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My Finnex 4 Gal ... I hope it works :)


tarajean0627

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tarajean0627

So are red legged and scarlet hermit crabs the same thing?

 

Yes I can trust that LFS with the advice I find in many places (mainly here).

 

No the treatment didn't affect my water parameters at all just like my LFS told me. :) It worked great and I would recommend it to anyone that has a pest anemone like mine. I will say the LFS said that if you have other corals that have mouths (mushrooms etc) you have to be a bit more careful not to get this on them or it may kill them too. But since there is nothing in my tank I have no worries. :)

 

Quick question is should I do a water change before putting in my CUC? Or is it safe to just put them in?

 

Thanks :)

Sarah

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Quick question is should I do a water change before putting in my CUC? Or is it safe to just put them in?

 

IMO water change is like the chicken soup of reef keeping. The only time I've heard any recommendation not to change water was during the cycle as it will prolong it. Any other time a water change is generally considered a Good Thing. (Please someone point out any other exceptions you know to this generality.)

 

To put it another way, it's like voting in Chicago - change early and change often. :lol:

 

-hank

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Wow...everything sounds great so far!!!!

 

CUC...I like the blue legs the best...also get a couple of nass snails

to mix the sand...IMO better than stars on a small tank.

Just temp float 20 mins...take out of bag by hand and drop in.

DONt change water yet...just keep your SG and temp in check

with normal light cycle. Add your CUC friday...let them eat away for

a week or so...you will notice some crab poop if they are eating well.

This is your 1st step in building those bacteria levels to handle larger

louds. (fish)

You can even feed the clean up crew after they start knocking algae back.

Nass snails will pop up with current off to eat food that rest on the bottom.

 

Then maybe a water change.

 

Just be patient B)

 

Just scheduled 2 tank dive tommorrow with Kona Hona Divers :)

The wife is dragging me to a Luau tonight ( im not mad...3 hour open bar)..LOL

 

Izzue

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tarajean0627
Wow...everything sounds great so far!!!!

 

CUC...I like the blue legs the best...also get a couple of nass snails

to mix the sand...IMO better than stars on a small tank.

Just temp float 20 mins...take out of bag by hand and drop in.

DONt change water yet...just keep your SG and temp in check

with normal light cycle. Add your CUC friday...let them eat away for

a week or so...you will notice some crab poop if they are eating well.

This is your 1st step in building those bacteria levels to handle larger

louds. (fish)

You can even feed the clean up crew after they start knocking algae back.

Nass snails will pop up with current off to eat food that rest on the bottom.

 

Then maybe a water change.

 

Just be patient B)

 

Just scheduled 2 tank dive tommorrow with Kona Hona Divers :)

The wife is dragging me to a Luau tonight ( im not mad...3 hour open bar)..LOL

 

Izzue

 

Izzue,

Great to hear that your vacation is going well but you still have time for us newbies. LOL Thanks to your wife for letting us borrow you. :happy:

 

Thank you for the detailed reply about my CUC that clears up alot of the questions I had. :) I think I may get 2 blue and 2 red and 2 nas snails. I think that will be great.

 

I'm going to add a picture of the tank before I put in the CUC because I want to see the progress they make and how long it will take them to get it clean. LOL

 

What do you suggest to feed the CUC once the algae is under control?

 

Sarah :)

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Hey Sarah, I just loaded my picotope with 2 blues, 2 nassarius, and 2 astrea. I think you would need the latter to work the algae off the tank walls. I know Izzue has many more posts than I and is probably much smarter in this than I, but I was always told to drip acclimate inverts (I use airline tubing and a valve and drip in tank water for about an hour and hoepfully ata a rate to about double teh volume).

 

Always Symbiotic...

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Hey Sarah, I just loaded my picotope with 2 blues, 2 nassarius, and 2 astrea. I think you would need the latter to work the algae off the tank walls.

 

+1 on the Astrea

 

My Nass didn't do much of anything except move the dirt around. I am feeding them Frozen Mysis Shrimp right now as there isn't enough bio load to feed them atm. They are like little zombies coming out of the sand when you feed them and it's a ton of fun to watch and for the most part is the only time I ever see them!! I'm running 2 Blues, 4 Nass (I'd only run two if I did it over), 2 astrea, 1 Nerite in my 3g Picotope at work. The Nertie clean everything and are small but they can't right themselves when knocked over. The astrea seem to do a better job cleaning but are large and clumsy but can right themselves if flipped over. I've had an astrea in my other tank knock over a small zoa frag so you might watch out for that. One more thing.. Make sure you get some extra shells from your lfs for the hermits as they tend to rape and pillage the snails for shells if there is nothing for them to grow into. Just ask them for empty shells that are at the bottom of the tank and they should give them to you for free.

