Snails,hermits.When???

[thats tangy]

I just upgraded from a 29g fo sw to a 55g fo sw. It's been up for 1 week, i used the cycled water from my 29g and put my biological filtration in the 55g until it develops its own. I'm starting to get brown algae on the sand bottom. When can i add snails, shrimp or any other cleanup crew members? How do i put them in? Slowly(time wise)? I have playsand seeded with ls. Fluval 304 for filtration. Powerhead for circulation. 3 damsels from previous cycled tank.Thanks

 

[carrie1429]

You can start adding your clean up crew after your ammonia and nitrites reads 0 and your nitrates are low (5-10) or zero. The brown algea on the bottom are called diatoms witch is a sign that your tank has nearly finished cycling. Accumualte the inverts slowly to the tank.

 

[hunterdaddy]

I added my hermits halfway through my cycle to clean up the detrius (algae on the sand) and they did just fine. Probably have some still in there. I have added several more over time. Lotsa people have clawless tanks but I like mine to clean up what the snails dont or cant. Especially snails when they die which does happen every one in a while.

 

[mpgt]

I could be wrong, but I don't see the need to acclimate crabs. They climb in and out of the water and tide pools without floating in bags.

 

[carrie1429]

But the tidpools all have the same water in them, ocean water. IMO you need to accumulate them because each tank has differnet water qualities like higher nitrate or lower Ph, JMO.

 

[thats tangy]

Thanks for the responses. How many and of what should i add to a 55g FO SW? Snails, Hermits, Shrimp, Crabs?????

 

[carrie1429]

For a 55g I would say around 30 snails, 25 hermits, cleaner shrimp and/or peppermint, (I like the camel back shrimp too), and sally light foot crabs do really well in cleaning and choclate chip stars are really good algea cleaners I have three of them and they keep them algea away.

 

[jeo]

the guy at my LFS told me there was no need to acclimate snails and hermits so I didn't bother, all 50 are still alive after a week. He said "you can't kill them"

 

[jawfish177]

i also needed to know some of this info..
thanks guys...

 

[carrie1429]

Originally posted by jeo:
<strong>the guy at my LFS told me there was no need to acclimate snails and hermits so I didn't bother, all 50 are still alive after a week. He said "you can't kill them"</strong><hr></blockquote>
You really should accumualte them, just putting them in is probably stressful since they are being put into different water with maybe lower or higher nitrate, ect. And also you can killl them pretty easy sometimes just by having the nitrate too high since inverts are sensitive to water conditions. A lot of times the LFS don't know what they are talking about.
You can just put them in without accumulating them and they will proabably live but its not the best thing for them. Its better for them to get used to the water conditions in your tank slowly (by accumulating).

 

[jake22]

You can just put the hermits straight into the take wihtout acclimating. I have 30 blue leg hermits and i put them all in the same way. As soon as i put them in they went to work. I even saw one switch shells with one of my extras within 10 mins of adding them.