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OK, i'm moving in a week and I'm going to bite the bullet. The axolotl is getting kicked out and I then have a spare AR380.

What I would like to have is a bare bones no frills tank that looks good and is a breeze to maintain.

I was looking into seahorses, but they are not being bred at the moment, and the variety I would like are not all that prolific in the wild, so i do not like the idea of wild caughts.

SO

I'd like hermit crabs.

I figure that i'm reasonably good with FW crustaceans, and making the leap to SW I may as well stick with something that I understand a bit more than fish.

What would be the best way to make this tank suitable for say, 4 hermit crabs that are approx 1/2"? is that too many? what would other options be? I'd adore 2 banded coral shrimp, would they be ok in this type of setup? Any super-dooper-tiny fishies?

Could I use the current filtration? Its quite strong for its size and provides decent curculation (its not a washing machine, but there are no dead spots) I could attach the intake to a UGF so that it would take advantage of the substrate and the media up top if that would be more beneficial, but I should imagine a UGF in SW is worse than FW after a while.

is LR a necessity? If so, how do I choose something suitable? What am I looking for? must I smell it? I personally do not like the look, but if it is best, i'll grin and bear it maybe it'll grow on me.

Lighting may be an issue, it has a single 8w tube. This can jump the temperature up a good deal, but leaving the lid ajar seems to calm this down. I *may* be able to squish in a single CF if I find a book on electrical fiddling, but that'd be the best I could do, I think. This will be a problem, yes?


I *think* thats about it

Oh, sorry, most important, the water. ordinary aged and salted water, or actual seawater for setup? I would be using the mixed stuff for WCs but unsure about setup as perhaps seawater has happy greeblies in it, or will have a small die-off that will cycle the setup, or has some other amazing benefit. About all I know is that it may be full of those stinking hydra as a shop nearby used seawater and has the most terrifying hydra exposion. All gone now, but geez it was creepy!

OK, I'm open to all suggestions

only connditions:
must be this tank
must not be too pricey
must not be attention-hungry



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I'd definitely go with some live rock(this will cycle the tank for you), you should be looking for peices that have lots of nooks and cranies. The more porous the better. Don't get any boulders.

If you use the current filtration and LR, take out any bio wheels or other such media. Just use some mechanical filttration(cleaned regularly), carbon, and phosguard.

Lighting isn't a necessity if you aren't looking to grow any corals or anything.

I think that 2 banded coral shrimp is almost always a bad idea unless you happen to find a mated pair. I think though that 1 might even get too big for this tank.

Some nice hermits are the blue leg hermits and scarlet reef hermits. You could go for a couple small snails too as long as shells are abundant.

As far as small fish go, you could get a clown goby, or other small goby as long as the water params stay pretty consistant.

Others can help you stock better than me though so I'll let them help out here.

As for the water, use a good sea salt and RO water(usually available at the lfs). You don't need ocean water or anything like that to start up.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

fantastic

bummer on the shrimp, but i'd rather know now than later those little ghost shrimp things are ok though? And what is a shrimp? I keep hearing mention of those and not knowing if i can get them


With the lighting, what will survive? The main thing i'm worried about is that things on the LR might wither and die, so I would like to know before i purchase LR so i can avoid anything that looks like it needs light x lots.

Are decorator crabs a possibility? and er... limpets? could i have limpets?


I assume the abundance of shells is to stop the hermits killing the snails for a home?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

calla brings up a good point though: *can* you use actual ocean water in your tank?

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

those little ghost shrimp things are ok though?

A shrimp is a nice nano tank shrimp - I don't know much about them other than that.

With the lighting, what will survive?

Not much - but the live rock is meant to be a superior bio filter. If you get anything that is photosynthetic, it wont live, but it's not likely you will get a lot of that stuff on your rock. Try to get cured rock so that there isn't a whole lot of die off. There will always be some(which will cycle your tank) but not as much, or as nasty as uncured live rock.

Are decorator crabs a possibility? and er... limpets? could i have limpets?

Not sure on those...sorry I'm kinda new too. I'm mostly just not sure on adult size/compatibility...I'll leave this up to the experts as well.

I assume the abundance of shells is to stop the hermits killing the snails for a home?

yep .

calla brings up a good point though: *can* you use actual ocean water in your tank?

I guess you can, but for the same reasons you wouldn't use natural lake water for your freshwater tanks, I wouldn't use natural seawater for my salt tanks. You just don't know what's in it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/collectingseawater.html

try that has some good info on collecting seawater.
i did it for my zebra eel tank you just have know of a good clean source. which can be hard, it was easy for me as i know where this place is described in link

but just remeber you will always need artifical salt at home for emergancies so its best to just stick to that.

Last edited by patchy at 15-Nov-2005 09:27

Last edited by patchy at 15-Nov-2005 09:28

*bump*

hoping DRO or ferretfish or somebody will drop by to answer your questions

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

OK, I have a few solutions

I found a light! its a 50:50, still only 11w, but at least the colour will be more suited. Thats about $27 and just slots into the current hood setup. According to LFS guy and the local marine board this is the common way to convert these tanks to SW nano, and it should be able to handle "most of those soft corals, but not stuff like acropora or brain coral" so I'll need a bit of a translation on that.

I got some prices on things today.LR $12AUD/kg sounded ok.

I took note of a few other things too, can someone yea or nay them please? I could only get common names, I'm sorry

Feather Stars - $20AUD - green and tentacley. looked delicate but thought i'd check.
Anemone Shrimp - $11AUD - does it require an anemone? looked delicate too.
Redleg hermits - $24AUD - looked like they have "huge growth potential" but seemed to be hardy. not too fussed on red colour
Decor hermits - $9AUD - assume these are the ones that stick random items on their shells? if so, i'd love one! (though they are pretty average-looking)
Red Star - $15AUD - looks a lot like a blue star, just red. thinking it may also be delicate. Do they get large? these were erm,
Green Shrimp - $8AUD - looks like someone stole its middle and re-glued its head and tail back together. Quite liked these

I looked for gobies and shrimp, but the only gobies i could find were something called gold head, and i couldn't spot them in the tank.

This is all of a sudden looking a bit more doable.


EDIT: oh! and i looked at a Xmastree worm and it dcked back into its rock. I love those things! are they destructive or useful or too big or too small? Any way I could?


EDIT AGAIN: The tank i'm using: http://www.commodityaxis.com/ProductData.aspx?id=10

Last edited by Callatya at 20-Nov-2005 08:35

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett