40 Gallon Sandflat Tank

[Enoplus]

I've attempted to keep marine life before when I was a child, whether they were animals I bought from a pet store or collected from tide pools near the ocean. These early tanks didn't really do well since I had didn't really know how to maintain an aquarium and It's really a miracle some lasted as long as they did. But this thread isn't about my past experiences, It's about the tank I have right now. I've wanted to setup a proper saltwater tank for a while and have done plenty of research off and on over the last couple years and this month I finally got around to setting one up, this tank is intended to mimic a sandflat environment and likewise has little liverock in the display tank. I have 1 litre of pond matrix running in a canister filter which will be my main source of filtration, the tank will also contain macroalgae once I get livestock in it as it's still cycling it.

 

[Enoplus]

Here's a shot of the tank right now, its not much to look at but hopefully that changes in the future.

 

[Enoplus]

The liverock I bought came from someone else's established tank and has a bunch of critters on it, including these soft corals which are scattered throughout the rocks. Most of them are turning pale and fading away and I'm not confident that they will survive the cycling process. However these 2 polyps have kept their brown coloration and seem relatively healthy, here's to hoping they stay that way.

 

[fishlover1478]

what are you going to do for stock

 

[Enoplus]

I'm planning on keeping fireworms, nassarius snails, babylonia snails, a strawberry conch, cerith snails, scarlet hermit crabs and a yellowface pikeblenny

 

[fishlover1478]

nice i thought fire worms might eat smaller fish

 

[Enoplus]

Thanks, and I'm not too concerned about that since they lack teeth and mainly feed on coral and carrion in the wild.

 

[fishlover1478]

what species and actual fire worms not bristle worms
sting and it hurts a lot

 

[Enoplus]

I was planning on keeping Hermodice carunculata and Chloeia viridis and yeah I understand that they're pretty venomous, I'll just have to be extra careful during maintenance.

 

[fishlover1478]

Chloeia viridis are coralivore and Hermodice carunculata are actualy predators

 

[Enoplus]

They both readily feed on dead animals so I don't think they will be hard to maintain in captivity.

 

[fishlover1478]

even if the both eat dead stuff how are you going to get the dead stuff also Hermodice carunculata will still attack the blenny so if it works great but i don't think it will work

 

[Enoplus]

I can just give them seafood from the grocery store and H. carunculata doesn't feed on live, healthy fish, it mostly preys upon cnidarians.

 

[fishlover1478]

ok but what about Chloeia viridis are you going to provide corals and sponges

 

[Enoplus]

Chloeia viridis seems to mainly consume carrion and slow moving soft bodied animals, so it will do fine on a diet of seafood.

 

[fishlover1478]

updates?