Looking for suggestions

[bingorob]

Hi, I am brand new to the world of salt water tanks. I just purchased a 100 gal tank. I have several soft coral (1 really large one), a few baby feather dusters growing on my rock, 1 anemone, 1 shrimp, 1 cardinal, 1 yellow tang, and 3 small Damsels. Very few snails mabe 2 or 3. I think I need more Inverts in my tank but don't know what I should buy. Any suggestions?

 

[harlequinnut]

Well first of all, I hope your tank is cycle. With that said I think it's still too early to add that many inhabitants at the beginning. As for inverts, I would suggest a clean up crew from the reef packages from this site. The 30-90 gallon reef package sounds good.
btw - WELCOME TO THE BOARD!

 

[ivanfj]

Welcome to the board and I too hope your tank is cycled. Before you go ahead and buy more livestock, I would suggest you get a test kit or two if you haven't already bought a few. Ammo, pH, nitrite, and nitrate are the basic ones.
As for inverts, I would slowly add them to the tank, maybe 20 snails and 20 hermits at a time. Cleaner shrimps are cool too and just reminder that all inverts cannot tolerate high nitrate level. Less than 20ppm would be alright IMO, but 0 would be ideal.
HTH

 

[bingorob]

Thanks for the input. I don't know what cycled means or is, but I have had the tank 3 weeks now and all seems well. In fact the corals have really grown sustantially. I seem to have very rapid algae growth, thats why I thought I might need more inverts. My Nitrate is 0, PH is good, I haven't checked ammonia because I don't have a test kit for that. Is it nessassary?

 

[flydan]

Hey,
The rapid algae growth is due to your tank cycling. Did you do any research into starting a saltwater tank before you started? (Talking to a pet store owner doesn't count since they just want to sell you stuff.) It sounds like you may have set yourself up for some heart ache and frustration.
A couple of suggestions. Buy a good book or two on swf. "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" by Rbt Fenner is a good one. Also, at the top of this screen is a Search button. Go to it and search for cycling.
HTH,
Dan'l

 

[thomas712]

Originally posted by Bingorob

1 anemone......................................................................... Any suggestions?
Could you tell me what kind of lighiting you have and wattage?
Also what kind of anemone that you have?
Thomas

 

[bingorob]

Sorry for the slow reply, was out of town a few days. I don't know the wattage, but the lighting fixture is 4 feet long with 4 tubes in it. The anemone is reddish on the outside and white inside. It is about 2" when closed and twice that when open. I think it is the same as on the Nemo movie.