Need your suggestion or recommendations....

[Ruben's Reef]

Hi to All,
I have my 40g breeder DT tank and 10g quarantine tank cycled. What would be the first CUC that you recommend for the DT and also the first fish on the QT? Can I put more than one fish on the 10g QT?

Fish that I would like to have is:

Ocellaris Clown
Royal Gamma
Firefish
Lawnmover Blenny

Thanks

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hi to All,
I have my 40g breeder DT tank and 10g quarantine tank cycled. What would be the first CUC that you recommend for the DT and also the first fish on the QT? Can I put more than one fish on the 10g QT?

Fish that I would like to have is:

Ocellaris Clown
Royal Gamma
Firefish
Lawnmover Blenny

Thanks

First clean up crew I would get would be some sand sifting snails (Nassarius) some Nerite snails, and maybe some cerith snails. www.reefcleaners.org is a great site that i've personally used for my 40 gallon breeder. As far as fish in a 10 gallon, you could do up to two at a time, as long as there is plenty of places to hide so they aren't picking on eachother.

 

[jsker]

+1

 

[Ruben's Reef]

First clean up crew I would get would be some sand sifting snails (Nassarius) some Nerite snails, and maybe some cerith snails. www.reefcleaners.org is a great site that i've personally used for my 40 gallon breeder. As far as fish in a 10 gallon, you could do up to two at a time, as long as there is plenty of places to hide so they aren't picking on eachother.

Thanks. I will take a look on that site.

 

[rockstarta78]

Since this is a new tank, and assuming you are done with cycling the tank and have diatom, I'd get 3-5 Nassarius f0r the sand bed, 5-10 cerith snail for now. Once you start seeing more algae you can start adding more CUC.

As for lawnmower blenny, are you thinking of adding it now? It needs algae to feed off of. I'd wait few months before adding lawnmower. How do you plan on QT your fish? You could QT a pair of Ocellaris in 10g tank while your DT is cycling. Or you could QT firefish and Royal gramma together. Get a Seachem ammonia badge, you need to watch for ammonia level in your QT. Also make sure your QT is cycled as well. You could use one of those bottled nitrifying bacteria to cycle your QT. Do you plan on dosing the QT to prophylacticly treat your fishes?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

I've had the best luck with trochus snails as my rock/glass cleaning snails, they're kinda hard to come by sometimes though so the next best snail would be margarita snails IMO. Turbo sanils and astrea snails are also good but can have problems turning themselves over if they fall upside down (astrea snails) or bulldozing rocks and corals all over the place (turbo snails). Nerite snails are also pretty good but they will lay little white eggs everywhere (they won't hatch though). Can't go wrong with cerith and nassy snails in the sand bed. You can also get a tonga fighting/tiger/strawberry/florida fighting conch once your tank matures a bit to help out in the sand bed.

Blue/zebra legged, mexican reef, and scarlet hermits are great for picking stuff out of rocks. If your LFS has some, halloween hermits are super cool looking and also good at cleaning excess food up.

My reef aquarium will also always have at least one shrimp, they can be annoying when feeding corals but they are very good at cleaning up uneaten foods, especially in hard to reach places. You can also get some utility out of a skunk cleaner shrimp in helping keep your fish healthy currently I have a flame shrimp and it is amazing at cleaning up the tank and looking like a million bucks with its amazing red and white coloration.

I would start out with 5-10 rock snails and 10 or so sand bed snails. After your tank is ready for fish, you can add a shrimp and some more snails if you feel like you need more. Snails are usually pretty hardy but don't be alarmed if one or two don't make it, sometimes they just don't adjust to a new environment or your LFS worker picks out some weaker ones.

 

[._Z_.]

Firefish are pretty timid so I’d recommend adding that fish first. That way it can get comfortable and won’t hide or possibly stress as much

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Since this is a new tank, and assuming you are done with cycling the tank and have diatom, I'd get 3-5 Nassarius f0r the sand bed, 5-10 cerith snail for now. Once you start seeing more algae you can start adding more CUC.