 

Steve

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tarajean0627

Okay so here is an update. I went out on Friday and got my clean up crew. I got 2 red legged hermits, 1 emerald crab (he was just too cute!), and 2 snails (well actually 4 but only paid for 2 LOL). Then as I was looking around I saw a couple of pieces of coral that I just couldn't pass up. So I got 2, a ric and a zoa. Very cool. Then on Saturday I went out to run some errands and I found myself at a different LFS than Friday and they had 2 6 foot tanks with $10 frags in them. I couldn't help myself so I got 3 more. I know I shouldn't have but as I said I couldn't help myself. LOL I got another zoa that is orange, a candy cane coral that is red and green, and a bumpy looking mushroom with a couple of green stripes on it. I can't believe all the technical terms I am using! LOL jk

 

One other good thing that happened on Friday is I found the perfect fish for my tank. I did NOT buy him and I couldn't put him on "lay away" but the guy at the LFS told me the fish had been there for 2 months and no one had bought him/her. He also told me that he wouldn't sell him to anyone but he couldn't promise none of the other workers wouldn't sell him. :) The other thing he showed me is that the fish was eating flake food and very healthy. The fish is a Green Clown Goby and he/she is absolutely adorable! So in another 2 weeks if he hasn't been sold and my tank parameters are still good I will be picking him up. :)

 

So with out futher ado here are the pictures of the new stuff. I will apologize for my crappy photo taking skills and for the algea on the tank (hopefully that will be gone soon with the clean up crew working away).

 

Here is the tank before the clean up crew was put in. The tube running out of the tank is for acclamating the inverts.

post-33869-1209910528_thumb.jpg

 

The green zoas very mad about the move.

post-33869-1209910599_thumb.jpg

 

And the tiny Emerald Mithrax Crab (too cute)

post-33869-1209910668_thumb.jpg

 

The new ric, with 2 mouths

post-33869-1209910796_thumb.jpg

 

These are the green zoas open and hopefully looking pretty happy

post-33869-1209910876_thumb.jpg

 

The orange zoas opened within an hour of putting them in.

post-33869-1209910925_thumb.jpg

 

The candy cane

post-33869-1209910992_thumb.jpg

 

And finally the mushroom (any id for what this one is actually called?

post-33869-1209911042_thumb.jpg

 

Well let me know what you all think and everything seems to be doing fine. I think I may need to get a couple of different kinds of snails seeing as how the ones I have are not going on the glass at all yet but I figure I will give it a couple more days and see how it goes. Or I was just thinking about scraping the walls myself but that is really going to create a mess in the tank. yuk!! Any suggestions?

 

Sarah

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Okay so here is an update. I went out on Friday and got my clean up crew. I got 2 red legged hermits, 1 emerald crab (he was just too cute!), and 2 snails (well actually 4 but only paid for 2 LOL). Then as I was looking around I saw a couple of pieces of coral that I just couldn't pass up. So I got 2, a ric and a zoa. Very cool. Then on Saturday I went out to run some errands and I found myself at a different LFS than Friday and they had 2 6 foot tanks with $10 frags in them. I couldn't help myself so I got 3 more. I know I shouldn't have but as I said I couldn't help myself. LOL I got another zoa that is orange, a candy cane coral that is red and green, and a bumpy looking mushroom with a couple of green stripes on it. I can't believe all the technical terms I am using! LOL jk

 

One other good thing that happened on Friday is I found the perfect fish for my tank. I did NOT buy him and I couldn't put him on "lay away" but the guy at the LFS told me the fish had been there for 2 months and no one had bought him/her. He also told me that he wouldn't sell him to anyone but he couldn't promise none of the other workers wouldn't sell him. :) The other thing he showed me is that the fish was eating flake food and very healthy. The fish is a Green Clown Goby and he/she is absolutely adorable! So in another 2 weeks if he hasn't been sold and my tank parameters are still good I will be picking him up. :)

 

So with out futher ado here are the pictures of the new stuff. I will apologize for my crappy photo taking skills and for the algea on the tank (hopefully that will be gone soon with the clean up crew working away).

 

Here is the tank before the clean up crew was put in. The tube running out of the tank is for acclamating the inverts.

post-33869-1209910528_thumb.jpg

 

The green zoas very mad about the move.

post-33869-1209910599_thumb.jpg

 

And the tiny Emerald Mithrax Crab (too cute)

post-33869-1209910668_thumb.jpg

 

The new ric, with 2 mouths

post-33869-1209910796_thumb.jpg

 

These are the green zoas open and hopefully looking pretty happy

post-33869-1209910876_thumb.jpg

 

The orange zoas opened within an hour of putting them in.

post-33869-1209910925_thumb.jpg

 

The candy cane

post-33869-1209910992_thumb.jpg

 

And finally the mushroom (any id for what this one is actually called?

post-33869-1209911042_thumb.jpg

 

Well let me know what you all think and everything seems to be doing fine. I think I may need to get a couple of different kinds of snails seeing as how the ones I have are not going on the glass at all yet but I figure I will give it a couple more days and see how it goes. Or I was just thinking about scraping the walls myself but that is really going to create a mess in the tank. yuk!! Any suggestions?

