5 questions-(oh and I am not going to quit!)

[Iphantom]

1st of all I wanna say that I am NOT going to I have invested to much time and money into this and I enjoy it way too much to go back to freshwater-plus all of you at nano-reef.com have been so cool and have taught me 70% of the stuff I know about marine tanks thanks everyone!

 

but anyways

 

When my tank is complete I plan to have the following livestock:

1-Royal gramma-(already have it)

1-Percula clown

1-Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp(already have it)

4-Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab(or 2 blue and 2 red)

4-Margarita Snail(already have them)

1-Astraea Conehead Snail(already have it)

5 other snails(turbo,ect)

1-Sand Sifting Sea Star

2-Feather Duster-

Colony Polyp

Button Polyp

Blue Mushroom Coral

Red Mushroom Coral

Toadstool Mushroom Leather Coral

Devil's Hand Leather Coral

frogspawn

My questions are:

 

1.how does this mix of live stock sound?

 

2.is my light ok for these corals?(I have been told it is but I need a 2nd opinion)

 

3.I already have a royal gramma which whould be the best choice for a 2nd fishp.clown-fire fish goby or other small goby?

 

4.can I keep a Sand Sifting Sea Star I have been told I can and I am pretty happy about that but again I wanted a 2nd opinon

 

5.as many of you know I have a cyno and hair algea problem I am dealing with and I am not going to add anything (exept for the hermits and snails) until this problem it gone but my question is

what order should I add everything? AND how long should I wait inbettwen adding things?

 

I was going to go 1.cleaners-hermits and snails 2.second fish(maybe)3.inverts-feather dusters and sand sifter star4.corals mushrooms polyps soft then frogspawn last

after every new thing I add I whould test the water and wait for lvls to be perfect and me to be ready then take the next step

if this is right let me know and disregard queston number 5

 

harbingerofthefish you have the same light wattage and keep many of these corals(including frogspawn) any input whould be nice

thanks

 

-Matt

[edying]

1) Live stock sounds okay. I'd get a few more astreas and stay away from the turbos. Turbos get pretty large and can knock stuff around.

 

2) You may be all right with the light. If you can 2x32, you'd probably be better off.

 

4) I'd stay away from the sand star... it'll kill the worms & stuff in the sand bed.

 

5) I don't have a particular order - just take it slow!

 

-Ed

[Iphantom]

thanks...anyone else?

I whould like to get another 32watt but I havent been able to find a glass top that will fit the 7 gallon.

what do you mean the worms in the sand bed? I have plunty of worms in my live rock but not in my sand bed.-plus id rather have the sea star then worms.

any other opinions?

[Trig]

OH-- but you most likely DO have worms in the SB - if all is new and you might not -----you WILL after some point.

 

when I had BIG reef years ago-----(things were diff, then, remember) we (reef peeps) mostlsed NO substrate---BARE BOTTOM tanks.

 

well, some fine silt-like material would eventually cover the bottom.

 

when i tore it down - the worms were EVERYWHERE in that silt-stuff. I had one that was anout 10-12 inches.

 

so, PLEASE, believe he (- or she - since i don't know) KNOWS what was spoke! now way will you NOT get worms in the SB

 

well-- unless ya got sumthin gobblin em up!!!!!

 

ps-watch out for da FIRE WORMS -- one hell of a sting if ya touch!!!!

[Bucket o Chum]

You should try cerith or nassarius snails or maybe a fighting conch. All of the above are cheaper and don't u have to feed a sand sifting star in a tank that small? Unless your SB is full of detritus and other junk.

[BHRay]

Somewhere I heard that nassarius are NOT algae eaters. True?

[Brianc_4]

BHray, that is not true. However they do spend most of their time in the sand munching on detritus, but they will jump on the glass and suck a little green from time to time.

 

Ok.5 questions

1) 7 gal, I would do one fish until the tank is very well established

2) o.k.

3) none for now

4) I wouldn't they get big

5) sounds good

[Xwhite]

Turbos are big and clumsy. But, damn, they do such a good job. I have a rock in my aquarium right now covered with umm, stuff. Since I've put them in (about a week ago) they along with the astrea snails have almost completely cleaned that rock off.

 

And there's just something about big snails lumbering about in the aquarium that makes me happy. I'm almost to the point of naming my turbos hehe...

 

John

[printerdown01]

1. Decent. I would take it slow. See how much one fish impacts the bio-load first... every tank will react differently.

 

2. Def enough lighting for what you want to do. Alifes are used to house frogspawn and torch (relative) all the time on 27Watts of PC and they do VERY well.

 

3. I personally would do the gramma and a small goby i.e. neon, redheaded, red sided, or something similar just to be safe. But then again I am always conservative when it comes to adding fish... again I would take the fish introduction slowly as they will change the bio-load in the tank signif.

 

4. You CAN keep a sand sifting star, but I wouldn't recommend it. As someone mentioned above it will eat your worms which will be more effective at keeping your sand healthy in the long run. You may not have worms now but you will. Exchanging a cup or two of LS with other reefers will help out in your LS bio-diversity...

 

5. Toss-up: on one hand I would suggest since you are new that you start with fish (no need to add both before, one is fine), shrooms, leather, then torch -just to get "broken in." I personally would get the torch in before I found a permanent home for everything, as the torches reach will dictate where others can live. I would probably recommend what you have listed... but keep in mind that you may have to rearrange a little when you add the torch.

 

p.s. Turbos are great cleaners, but I wouldn't put on in my own nano... Just a personal thing: A) they can easily knock just about anything in my tank over (same as urchins) B ) they are HUGE, and stick out like sore thumbs in a nano -which I personally don't like. I use astrea (primarily) dispite the fact that they like to roll over... I also use nerites and cerith for algae cleaning, and I use Nass rather than hermits for food clean up (more effecive IME). -With the exception of zebra hermits which are great scavengers (better than nass) but love to eat snails X)