Need advice on picking inverts

[Joshua Agostoni]

So my take went through ick and now im running it fishies for the 2 and a half months. After some long thought processes I decided against a pref tank and get only peaceful community fish... before I had an eel that would eat all my snails expect my nasarus snails.. Now since I'm going peaceful fish I can get shrimp and other things. So right now I have.

12 nasarus snails and a few others 1 being a cerith snail and I even have baby snails which I don't know what they are as of yet but i think there cerith snails is cerith snails are asexual and can reproduce by themselves... But it's awesome to see life growing.. anyway I know I want a cleaner shrimp and I was thinking of a crab or two by the way I have about 4 hermit crabs but since they need to replace there shells I'm not interested in adding more.

Can any of you list some cool inverts to pick up like I said I'll be getting a cleaner shrimp for sure and p4obably about 10 trochus snails. As for snails the ones I have and the 10 trochus are all I want any other shrimp crab maybe urcines that are very colorful and fun to have... stars are cool to but not serpents.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

The smooth leg Serpent Stars are generally harmless. The spikey armed ones are the ones to watch out for. It's really fun to watch them walk around the tank grabbing food with their arms. Other cool Inverts: Blue Tuxedo Urchin, Yellow Sea Dwarf Sea Cucumber (filter feeding, attached to rock), there is also the Fire cleaner shrimp. Lastly, one of my favs and great for keeping the sand clean: the fighting conch or queen conch. Good luck!

 

[Steven91]

Love my skunk cleaner and fire red shrimp, the skunks will clean your hand if you go in to their station

 

[ThunderGoose]

Urchins are fun - I have several. Agree with cleaner shrimp, serpent stars, "fighting" conch and I'd add sexy shrimp.

You can also get a reef safe starfish from KP Aquatics (if they survived Irma) that makes a nice addition. Starfish are often not well taken care of in transit and end up not surviving well but KP does a good job.

Lots of invertebrates are nocturnal but the sexy shrimp and cleaner shrimps will be out and active during the day.

 

[Joshua Agostoni]

You guys have any advice on crabs.. and I honestly don't like the serpent stars.

 

[Joshua Agostoni]

By the way I don't have coral.

 

[UCedumacasion]

I would never put a Sally Lightfoot, shame face, XLg Hermit Crab species, etc in an Aquarium.
I'd also caution against Arrow Crabs (can be aggressive but do some beneficial things)
I add C. tricolor (blue leg hermits) I also add Scarlet Hermits (although they can get larger and a little bit more aggressive), I also add Electric Blue and Orange knuckle hermits (although they will turn over loose corals to farm algae), I also love Emerald Crabs (Mythrix) although they can also become aggressive, if you purchase these I suggest that you purchase Females.

Porcelain Crabs are also SUPER cool as they will host anemones and filter feed using an appendage that looks like a fan.

I also would tell you to consider Sea Cucumbers (holothuria florida) for sand bed clean up.

Serpent stars (Harlequin, Orange, Black, Banded, etc are all good as long as they are smooth skin).

Snails be careful that you don't get anything that is predatory (a lot of species of nassarius are actually predatory). I also really encourage you to get Trochus genera snails, they are usually labeled "Pond raised" by wholesalers if you need to ask your LFS for them. Personally I don't like the Mexican Turbo Snails unless you have an issue because they are a cold water species and because of this their metabolism is over clocked and leads to premature death in an aquarium (the same goes for Maragrita snails, Mexican Red Leg Hermit crabs, and anything else that comes from the Pacific coast or Northern Mexico)

The big thing for me is the variety, not necessarily having 10-16 of something but I personally feel that it is better to have 5-6 of 6 different things (depending on species) and to have a more biologically diverse (therefore stabilized) system.

Good luck with your choosing. Inverts are the way to go, plus they are wild to watch. The other thing you need to consider is what niche you're trying to fill with these animals. Some preventative animals are good but also try to have "rescue" or other work-like animals that you will bring in in the case of an emergency (i.e. hair algae, bubble algae, etc)

 

[ThunderGoose]

Crabs with no corals? That makes it easier - I like my emerald crabs, porcelain crabs, red mitrax, decorator crabs, pom pom crabs, hermits (although I have one, a "Zebra" who now lives in the sump and is named Dexter due to the Great Massacre of 2017. He killed both hermits and snails. Which is to bad because he has personality plus! I hand feed him meaty food 3-4 times a week).

I would avoid Horseshoe crabs - they are often listed for sale but do not do good in a typical tank.

How do you feel about Feather Dusters? I love mine. They do move around the tank a bit until they find a good spot to settle down (although I have one who has been wandering for months).

 

[Joshua Agostoni]

Never heard of a feather duster

 

[UCedumacasion]

Crabs with no corals? That makes it easier - I like my emerald crabs, porcelain crabs, red mitrax, decorator crabs, pom pom crabs, hermits (although I have one, a "Zebra" who now lives in the sump and is named Dexter due to the Great Massacre of 2017. He killed both hermits and snails. Which is to bad because he has personality plus! I hand feed him meaty food 3-4 times a week).

I would avoid Horseshoe crabs - they are often listed for sale but do not do good in a typical tank.

How do you feel about Feather Dusters? I love mine. They do move around the tank a bit until they find a good spot to settle down (although I have one who has been wandering for months).

I've hand collected Caribbean Decorator crabs and they can be a mixed bag. They can get predatory as well (although I honestly may have mis-identified a species because of size)

I'd also stay away from Scallops (they need a silly amount of food, usually hide, and are at the top of a lot of predator's grocery list).

Horseshoe crabs are really cool but like ThunderGoose said.. They don't do well in a typical tank. They also get about 14" and are basically little spastic bulldozers.

Feather Dusters, Cluster Dusters, Coco Worms and any of the filter feeding worm species are great additions but will need you to feed the tank occasionally so make sure you do that otherwise they will drop their crowns (their "feathers" and filtering apparatus) and can go dormant and die.

I had totally forgotten about Pom Poms, they are really cool animals as well. Just make sure that with a lot of crabs you have a lot of hiding places for everyone to live in that way they don't constantly compete for space.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I'd worry about a shrimp with a mythrax. Never had a mythrax, but crabs in general don't get along with shrimp in my experience. I also heard coral banded shrimp don't like other shrimp unless the tank is very big. Don't k ow how big "big" is though. I always loved watching my clean shrimp.

I love my Caribbean, dwarf, and black ceriths along with my Astreas. They eat all kinds of algae. Including cyano, diatom, hair algae, and dinoflagellates from what I have seen.

Limpets are a neat deviation from snails. The astarea starfish are also cool stars. The tan ones eat algae and blue ones eat coraline. If you have macroalgae like any variation of caulerpa, then you can get a lettuce seaslug. Just make sure your powerheads have filters so they don't get sucked up and killed. High flowing overflows can harm them too.

I had some brittlestars which are filter feeders. They hide under rocks and swing their arms around to catch plankton which is fun to watch. I had one that was orange that would come out at night and chase down the source of the plankton. Again powerhead filters are a good idea here. Several got their arms chopped off while moving around at night. The arms will grow back but if too many get cut off then they will die.

Snapping shrimp are cool but the smaller ones will mostly hide. Some will pair up with a goby. I have a few different types of small featherdusters but I hear hermits will sometimes eat them so I don't plan on getting any personally.