 

Sarah

 

 

 

careful not to go too fast. reef keeping is a fun and exciting hobby.. but its one that can turn to disaster quickly. :) good luck!

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Hey sarah looking nice. Keep some premixed water on hand in case the water goes nuts on you. I need some of those $10 frags :) Keep up the good work.

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Hey Boo...

slow down...let the CUC make the LR spotless before adding corals.

You still have very immature tank with little water room for error.

 

Izzue

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tarajean0627

Hey all!

Quick update. The Hermits and Mithrax are working diligently on the rocks. The snails hardly move and only in the sand when they do. Because they were not working on the walls I had to go in myself and scrap the nasty hair algea on the walls off. EWWWW!! LOL I didn't get it all but at least now I can see into my tank. :)

 

Here are my next questions:

1. Should I get a different type of snail for the walls or just take care of it myself?

2. I plan on doing my first water change this weekend, should I do more than 10%?

3. I see little worms coming out of my LR and LS, almost opaque in color. They can extend pretty far out and I am wondering will these hurt my coral? If so how do I get rid of them?

4. Also if anyone reading this has this same tank I am wondering on how often to replace the filter media in the stock filter or should I just rinse it when I do a water change?

 

Thanks and I will post pics again soon. :)

Sarah

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I don't think you have actually mentioned which type of snails you bought, but like was previously mentioned, astrea snails work really well in my experience. Little algae billygoats. Ceriths are good sandbed and glass cleaners. If you can find them, stomatella snails are great too. You might want to look at getting one nassarius snail too to stir the sand bed. Plus they look cool errupting from the snad bed when there is food about.

 

Rinsing the filter pad will only get the loose stuff off, but your carbon in the pad will be used up. Those little filter pads will get expensive quickly after replacing a few of them. I would suggest at your next earliest convinence ditching the stock filter and going with an aquaclear 50/70 and convert it into a fuge. You won't need to run filter media all the time in it. I usually put in a piece of filter floss over the outlet during water changes just to catch the crap that gets kicked up, then take it out the next day. The filter is also big enough to drop a small bag of carbon/purigen/chemipure in when needed.

 

For the time being, you can tear off the filter pad from the frame, dump the carbon, and cut a piece of filter floss the same size and put it back in for now.

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Get a pair of astreas, mine cleared my algae in a week - and the nassarius are way cool, looking like a submarine busting out of the sand!

 

I bought a pura-complete pad and am cutting those for use in my filter, plan on tossing and replacing 1/month (note that I have pico sized filter and the pad I cut is probably 1" x 3"). I am changing out 1 qt on a weekly basis for my 3-gal pico. I like the idea of an AC50 fuge, but have not got there yet - then again, I got a cycled tank with only two buttons in it so I reaaly have not got anywhere yet - hah. Am waiting till after vacation in June to load this one with stuff.

 

Am enjoyin the thread.

 

Always Symbiotic...

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fiction101

I would do a 50% water change and then start stocking it with corals!

 

Get a large turbo snail, those guys clean up the glass very fast.

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tarajean0627
I don't think you have actually mentioned which type of snails you bought, but like was previously mentioned, astrea snails work really well in my experience. Little algae billygoats. Ceriths are good sandbed and glass cleaners. If you can find them, stomatella snails are great too. You might want to look at getting one nassarius snail too to stir the sand bed. Plus they look cool errupting from the snad bed when there is food about.

 

Rinsing the filter pad will only get the loose stuff off, but your carbon in the pad will be used up. Those little filter pads will get expensive quickly after replacing a few of them. I would suggest at your next earliest convinence ditching the stock filter and going with an aquaclear 50/70 and convert it into a fuge. You won't need to run filter media all the time in it. I usually put in a piece of filter floss over the outlet during water changes just to catch the crap that gets kicked up, then take it out the next day. The filter is also big enough to drop a small bag of carbon/purigen/chemipure in when needed.

 

For the time being, you can tear off the filter pad from the frame, dump the carbon, and cut a piece of filter floss the same size and put it back in for now.

 

Thanks for the advice Evilc66. I do plan on getting an AC filter in the future but I hadn't planned on doing it so soon. LOL :)

 

 

Get a pair of astreas, mine cleared my algae in a week - and the nassarius are way cool, looking like a submarine busting out of the sand!

