Woohoo! We finally bought live rock!!

[annaanderic]

So far most of the brittle/serpent stars have a minimum tank size of 55g. Do you think it'd be able to find enough food in a 29g or could I supplement its diet enough to get by?

Also, we finally found our first 'pod' yesterday! That along with a single snail (which is so small its hard to tell exactly what it is) are so exciting to see! We're pretty sure they're amphipods, but we havent really checked at night to see if there are any copepods too.

 

[yote]

AWW just wait till you take a look in there at night.:D You'll see a whole new world inside that little glass box.
When you go to get a star,just pick a small one.Their fairly slow growers.And yeah,you can spot feed em about any frozen food you feed your fish.

 

[dcantucson]

Look at night with a blue LED flashlight.

 

[Bifferwine]

Brittle and serpent stars will greedily take any food you feed your fish. I think one would be fine in your tank.

 

[Sharkie]

I'm pretty sure if you add more live rock too that you'll find some bitty bitty brittle stars hanging out on the rocks :) i was super excited to see my first one!! congrats on the rocks, the aquascaping looks good!!

be prepared to see some creepy stuff at night too!! >_> i found lots of nasty bristleworms in mine.... ahhhh... lol

 

[annaanderic]

wow that would be exciting to find some brittle stars already in the tank!

Today we went and finally got a clean up crew consisting of: 1 Skunk Cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp, 8 ceriths, 12 nerites, and 12 nassarius, then we added 3 neon yellow/green feather dusters on top of that.

When we were adding the new inhabitants though, I had to take the lid off and turn the lights off to add them, but when I put it back on and turned the lights on we saw a red worm w/white spines that was abt an inch long or so crawling on the rock. It went back into the rock about 10 seconds after the lights came on, but I'll try to catch it on camera if I get a chance. Sorry I can't give much better of a description, but does it sound like its just a bristleworm and if so are they anything to worry about in your opinions??

 

[yote]

That would be a bristle worm.And nope,there nothing to worry about.Their actually good for the tank because they feed on detritus and left over fish food.

 

[annaanderic]

ok thats really nice to hear b/c some websites act like they're the devil-in-worm-form! haha

Another thing that I guess I hadnt realized was that according to my LFS, its best to not mix hermits and snails? I guess I just assumed I could get the mini blue-legged hermits or the red equivalents. We were both really excited about the hermit crabs! Has anybody had negative experience with using both before?

 

[yote]

Years ago,is WAS a good idea to trap out the bristle worms,when the rock was actually harvested off the reefs.That was mainly because of a type of bristle called a fire worm,which is a coral predator.But its nearly unheard of now to get a fire worm.
I used to keep both the scarletts and bluelegged hermits in my tank,and never had any problems with either per say.I kinda got away from hermits when I started adding SPS corals.Mainly because they would climb up into the colonies to sleep when the tank lights was on.

 

[Sharkie]

lol bristles are a personal opinion thing to me... I had a bad experience with one (or maybe it was a fireworm) but whichever of the two it was gave me a nice big slice to my wrist (the worm was about 4 inches) and a trip to the docs for some meds... soem people are allergic to the spines so just don't touch em...

I let mine live in the tank but i'm super wary of them.

Congrats on the new additions!! show us some new pics! I'd love to see those dusters!

as far as mixing hermits, i've got red, blue, and a zebra group and they have always been fine together

 

[dcantucson]

You can mix all kinds of Hermit Crabs. Just stay away from the large Scarlet/Red ones. Stick to the tiny ones and you'll be happy as a clam, I mean Hermit! :lol:

And post some pictures for us!

 

[annaanderic]

So have you all had any trouble with the hermits picking on the snails or anything? Most of the snails the LFS picked out for us are pretty small (which explains why we got so many).

Would it be irregular for the peppermint shrimp to molt this soon after having him in the tank? I found what looks like the shrimps body exoskeleton in the back intake vent and then what looks like a few legs in one of the powerheads. He had been hiding last night when we first added him but he didnt seem too unhappy!

We'll def. have some more pics added when we can catch all the feather dusters out at the same time!!

 

[dcantucson]

Shrimp seem to molt whenever necessary. I have had them molt in the shipping bag during transport. Normal and regular.

 

[annaanderic]

Ok hopefully thats all it is b/c we havent seen it today yet!

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

I have blue legged and red/scarlet legged hermits in my tank along with my snails. I see no problem with having both hermits and snails. The only problem is that if the snails fall off the glass, rock, etc. and can't flip themselves back over the hermits will eat them. I've seen it a couple of times but w/e, kinda like... the hermits got fed so they'll be happy for a bit.

The big scarlet hermits pick on my blue leg hermits though. Pretty funny, they're the "underwater bullies"

 

[yote]

Yeah,those shrimp will strip about anywhere.
Like David said,its pretty much normal for them to molt the day their added to the tank.And dont expect to see it a whole lot.Pepperments are nocternal for the most part,so will do their thing after the lights are off for the night.

 

[annaanderic]

It looks like we'll try to pick up a few mini blew hermits then and hopefully I'll have the same results and they wont pick on any snails!

One of the feather dusters has got a chunk at the end of the 'tube' that looks pretty rough and actually has some Aiptasia on it. Its mangled a little so the crown actually comes out of the side of the tube before the aiptasia portion. Would it be ok for me to 'prune' the end off with some scissors so that the crown can get full extension out of the tube and it would get rid of the aiptasia or would this hurt the worm?

Once again, thanks so much everybody for the responses! Idk what we'd do if we didnt have so much help from everybody on here!!

 

[yote]

Just be extra carefull not to nick the worm and it'll be alright to trim the tube.But just to where the crown comes through.

 

[dcantucson]

+1 yote.

 

[annaanderic]

Ok we finally got our first fish last night! One of the guys that works at the LFS in Indy actually livings in Bloomington (like us) and just drove it down to us after work last night....talk about good service! We picked the tailspot blenny and got a great deal on him (only $10!). He's been alittle shy so far but he's started to lose the white spots/stripes so I think thats a good sign. Do any of you have any experience with the Tailspot and if so what kind of diet have you been successful with? Thanks!