Your opinions...

[r3dc4t]

I have a 20g tall tank running for about 3 months with a 50 Natural Daylight/50 Actinic light setup, 3 damsels (don't know the types, but one is like a skyblue, one is black and white stripes, and one is blue/purple with a yellow tail), currently unknown amount of hermit crabs and snails due to a crash caused by changing too much water (once a finally got a hydrometer i realized that my salt/water ratio was off the scale...yeah my first SW tank in case you hadn't guessed). I'm running the smallest canister filter i could find, Fluval 250. I have a small power filter setup as well with a makeshift under gravel filtration connection. 20 lbs. of live rock. About half the bottom has a 1/4 inch covering of gravel, the other half is bare glass. And a standard heater set to about 80 degrees. No QT, No Protein Skimmer, no Sump (what is a sump exactly.)Hydrometer, Nitrate, Nitrite, Alkalinity, and PH readings have been fine since i crashed the aquarium the one time (killing 2 clams, 2 brittle starfish, some hermit crabs and 1-3 emerald crabs-havn't seen them in a while.)
okay, now for my questions.
1.How would i make the canister filter Anemone safe?
2.What starfish will be safe with the hermit crabs? they bit the legs off of one brittle starfish until there were only stubs.
3.What Anemones are okay for my light setup and hermit crabs?
4.Should I really switch to live sand?
5.Bonus:What would you do from this point?

 

[rcoultas]

Originally Posted by r3dc4t
I have a 20g tall tank running for about 3 months with a 50 Natural Daylight/50 Actinic light setup, 3 damsels (don't know the types, but one is like a skyblue, one is black and white stripes, and one is blue/purple with a yellow tail), currently unknown amount of hermit crabs and snails due to a crash caused by changing too much water (once a finally got a hydrometer i realized that my salt/water ratio was off the scale...yeah my first SW tank in case you hadn't guessed). I'm running the smallest canister filter i could find, Fluval 250. I have a small power filter setup as well with a makeshift under gravel filtration connection. 20 lbs. of live rock. About half the bottom has a 1/4 inch covering of gravel, the other half is bare glass. And a standard heater set to about 80 degrees. No QT, No Protein Skimmer, no Sump (what is a sump exactly.)Hydrometer, Nitrate, Nitrite, Alkalinity, and PH readings have been fine since i crashed the aquarium the one time (killing 2 clams, 2 brittle starfish, some hermit crabs and 1-3 emerald crabs-havn't seen them in a while.)
okay, now for my questions.
1.How would i make the canister filter Anemone safe?
2.What starfish will be safe with the hermit crabs? they bit the legs off of one brittle starfish until there were only stubs.
3.What Anemones are okay for my light setup and hermit crabs?
4.Should I really switch to live sand?
5.Bonus:What would you do from this point?
What you really need to do is slow down and take a breather. It seems that you are rushing in way too fast. There should not have been any cleaner clams or brittle satrs in that tank - it is not seasoned enough for the clams and it is too small for the stars. The hermits were probably eating a dying brittle star not attacking a healthy one. This SWF game we all play is a game of patience. You are doing the right thing now by asking questions.
1. The intake for your filter can be covered to prevent an anenome getting stuck to it although the positioning of the intake normally wouldn't make this an issue. With all that's happened - your tank is not ready to support an anenome yet - again patience.
2That size tank is limited as to what types of livestock you can put in it. Check SWF's inverts and fish selections - they all give you info on each specie - you need to know it's needs when adult not just how cute they are at 1-2 inches.
4 live sand is always better - but at least go with crushed coral or aragonite. You should have at 1.5 inches - if your using undergravel set up then you'll need to use the coarse varieties (personally I don't like the undergravel systems in SW use)
5 research research research - learn all you can and the hobby will pay you back for your time and effort
As for the damsels... you have a yellowtail damsel, a blue damsel, and either a 3 stripe or 4 strip damsel (count the black stripes)
Get all your water parameters and post them here and someone will tell you if your on the right track or not. good luck

 

[r3dc4t]

thanks for the fast reply, I know i made a mistake of rushing. I can't post any numbers though, all my test equipment is just the strips you stick in and wait 30-60 seconds except for the hydrometer of course, which is at 1.021. The strip samples have been stable since i corrected the salinity though, i just hate to buy expensive meters and everything, another reason i don't have a QT, protein skimmer, and whatnot. I am very surprised how much survived the extremely high salt levels. I have looked through most of the site and although i like the inventory i most say there is not enough detail in the info on fish/inverts/coral.
As for my UGF, i know it doesn't do much but it was more of a challenge to myself to find a way to create an effective one, while also running a filter that does make a difference (my canister filter.) I was trying to make it affective because i knew i would want an anemone, and want it to be safe when my tank is ready for it. If i ever get it to work well enough i would be turning off my canister till the anemone picks a spot. BTW how do you position your filter? my filter intake suction cups to the glass and goes too deep for it to be far enough away from live rock.