40B Build starting on low budget

[Lula_Mae]

Yes, you want some thing that poops in there so that it keeps feeding the bacteria so your tank stays cycled and the biofilter gets well established.  Go slowly since it's a new tank to give the biofilter time to adjust to the new bioload.

[Hdale85]

Seems like ammonia is 0 or .25, nitrites are around 5. So getting close I guess. 

[Hdale85]

So loooking at some CUC, I was thinking a peppermint shrimp, 2 electric blue hermit crabs, and a few Spiny Star Astraea snails although not sure how many? or should I just order a pre-built CUC? Just seems for a 40 gallon tank those prebuilt CUC's are HUGE really don't want to add that much stuff at once. I want to get a goby as well but figure that's something I should probably add when I add fish. 

 

I'm not sure if these are adequate CUC species? It seems that most people seem to have good luck with peppermint shrimp, and the electric blue hermits are supposed to be pretty docile it seems. They look really nice so kind of want to try them, and figure with only 2 in a 40b maybe they'd be alright. The snails I was just looking for something interesting. 

[Lula_Mae]

Be careful with the peps, they can munch on corals.  Mine ripped out my zoa skirts before they died. Not sure on the hermits but I generally avoid hermits after a bad experience with a little punk zebra hermit.  A variety of snails is ideal, nassarius will sift through the sand to clean it and a combination of other snails like cerith, astrea, trochus, etc. will ensure you have detritus eaters and algae eaters, rock cleaners and glass cleaners.  The ninja stars are pretty cool looking though!

[Hdale85]

Yeah I've heard that some have issues with the shrimps and crabs, but generally most don't if you get the reef safe ones which peppermint and electric blue crabs are supposed to be. Kind of thought about pom pom crabs instead though lol.... they sure are cool looking. 

[Weetabix7]

7 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Be careful with the peps, they can munch on corals.  Mine ripped out my zoa skirts before they died. Not sure on the hermits but I generally avoid hermits after a bad experience with a little punk zebra hermit.  A variety of snails is ideal, nassarius will sift through the sand to clean it and a combination of other snails like cerith, astrea, trochus, etc. will ensure you have detritus eaters and algae eaters, rock cleaners and glass cleaners.  The ninja stars are pretty cool looking though!

 

I agree with this. 

 

Also, learned the hard way that the term "reef safe" is relative. Peppermint Shrimp and hermits are not reef safe by my definition of the word and I avoid them. 

[Hdale85]

Ok.....what about pom pom crabs, or the other crabs? Or should I just do snails? And how many snails should I get?

[Weetabix7]

Pom Pom crabs are good, so are Porcelain crabs, tho both can be shy. 

 

On snails, kinda depends what type you get, some are larger and eat more than others. 

Mexican Turbos are huge, eat a lot of algae, and poop a lot too. 

Some Trochus are big, some are medium. 

 

Off the top of my head, and assuming I had access to all of the following, if I were personally putting together a CUC for a 40B I would get:

6 Nassarius

4-5 Trochus

10ish Cerith. Mebbe more on these. Maybe 15?

 

Nassarius snails don't eat algae, they stay in the sandbed and emerge and eat food or detritus that hits the bottom. I have only kept a sandbed once in all of my tanks, so if someone else tells you to get a different number of Nassarius, go by what they say.

[moosubi]

11 hours ago, Hdale85 said:

So loooking at some CUC, I was thinking a peppermint shrimp, 2 electric blue hermit crabs, and a few Spiny Star Astraea snails although not sure how many? or should I just order a pre-built CUC? Just seems for a 40 gallon tank those prebuilt CUC's are HUGE really don't want to add that much stuff at once. I want to get a goby as well but figure that's something I should probably add when I add fish. 

 

I'm not sure if these are adequate CUC species? It seems that most people seem to have good luck with peppermint shrimp, and the electric blue hermits are supposed to be pretty docile it seems. They look really nice so kind of want to try them, and figure with only 2 in a 40b maybe they'd be alright. The snails I was just looking for something interesting. 

I'm trying to build up the heart to give my electric blue away.  Some may have had good success for them, but mine causes all sorts of problems.  I think he's developed an appetite for zoas, constantly tortures my mushrooms, digs up ANYTHING I have in the sandbed, flips my snails...  If I had to do it again, no hermits for me.

[Lula_Mae]

4 hours ago, moosubi said:

I'm trying to build up the heart to give my electric blue away.  Some may have had good success for them, but mine causes all sorts of problems.  I think he's developed an appetite for zoas, constantly tortures my mushrooms, digs up ANYTHING I have in the sandbed, flips my snails...  If I had to do it again, no hermits for me.