As for lawnmower blenny, are you thinking of adding it now? It needs algae to feed off of. I'd wait few months before adding lawnmower. How do you plan on QT your fish? You could QT a pair of Ocellaris in 10g tank while your DT is cycling. Or you could QT firefish and Royal gramma together. Get a Seachem ammonia badge, you need to watch for ammonia level in your QT. Also make sure your QT is cycled as well. You could use one of those bottled nitrifying bacteria to cycle your QT. Do you plan on dosing the QT to prophylacticly treat your fishes?

Ok, I used Dr tim bacteria and ammonia to cycle both tanks. By the LFS both are cycled but neither one has diatom. I don't have any light for either tank ON yet, so probably no diatom or algae will be on the tank. I have the Seachem ammonia badge on both tanks. Also I have a Salifert test kit for Nitrite and Nitrates that I been using every week to see the cycling development. Right now, Ammonia is 0, Nitrites 0 and Nitrates 10. I did a 10% water change on both tanks as the LFS recommend. My plan for quarantine is watch the fish for two weeks, feeding and look for any sign of illness and if that the case, then use medication.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

I've had the best luck with trochus snails as my rock/glass cleaning snails, they're kinda hard to come by sometimes though so the next best snail would be margarita snails IMO. Turbo sanils and astrea snails are also good but can have problems turning themselves over if they fall upside down (astrea snails) or bulldozing rocks and corals all over the place (turbo snails). Nerite snails are also pretty good but they will lay little white eggs everywhere (they won't hatch though). Can't go wrong with cerith and nassy snails in the sand bed. You can also get a tonga fighting/tiger/strawberry/florida fighting conch once your tank matures a bit to help out in the sand bed.

Blue/zebra legged, mexican reef, and scarlet hermits are great for picking stuff out of rocks. If your LFS has some, halloween hermits are super cool looking and also good at cleaning excess food up.

My reef aquarium will also always have at least one shrimp, they can be annoying when feeding corals but they are very good at cleaning up uneaten foods, especially in hard to reach places. You can also get some utility out of a skunk cleaner shrimp in helping keep your fish healthy currently I have a flame shrimp and it is amazing at cleaning up the tank and looking like a million bucks with its amazing red and white coloration.

I would start out with 5-10 rock snails and 10 or so sand bed snails. After your tank is ready for fish, you can add a shrimp and some more snails if you feel like you need more. Snails are usually pretty hardy but don't be alarmed if one or two don't make it, sometimes they just don't adjust to a new environment or your LFS worker picks out some weaker ones.

WOW, thanks a lot. Great explanation on the CUC.

 

[rockstarta78]

That's a good plan. Get few of the snails mentioned above be other posters. There are some good suggestions on this thread. you want snails for both sand and rock. Don't get too many of any type. If you get hermit crabs, be ready to have them strike down upon your snails with great vengeance and furious anger. I personally won't get more than one or two crabs, if I really had to get crabs.

Watch those fishes in QT carefully. I usually keep my fishes in QT for at least 6-8 weeks. I watch for 1 week, Prazipro for a week, Coppersafe (if applicable) for 6 weeks, watch another week with no meds, then transfer to DT. I am paranoid. I wish I could setup a QT for inverts as well.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

That's a good plan. Get few of the snails mentioned above be other posters. There are some good suggestions on this thread. you want snails for both sand and rock. Don't get too many of any type. If you get hermit crabs, be ready to have them strike down upon your snails with great vengeance and furious anger. I personally won't get more than one or two crabs, if I really had to get crabs.

Watch those fishes in QT carefully. I usually keep my fishes in QT for at least 6-8 weeks. I watch for 1 week, Prazipro for a week, Coppersafe (if applicable) for 6 weeks, watch another week with no meds, then transfer to DT. I am paranoid. I wish I could setup a QT for inverts as well.

Great. Thanks for the advise.