5 gallon invert list possibility?

fishy4991

fishy4991

Member
I thought about going with a 2 gallon harlequin shrimp pair only but then I thought that since I like inverts so much I would like to go with an invert only 5 gallon (small enough to see inverts, large enough to have more than a couple).
How many can I place in and which can I not place in?
-Decorator Crab - Spider or Decorator Crab
-Boxing Crab
-Anemone Crab - White
-clean clam
-Porcelain Crab
-Emerald Crab
-fire shrimp
-bumblebee shrimp
-Hawaiian Green Shrimp
-cleaner shrimp
-3 or 4 sexy shrimp
-strawberry crab
Corals:
-zoas
-mushshrooms
-rics
the tank is going to mostly be crabs and shrimp. I don't know how much space each one will need. There will be no fish in this tank, only inverts. Thank you for your help
 
A

alexmir

Guest
Isnt a porcelain crab also named an anenome crab? That sounds like an aweful lot of inverts in a small tank. The nudibranches would not have enough food in such a small tank, they forage live rock. That size tank would be too small for an emerald, decorator, and teddybear crab, they would get too largeIMO
The abolone and cowrie also forage live rock, not enough food. I would think the sexy shrimp could be overwhelmed againse a teddybear crab or decorator crab. Teddy bear crabs are not reef safe(from what i have read).
HArlequin shrimp would be too hard to feed IMO, having a dying and decaying starfish in a 5 gallon tank would VERY quickly destroy stable parameters. Also, all of those scavengers would steal parts of the dying starfish from the little harlequins, which could start a fight between shrimp and crabs, and would probably end up overwhelming the harlequins, which over time would starve them.
Also, bumblebee shrimp(some species) will eat starfish legs, which would cause competition between it and the harlequin shrimp. (bumblebees also eat other things, but will eat the starfish if given a chance.)
 
A

alexmir

Guest
I just re-read what i put, sounded kind of harsh.
didnt mean to at all, just trying to give advice and help out
 
17cuddlefish

17cuddlefish

Member
Originally Posted by Fishy4991
http:///forum/post/2711767
I thought about going with a 2 gallon harlequin shrimp pair only but then I thought that since I like inverts so much I would like to go with an invert only 5 gallon (small enough to see inverts, large enough to have more than a couple).
How many can I place in and which can I not place in?
-Decorator Crab - Spider or Decorator Crab
-Boxing Crab
-Anemone Crab - White
-clean clam
-Porcelain Crab
-Emerald Crab
-Lettuce Nudibranch or Purple Nudibranch no
-fire shrimp
-pair of harlequin shrimp no
-bumblebee shrimp
-Hawaiian Green Shrimp
-cleaner shrimp
-Teddy Bear Crab no
-3 or 4 sexy shrimp
-abalone no
-tiger cowrieno
Corals:
-zoas
-mushshrooms
-rics
the tank is going to mostly be crabs and shrimp. I don't know how much space each one will need. There will be no fish in this tank, only inverts. Thank you for your
help
besides the ones you should not even think about (marked no) you should still try to cut down on that number because that tank would be overrun .
 
fishy4991

fishy4991

Member
okay I cut it down but I left harlequin shrimp in there because I have a few questions
how do people have them in nano tanks without the water peramiters going up and down?
what's the positives and negatives of having a pair of harlequin shrimp versus a single harlequin shrimp?
Thank you alexmir and they have both listed seperately on this site
 
A

alexmir

Guest
The only way that you could feed the starfish without destroying the tank, even with a refugium and skimmer, would be to cut off a leg at a time, and feed that to them. (I have seem a starfish melt apart, and it gets pretty nasty, would easily sink a small tank). The problem with cutting off a leg means that you would have to feed them more often, i would say like a leg every 10 days probably off of a medium sized chocolate chip star. That would eventually cause people to lose interest in them having to cut up such a beautiful creature. Also, you would have to have another tank where you would keep the starfish, and starfish dont always recover from getting a leg cut off, so that could also cause some serious porblems.

But if you were going to keep them, you would definitely need to add a sump and a refugium to the tank, a small hang on filter would in no way supply proper filtration for a dying starfish
 
fishy4991

fishy4991

Member
okay nevermind about the harlequin shrimp but if they ever find out if they eat anything else then maybe then I'll get a couple.
 
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