Advise and corrective criticism please…

[pav213]

Hello, I am new to saltwater tanks. I have read a lot of posts and have learned from all your posts, thank you!

My question is I am not positive I’m in the right track. My tank is over a month old, I have a Fluval Evo 13.5. I used live sand, live dry rock and Nutri-Sea Water to start. I now have 2 fancy clownfish, 1 devil blue yellow damsel, 4 hermit crabs. My LFS guy gave me a piece of his coral with a small coral to see if my tank is really doing fine. He told me it’s a pink pulsating Xenia and not sure of the other, I don’t think he saw it on the rock. I didn’t notice either til day two in my tank. And then all a sudden it was there. So my question is, is my tank looking like it’s on the right track? I have not seen it ever get “dirty”? I have not had any algae or really any thing in my tan, water change was fairly clean and foam bio block was a little dirty. So curious what i need to add for all my fish and corals to survive. Is there any thing such as a too clean tank??? What other fish are recommended? Should I add a shrimp to my CUC?? My salinity is 1.021 (low, not sure how to increase slightly), my ammonia .50, nitrite .25ppm, nitrate 20ppm, ph 7.8….I know I have to lower all, not sure exactly to add thou. I added Fluval cycle after water change…. That’s all I have done…Please advise, ty!

(running stock foam media, Fluval skimmer, sicce nano wave maker, stock pump with stock return dual heads, stock light)

 

[Cell]

No need to remove bristleworms, but it's a personal preference of many to remove them when sighted. I guess the same could be said for generic looking palys...

 

[Dburr1014]

That type of paly are not a crazy grower. I have a whole colony that are on an island.
As far as toxins, they are but they are on the lower end of the spectrum.

 

[pav213]

Bottom looks like a pest anemone, 0.50 ammonia is not good could be a test error though. Do you use tapwater or RODI? did you QT fish? do you have an ATO?

Algae takes time to grow, but it will likely begin to grow in time and you'll hit the ugly stage.

Low salinity can kill inverts. regular Waterchanges of the proper salinity can fix it. What do you do to test salinity?

tank looks normal enough, although life rock is not live rock, and there may be toxic ammonia present. I would recommend adding some bottled bacteria.

So should I remove pest anemone? Or is it harmless?

*Bristleworms* are good clean up crew members. No need to remove.

thank you

 

[pav213]

That type of paly are not a crazy grower. I have a whole colony that are on an island.
As far as toxins, they are but they are on the lower end of the spectrum.

Thank you! Ya put my mind at ease!

 

[Dburr1014]

So should I remove pest anemone? Or is it harmless?

thank you

Not a pest anenome, it's a Cinnamon paly

 

[SlugSnorter]

So should I remove pest anemone? Or is it harmless?

thank you

never mind, I miss-IDed sorry

 

[bnord]

Yes, and I thought that I had missed out on some new species of worm that comes from England. Was gonna try to look them up and buy one.

All joking aside if those worms came in off the rock that the LFS supplied you then perhaps it was more live than we first estimated, giving you hope that the tank should be headed in the right direction.
I would not put any more algae eaters in there, snail or such, until you have algae.
Tiny blue leg hermit crabs will scavenge left over food as well as early algae

But it looks like you’re on the right track and take care of those three fish and wait a while (short months… before you add any more

best of luck

 

[anthonygf]

Any suggestions if or what I should feed CUC? I don’t want them to die… or will they be fine eating the fish poop and excess fish food they find?

Get some algea wafers, add a few until you get some algea in there.

 

[pav213]

Get some algea wafers, add a few until you get some algea in there.

I will do that! Thanks!

 

[pav213]

Yes, and I thought that I had missed out on some new species of worm that comes from England. Was gonna try to look them up and buy one.

All joking aside if those worms came in off the rock that the LFS supplied you then perhaps it was more live than we first estimated, giving you hope that the tank should be headed in the right direction.
I would not put any more algae eaters in there, snail or such, until you have algae.
Tiny blue leg hermit crabs will scavenge left over food as well as early algae

But it looks like you’re on the right track and take care of those three fish and wait a while (short months… before you add any more

best of luck

Ty

 

[pav213]

Thank you! Ya put my mind at ease!

Ty

 

[melonheadorion]

algae is on its way. its going to be unavoidable. when it does happen, just know that it will, and it will eventually subside