Cycled adding clean up questions

[trish&dave]

Hello all. Our tank has been up for 2 weeks, and we believe has cycled. I say believed, because I have several large freshwater tanks (125 and 55) and the cycle was much more dramatic. We have a 56 tall, 45lbs of live rock and 60 lbs of live sand from figisandman. Sump with 20 gallon refugium, mud, bio's, frags of live rock, and just added caularpi (sp). Our amonia got up to .25, but we never did see a nitrite spike. Nitrates barely change any color at all. I can give other parameters if requested.
After 1 week, we had a major brown algea bloom and hair algae is present. I went to the LFS and picked up 4 hermits (2 red, 2 blue) and 4 small snails came with the sand. The small snails have been in there the whole time with no problems. Two days ago added 2 turbo snails doing fine.
Thinking of ordering the following: 1000 pods, 2 mangrove, 10 turbos, 5 red hermits, 4 peppermint shrimp (have bad aiptasia) and 4 emerald crabs. Reading the other thread about cleanup, I am afraid I might be adding too much. Should I put a few in the refugium?

 

[trish&dave]

Please let me know if I am posting too long of threads, or asking questions that I can find answers elsewhere. My wife and I have done ALOT of research (and will do more) and we have read most (if not all) of the stickys.
Thanks, from a newby!

 

[rcoultas]

If you bought live sand it should have a pod population already in it - you just need to give it time to multiply. You may also want to slow down on the additions - I don't think you need to add 1000 pods - 2 peppermint shrimp and 2 emeralds will be plenty - not a big fan myself of mixing the snails with the hermits so I would not recommend adding more hermits either as they will grow and need bigger shells since they do not grow their own (the reds are less aggressive than the blues if you must) HTH

 

[trish&dave]

Thanks for your response rcoultas! Will hermits eat the snails? Are the pods that hard to see? We pay ALOT of attention to the tank and have not seen anything yet. We were going to add most of them to the refugium, and a few to the display. We have some spare shells for growth, does that help?

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by trish&dave
Please let me know if I am posting too long of threads, or asking questions that I can find answers elsewhere. My wife and I have done ALOT of research (and will do more) and we have read most (if not all) of the stickys.
Thanks, from a newby!
No post is too long. I am very glad that you have found plenty of info on here.

 

[rcoultas]

Shells will help - but they do not guarantee - the hermits actually pick out a shell that is visually appealing to them and then take it even if it means killing the current occupant.

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by trish&dave
Thanks for your response rcoultas! Will hermits eat the snails? Are the pods that hard to see? We pay ALOT of attention to the tank and have not seen anything yet. We were going to add most of them to the refugium, and a few to the display. We have some spare shells for growth, does that help?
My hermits ate most of my snails. The snails are too slow. I have tried adding larger shells. The shells still sit there and I have hermits in snail shells. My snails were not dying. I have watched it happen. They flip the snail over then enter the shell while eating the contents.

 

[rcoultas]

The copepods are very small in most cases and will look like little white dots that move. As your tank begins to mature you will probably begin to see little shrimp like guys crawling all over - those are the amphipods who will be part of the clean up crew and a food source for fish.

 

[trish&dave]

This is great feedback, thanks again! Well, other than animal cruality, at least you do not have to worry about an ammonia spike if the crabs take the shell!

Can the pods survive cold weather during shipping? We thought our calaripa (again, spelling) might come with some, but my wife said it was "Ice Cold" when it arrived. Should I be concerned about that?

 

[rcoultas]

caulerpa is pretty hardy and can also become invasive - do some research on that as well - most "old timers" prefer chaeto
as I said before the pods will be in the live sand and they too are pretty hardy and will survive fairly low temps.

 

[trish&dave]

Originally Posted by rcoultas
caulerpa is pretty hardy and can also become invasive - do some research on that as well - most "old timers" prefer chaeto
as I said before the pods will be in the live sand and they too are pretty hardy and will survive fairly low temps.
We did, but since it is in our refugium, I was not overly concerned. I will do additional research to make sure. I have read, just keep it manicured and I am going to research if I can feed it to my cichlids for a treat!

Good deal, I will take a closer look and wait on the purchase of 1000. Can you have too many pods?

 

[hunted]

With my three setups it took about 6 months for everything to fully cycle, although at the end of my cycles I always get a red (cyno algae) outbreak, TMO. Although every setup is different and the water perameters change with every city, town etc.
I learned the hard way but patience is key