My 120 Gallon Project - First Timer !

[OneFishTwoFish]

Quick Update now that the water has cleared:

I'll be adding a little more sand today. Then it's "cycle waiting time" . . . . .

 

[jrose323]

Great job! Much improvement! Your snails and other substrate based livestock will love it! Just make sure those rocks are solid. Your snails (Especially Mexican Turbo's) are a bit ruff and clumsy. They will knock over your rocks.

If you are planning on adding a good CUC, make sure your substrate is at minimum 2" deep. I love Nassarius Snails which bury themselves in the sand and also help keep your sand substrate stirred and oxygenated. I recommend 2-3" substrate depth for them.

 

[lbiminiblue]

Looks awesome. If you don't mind, I would suggest moving some rocks out from the left. You have some clutter there that makes a brick wall look. Maybe open another tunnel?

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Very good point, Ibiminiblue. I'm heading out for the weekend, but when I return on Monday, I'll see what can be arranged to reduce the cluttered feeling on the left side.
Thank You !
---Frank

 

[lbiminiblue]

I could show you a picture of my setup, if you don't mind. It's gotten some good critique, and I think you might like it. Want a picture?

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Yes, Ibiminiblue, I'd really appreciate seeing your setup. Thank you !


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[FLReefers]

Frank,
That is a clean set up!! Very nice and I'm surely jealous! lol I do agree with having more of a sand bed area for certain corals. I didn't weigh that out in the beginning but wish I had. It has not been a major issue but has come into play a little. I'm not worked up enough to move anything now but might have redesigned if I thought about it upfront. Looking forward to following your thread and my wife Erin says you should dust off that camera because its bad ass!!

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Hello All ! I'm back to my tank thread after spending some time with my cycle thread:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...m-discussion/91835-cycle-starting-advice.html

Looks like the cycle has completed. Tomorrow, I'll be browsing my LFS for a starter clean-up crew. Last night, we did some close observing after the lights turned off. There are several small (possibly cerith) snails on the back glass. They are approx. 1/4" to 3/8" long and seem to be munching algae. They had to come along with the live rock, because we have not yet added any critters.

There's also this . . . looks like the dreaded aptasia:

And a few of these weedy looking things:

All comments and suggestions appreciated !
Thanks
---Frank

 

[Snid]

Yup... Aiptasia alright. If you need advice on how to get rid of it, there are several threads started that give suggestions. Here's a link to one of the most recent ones I posted with suggestions on how to get rid of it... Aiptasia Removal

The other stuff looks like a Calcareous Algae of some sort, which most likely is a good thing. It will probably be a good biological filter for you. You'll probably want another opinion on that as I'm not for certain.

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Thanks for the confirmation, Snid. I've been reading about Aiptasia removal. Time to get to work !

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Clean-Up Crew Added . . .

A little late in updating here (by 2 days). I did a 30 gallon water change, checked parameters (Ammonia & Nitrites not detectable, Nitrates <1), so it's time for some inhabitants.

Added 10 Nassarius Snails, 10 Nerite Snails, 2 Turbo Snails, 6 Red-Leg Hermits. Hopefully I won't have to join the 'Crabs Are Evil' Society. The crabs have staked-out an area of rock that's pretty far away from where the snails are working. Snails did a good job on light algae that was on the front and side glass. There's a good amount of algae on the back glass that has not been touched. Maybe the snails need some guidance to find it.

Also added a small (2 inches wide) Toadstool Coral. It was pretty cranky at first, but after finding a nice location for it, polyps are very well extended.

No other inhabitants yet.

Considering as my next additions: Peppermint Shrimp and / or Bangaii Cardinal. What do you think ?

Thanks All !

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Crabs Are Evil !

I know - I was warned.

Out of the 6 Red-Leg Hermits that I added on Saturday (only 5 days ago), 4 of them are running around in SNAIL shells. I found 3 naked snails, still alive, in the rocks. There are lots of extra shells for the Hermits. These guys are small but effective warriors. My snails are small, maybe 1 inch tall. Is that the problem ? Or, should I go crab-trapping and move them to the sump ? The Turbo Snails (quite large) seem fine and are happily cleaning the glass.

Other news: Nitrates are at about 10 today and were <1 just 5 days ago.
Toadstool is fine. Good polyp extension begins about 30 minutes after lights-on in the morning. They retract at some point during the night.

 

[Oxylebius]

Snails can't survive w/o their shells, so not sure what you meant when you said you found naked snails in the rocks, alive. Sounds like you have some other snails, maybe nudies, in there. If you got live rock, you may have some hitchhikers.

If you have hermits you really need to keep extra shells in various sizes for them, not just one size.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

did your snails without shells look like this hitchhiker stomatella snail, good members of the cuc

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Nano - yes, that's exactly what they look like. Happy they are "good" !


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[OneFishTwoFish]

Oxy - we went shell shopping. The 6 hermits now have 30 shells (various sizes) to choose from. I hope they're happy.


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[Oxylebius]

I hope they are happy as well. Crabs will go after dieing snails also, which is great, nothing will be left to foul the water. Whenever new snails are added to your tank you may end up loosing some due to them not shipping well or not acclimating well to your tank. Then crabs come in handy to get rid of the sick and dieing!

Stomatella are great snails. Watch watch fish and inverts you pick up, some like to eat stomas. I had a peppermint shrimp take mine out. They also broadcast spawn, so if you see your rocks "smoking" that's the stoma. They are known to readily spawn in aquariums.

 

[Snid]

Whenever new snails are added to your tank you may end up loosing some due to them not shipping well or not acclimating well to your tank

This is partly why it is a good idea to quarantine anything living that goes into the display.

Diseases are another good reason. Fish aren't the only things that get sick and want to share that illness. I remember years ago, decades even, a friend of mine added a new batch of snails into his tank and they all died off, his old ones and his new one, within a week. Yeah, some of you might think they are just snails, but he had a couple expensive types. At least they were back then. I don't recall what they were, but they had attractive shells with prongs on them.

Hitchhikers are yet another reason. Snails can have hitchhikers on them. Heck... Sometimes that hitchhiker could be Bryopsis even. Algae and worms will grow on their shells. My Bumblebee Snails' shells are so infested with tiny, white tube worms that you literally can't see their stripes and they look polka dotted. My Mexican Turbo Snails keep taking turns riding each other's shells because they keep getting GHA on them.

 

[OneFishTwoFish]

Monday Update - We Have Fish !

After careful consideration, and I really appreciate everyone's contributions here, I decided to add my first fish directly to my DT. I understand that the risk (if they have any issues) would be to run fallow for 8-10 weeks. I do have a QT ready to go, if needed. I'll observe my new fish for at least 4 weeks before acquiring any additional inhabitants. At that point, new acquisitions will go to QT for a 3-4 week observation period, before moving to DT.

Added today: two Banggaii Cardinals, they appear to be a male/female pair.

After 2 hours of acclimation, they promptly found a cave to hide in. There are several caves available, since they are the only fish in the tank. Four hours later, I offered about a third of a PE Mysis cube. The Cardinals came out to eat, then returned to their cave. This morning, they are hanging around the front of the DT, near the bottom. They're not very active, but at least they are not hiding.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Beautiful cardinals !