The snails have done a great job cleaning up the live rock of all the brown algae (diatoms bloom right?) The sand looks a little ugly. Should I be doing anything other than waiting? Should I add chaeto yet?

I'd just wait it out, but Chaeto won't hurt anything. Looking good.

get some hermits!

A turbo snail or 2 would do wonders! Give it about 2-3 weeks more after it gets its diatom bloom and it should clear itself up Mine just cleared up over the past 3-4 days.

I read that there are no truly peaceful hermits. They will all kill snails. Isn't that true?




I was avoiding Turbos because I don't want them to knock over rocks. I hear they do that!

true, but if you provide them with plenty of empty shells it greatly reduces the chances of them killing snails, unless they really like a particular shell


i added some turbos to my 24 gal to get rid of gha and they're not too bad about knocking stuff over. just depends how stable your rocks are i guess

its natural my seagrass tank is cycling atm and its goin thru the same thing, only worry when everything is BROWN like u cant see anything, i had that once

My tank is going through the longest bloom...It prob doesnt help that I cant stand looking at all the algae on the sand so I use a scraper over it to flatten the sand and pull up nicer sand. I have 8 turbos and 2 hermits. The snails have gone to town on the rock and the walls. The hermits hide durring the day and seem to come out at night. I have 6 nassarius snails that go under the sand to sleep all day untill the lights go off then just do a pass on the walls, go back under and hide untill the next day. They dont do much for my sand...or anything else for that matter. I was using a phosphate filter media but that was before I got the turbo snails so I dont think its making much of a difference helping.

Should I just let this do its thing and not touch it? It just bothers me lol

Leave it alone and it will go away in due time. This is part of the whole patience thing that everyone with expierience talks about.

[quote name='Justin_CA' date='Nov 5 2009, 05:43 PM' post='2511171']
I read that there are no truly peaceful hermits. They will all kill snails. Isn't that true?

Granted i'm at about the same time frame in the cycle as the post' author, I decided to throw in 4 hermits, 1 tiny blue leg, 1 med blue leg, and 2 med red legs... I also went with 2 large Nass. and 5 ceriths.. In my AP12g...so far the Hermits have been to pre-occupied with all the food to bother the snails..hopefully they keep i t that way.. and the Nass snails burrow themselves... but if i turn the lights off, they come out... kinda funny to play with them! i think they think theyve been in the tank like a week..I was turning the lights of and non alot lol...

From what I know, the hermits only become unpeaceful when they grow too largre for thier shells and they go looking for a new one. I know theres a few places out there that sell empty shells so the crabs will go for one of them instead of killing the snail and taking thier shells