Sounds a lot like the zebra hermit I had lol.  Harassed the pom pom into constant hiding, ate my sargassum hitchhiker including the nub it sprouted from, bothered the corals and made my feather duster drop his crown from stress.  What a little jerk!  I wound up throwing him into a 1 gallon with a rock until he died...

[Hdale85]

Hmm ok I think I'll just get a couple pom poms and an assortment of snails lol.

[Lula_Mae]

Pom poms are great but they do tend to be cryptic.  I think you'll enjoy them.  And I'm loving my porcelain crab so I recommend those too, they are also small!

[Hdale85]

Yeah the porcelain's look pretty neat too. Seems they have sort of a pearlescent look to them. 

[Hdale85]

So nitrites are like .05 seems like they aren't moving much.... Nitrates seem to be around 7.5, so they are going down as well. Does that mean I have micro algae? I see no signs of any intrusive algae at all. 

[graftobny142]

On 6/4/2017 at 11:26 AM, Nidilsky said:

If it is going down, something is using it. That's good! Do you have any algae?

I haven't got my nitrates down from 5-10ppm since my cycle was finished. Besides a small diatom bloom, and even smaller GHA and cyano, I do not have much algae besides the glass algae that the snails eat. 

Making my own RODI water, a media basket and cutting the light back from 9 hours are what helped me.

[Hdale85]

I haven't done a water change since the last one I did. So I know nitrates would go down a lot with that. 

 

I was kind of wonder if I stuffed my HOB with algae and ran it like a refugium if that would even work lol. Granted I don't even have fish yet so I'm not really worried I was just thinking about it one day. 

 

I have to say I don't like test kits at all..... I think I'm going to get a Milwaukee digital refractometer, and the full line of Hanna Checkers soon lol. 

[Weetabix7]

1 hour ago, Hdale85 said:

I haven't done a water change since the last one I did. So I know nitrates would go down a lot with that. 

 

I was kind of wonder if I stuffed my HOB with algae and ran it like a refugium if that would even work lol. Granted I don't even have fish yet so I'm not really worried I was just thinking about it one day. 

 

I have to say I don't like test kits at all..... I think I'm going to get a Milwaukee digital refractometer, and the full line of Hanna Checkers soon lol. 

 

I don't like test kits either!!!

 

Running your HOB as a refugium would work if you use chaeto, how well it would work depends on how big it is, and I don't remember what size HOB you have. 

[Hdale85]

Mine is the 110 gallon version or whatever, it's quite large. I'd say the Seachem version has quite a bit more space in it than the other HOB's. Right now I just have a couple layers of poly for filter floss, and a bag of carbon. So lots of space in there for chaeto. 

 

I was mainly just wondering if it would give me more time between water changes and what not. 

[Weetabix7]

1 hour ago, Hdale85 said:

Mine is the 110 gallon version or whatever, it's quite large. I'd say the Seachem version has quite a bit more space in it than the other HOB's. Right now I just have a couple layers of poly for filter floss, and a bag of carbon. So lots of space in there for chaeto. 

 

I was mainly just wondering if it would give me more time between water changes and what not. 

 

Ok, that could work, yes. 

Yes, it would likely give you more possible time between water changes and will help keep your nitrates low. 

You'll still have to supplement for Calcium and Alk once you start getting corals in there that consume those things. 

[Hdale85]

Yeah, makes sense. 

[Hdale85]

What about a pistol shrimp? Do you guys have bud luck with those too? I was thinking of getting a Diamond Watchman Goby and Pistol Shrimp. 

[Weetabix7]

1 minute ago, Hdale85 said:

What about a pistol shrimp? Do you guys have bud luck with those too? I was thinking of getting a Diamond Watchman Goby and Pistol Shrimp. 

 

Those are okay.

[Nidilsky]

49 minutes ago, Hdale85 said:

What about a pistol shrimp? Do you guys have bud luck with those too? I was thinking of getting a Diamond Watchman Goby and Pistol Shrimp. 

If they pair up. If they don't, sometimes the shrimp will kill the goby (from what I have read). If possible, get them already paired.

[Hdale85]

So nitrites are down to like .01, and nitrates are 2 or so. How long can I wait before I have to add ammonia to keep the cycle alive? I was going to try and order some CUC members this coming Friday, so not sure if I'd need to feed some ammonia in that amount of time or not. 

[graftobny142]

1 minute ago, Hdale85 said:

So nitrites are down to like .01, and nitrates are 2 or so. How long can I wait before I have to add ammonia to keep the cycle alive? I was going to try and order some CUC members this coming Friday, so not sure if I'd need to feed some ammonia in that amount of time or not. 

What cuc are you planning to get?