 

I bought a pura-complete pad and am cutting those for use in my filter, plan on tossing and replacing 1/month (note that I have pico sized filter and the pad I cut is probably 1" x 3"). I am changing out 1 qt on a weekly basis for my 3-gal pico. I like the idea of an AC50 fuge, but have not got there yet - then again, I got a cycled tank with only two buttons in it so I reaaly have not got anywhere yet - hah. Am waiting till after vacation in June to load this one with stuff.

 

Am enjoyin the thread.

 

Always Symbiotic...

 

Symbiotic,

Thanks for the advice on the snails. When I first got my clean up crew I got what I thought to be 2 ceriths, 1 nass (Free) and some extra shells for my hermits. Come to find out I got 3 ceriths and 1 nass and only one extra shell for the hermits. LOL For the last week the ceriths have just been haning out in the sand bed and so yesterday I decided I would go get one more snail to take care of the glass. I really do not know what kind it is but with in 5 min of putting him in the tank he was on the walls. But then about 10 min later I saw that all the sails were on the glass! I guess they just needed to be shown what to do. LOL

 

And thanks for the ideas about the filter pads. :)

 

And for all of those wanting pictures here are some new ones. I think I am getting a better handle on my camera. Not much is new except how much cleaner the rocks and tank in general is. :) Also this will be my first attempt at using photobucket to host my pics so please let me know if it doesn't work for anyone. :)

 

As you can see in this one my green zoas are a bit unhappy but I think that may be because of the snail right next to them.

IMG_19261.jpg

 

The next 2 are of my ric

IMG_192511.jpg

 

IMG_19221.jpg

 

Oh and these next two are of a hitch hiker that I am not sure what it is. It looks like a starfish to me but I don't know what kind. Any ID from anyone would be helpful.

IMG_19182.jpg

 

IMG_19181.jpg

 

Any inputs are welcome. The seems to be doing great. I also got a LED moon light but it was only a single and because of where we had to put it in the tank it only lights one side so I need to go back and get another for the other side of the tank. Pictures to follow when that happens. :)

 

Sarah

 

Edit: Sorry if anyone couldn't see these pictures before. Still getting used to photobucket. LOL They should be fixed now but if not let me know pls. :)

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Keep an eye on the starfish. Some can be not so friendly towards corals. I believe that the ones with two legs that are longer than the others are the ones that are really bad.

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tarajean0627

Okay so I am a bit upset this morning. I woke to find one of my hermit crabs out of his shell and dead.:( Okay so maybe he went looking for a bigger shell last night and couldn't find one. I did have one extra shell in the tank but maybe he couldn't find it in time or maybe he didn't like that one. The wierd thing was that I couldn't find his shell that he was in anywhere in the tank. :huh: Also my green zoas haven't opened completely for a few days. I did my first water change yesterday so when I get home I will test my levels again. But I tested them before the water change everything was at 0 so I don't think that is the problem. hmmm?? I don't know what to think. :(

 

Troubled

Sarah

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TheUnfocusedOne
Okay so I am a bit upset this morning. I woke to find one of my hermit crabs out of his shell and dead.:( Okay so maybe he went looking for a bigger shell last night and couldn't find one. I did have one extra shell in the tank but maybe he couldn't find it in time or maybe he didn't like that one. The wierd thing was that I couldn't find his shell that he was in anywhere in the tank. :huh: Also my green zoas haven't opened completely for a few days. I did my first water change yesterday so when I get home I will test my levels again. But I tested them before the water change everything was at 0 so I don't think that is the problem. hmmm?? I don't know what to think. :(

 

Troubled

Sarah

 

its probably a molt

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tarajean0627

quick question, just so this hermit crab thing doesn't happen again I would like to get some more empty shells for my tank. I was looking online and I was wondering if the shells they sell for the land hermits would be ok? Such as these:

 

http://www.petdiscounters.com/c13/c21/c190...ozen-p4271.html

 

These are not painted or anything so that should be okay right? Or do they have to be special to salt water?

 

I tried to get more shells from my LFS when I got the new snail this weekend but they said they didn't have any, and when I got some "empty" shells the last time they weren't really empty. LOL Great to get free snails but this tragedy with the hermit could have been bypassed if it had been empty. Maybe?

 

Thanks

Sarah

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tarajean0627

hmm, well I thought when they molted the "molted stuff" would be clear like peeled off skin? This looked exactly like the crab, red claws and all. If it was just a molt then I will have to check the tank really good for that shell and see if he is still in it.

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The molt will look exactly like the crab that discarded it. It wiggles out of the back. Thats the easiest way to tell. A dead crab will look fairly intact, until the rest of the CUC get to it of course.

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tarajean0627

Maybe it was just a molt then. I will look very closely when I get home and see if he is still hanging out somewhere. I hope so. That would explain why I didn't find the shell anywhere. LOL He would still be wearing it.

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