slouiscar
Member
Advice, suggestions… Please.
I have a new set-up, 29g, 5 weeks, cycled, 20 lbs of live rock, 79 temp, 1.024, 8.1 pH, 0, 0, 0. I just added livestock shipped from SWF.com. 10 turbo snails, 4 scarlet hermits, 2 aquacultured percula clowns, 1 peppermint shrimp and 1 blood red fire shrimp.
I acclimated as described. Dim lit room. Separate buckets for fish and inverts, 1 hour for snails, crabs and pepper, 2 hours for clowns and 3 hours for blood. No lights or power-heads for 3 hours.
Clowns are amazing! Snails are eating up a storm. Peppermint is happy hiding and being shy. BUT:
1)The hermits aren’t that active. Are they molting? Regrouping from the shipping? I hope so. There are some great specimens and I hate to lose any of them. Are they hardy? Should I be doing anything special? (On a side note when they do molt should you remove the waste / shell?)
2)The blood shrimp was a happy camper, climbing all over my live rock. He had great color and his mandibles were going a mile a minute. Then the lights went off. When I went in the next morning he was a cocktail shrimp. On his side on the substrate curled up in a ball. A hermit was chewing off one of his antennae. I moved him to a safe spot and let him go for the afternoon, hoping he was playing possum or acclimating, but no luck. THAT SUCKED. Was he a bad purchase? Are they too delicate for a new tank? Not enough acclimation time? Is that a sign my water quality sucks? I tossed him, should I have returned him under the 6 day guarantee? I am pissed but sad, if that makes any sense.
Help a new guy out. I love this hobby and I want to learn from any inevitable mistakes. I just know I am making them!
I have a new set-up, 29g, 5 weeks, cycled, 20 lbs of live rock, 79 temp, 1.024, 8.1 pH, 0, 0, 0. I just added livestock shipped from SWF.com. 10 turbo snails, 4 scarlet hermits, 2 aquacultured percula clowns, 1 peppermint shrimp and 1 blood red fire shrimp.
I acclimated as described. Dim lit room. Separate buckets for fish and inverts, 1 hour for snails, crabs and pepper, 2 hours for clowns and 3 hours for blood. No lights or power-heads for 3 hours.
Clowns are amazing! Snails are eating up a storm. Peppermint is happy hiding and being shy. BUT:
1)The hermits aren’t that active. Are they molting? Regrouping from the shipping? I hope so. There are some great specimens and I hate to lose any of them. Are they hardy? Should I be doing anything special? (On a side note when they do molt should you remove the waste / shell?)
2)The blood shrimp was a happy camper, climbing all over my live rock. He had great color and his mandibles were going a mile a minute. Then the lights went off. When I went in the next morning he was a cocktail shrimp. On his side on the substrate curled up in a ball. A hermit was chewing off one of his antennae. I moved him to a safe spot and let him go for the afternoon, hoping he was playing possum or acclimating, but no luck. THAT SUCKED. Was he a bad purchase? Are they too delicate for a new tank? Not enough acclimation time? Is that a sign my water quality sucks? I tossed him, should I have returned him under the 6 day guarantee? I am pissed but sad, if that makes any sense.
Help a new guy out. I love this hobby and I want to learn from any inevitable mistakes. I just know I am making them!
