Fish Stocking For Nano Reef!

[Liambawden]

So, I have a nano reef tank, an aqua one 55 I think it is? And I have had it set up for about two months, and I have more live rock than is required for my tank. I have some platy corals and 2 feather dusters, and I also have a small Kenya tree. And then a cross coral bred between a torch and a hammer.

 

Animal wise, I have a large turbo snail, 2 sand sifting snails, a clam, an aiptasias eating fish and a mandarin dragonet.

 

The male mandarin has been moved on to frozen food and is now eating fantastically! However, I had a cleaner shrimp, and all of a sudden it has gone missing, and a few days later my female mandarin has been found dead floating around the tank. So I have decided I think I am going to stick to one mandarin, and now I need to know what shrimp to get? Do I get a normal cleaner shrimp (which I find a bit boring) or are there other shrimps people would recommend more so? And I am also getting some slightly brown patched algae areas in the sand, is there any creature people recommend to solve this?

 

I do not like putting chemicals in my tank and I like to have a complete ecosystem.

 

I live in the UK and have had a 450 litre reef tank for over 2 years but it is my first nano tank I'm trying to set up so I thought I'd ask others advice!

[jestep]

What's your water change schedule? What you're describing in the sandbed could be a number of things, but tanks go through some significant changes for the first year even, so it's completely common to go through a number of stages of algae that will usually clear up without any assistance if you aren't over stocked or over feeding, and you keep up with reasonable maintenance.

 

I would definitely not add another mandarin, I really think it's difficult to sustain a single one for a long time in even a 75 - 90 gallon tank. Even when they will eat frozen or pellets, they still have a high metabolism and they quickly decimate all available pods in the tank and slowly decline over time.

 

Peppermint shrimp are great if you ever end up with aiptasia problems, fire shrimp have been very safe in my experience. Banded coral and other similar shrimp are other options. I'd avoid bumble bee and harlequin shrimp as their diets are difficult to sustain in the home aquarium. I'd avoid sexy shrimp just because they're so small, they are never seen in this size tank. Get whatever shrimp you want if you do want to keep them, they're definitely not necessary though. Also, just know that almost all shrimp and crabs are opportunistic so most will even eat a fish if they're hungry and presented with the opportunity to, such as when fish are more timid after the lights are off.