Diary - 75 gal Freshwater to saltwater conversion - WARNING BIG PICS

[Bifferwine]

I concur -- add the clowns first. Then wait at least 2 to 3 weeks before adding another fish. During that time, make sure your parameters stay good. If you see an ammonia or nitrite spike be prepared to do a water change. Once you have animals in there, ammonia and nitrite will stress and/or kill them.

You can add a small cleaner crew at the same time you add the fish. If I were you, I'd only add a few snails, then wait and add some more if needed. A lot of people buy a whole tank's worth of cleaner crew at once, they eat all the food in the tank, then they all starve to death. If you add slowly, you can ensure that you have just enough for your tank and not too many.

[mudrummer012]

OK time for a small update.

The 2x koralia 3's came in and I got them into the tank over lunch. Man could I tell an instant difference!!! The rocks got blown clean, and nothing should be able to settle now, so hopefully that will help with the algae!
Tank parameters did REALLY well over the 5 day vacation!
NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 5, pH 8.2...etc. Everything is right in line. So tonight Im heading to the store to pick up the the 2 clowns. Now my wife can stop complaining about not having her "Nemo" fish I also plan to grab 5 nassarius snails, 5 astra snails, 1 emerald crab, and, depending on cost, 5 cerith snails. Is 15 snails and the crab too much to start with?

The hair algae got worse but not as bad as I was fearing. Its really only covered 1 rock and its actaully not the bad to look at. Ill keep doing water changes and hopefully the emerald can help get rid of what ever doesnt die off from the lack of nutrients. The other rocks have a light dusting of algae but nothing that looks to become problematic. The worst looking part of the tank right now is the brown algae that has covered most of the sand. It should be a good meal for the new snails though!

The aiptasia problem has taken a MUCH better turn. Ive found only 2 growths after the 5 days away, and will deal with them this week!

Anyways, Ill get some pics of the new inhabitants after I get them all aclimated and into the tank.

[yote]

Glad to know everything went good.Cant wait to see the pics of the new critters.

[dustin_P74]

if you want when you get that CUC you can get a cleaner shrimp to take care of an aptasia outbreak before it ever happens

[yote]

Dustin,Your thinking about pepperment shrimp.

[Bifferwine]

Yeah peppermint shrimp, not cleaner shrimp, will eat aiptasia. Getting at least 2 of those would be good for your tank.

And I think 15 snails to start off with sounds good. I'd even add more nassarius to that.

[dustin_P74]

whoops, glad yall caught that mistake

[mudrummer012]

OK first is a pic of the rock with the bad hairdo . Its actually quite pretty how it flows in the current:


Wow...Mexican turbo...he is a hause!!! Hes attacking the algae like he was starving to death! Any ways, I named him Bruce cause it sounded like it fit.


This is the area that he cleaned first...it only took about 5 minutes!


As for the rest of the snails, here is a before and after shot of the sand so you can see what the difference is.
Before:


After:


Next....here come the clowns!!!

[mudrummer012]

First are a couple pics with Bruce in the background:





Next is an OK pic of the 2 clowns:


Now a GREAT pic of the 2 clowns:


Then I got REALLY lucky and pulled this amazing shot of one of the clowns by himself!!! I swear he was posing for me!!!!


Whew....6 more shots to go.

[mudrummer012]

Alrighty, here are some full tank shots: