Hair algae and puny critters

[Phishnoob]

Well my 55g with 75lb of rock finally got about 50 various snails, 50 hermits, some emerald crabs and a coral banded shrimp today as well as a lawn mower blenny. The rock has been sitting away two months now after the rest of my tank wiped. I would like to let this tank go as is until spring, and then cure rock in my 29g and stock both tanks next summer. The black sand bed is all new and everything in the tank besides the rock was cleaned. There have been some water changes, but the initial fill was local well water and Instant Ocean at the beginning of dumping the rock in due to moving, working and all that.

Green hair algae set in for a while fed I guess by left over cooties in the rock. I pulled off most of it but there is still quite a bit.

My questions are:

1. Is 7 hours of blue and 4 hours of daylight okay for a while until it clears up. There is not even a softie in there but I don't want to kill off any stuff that might emerge from the rock.

2. Will this army of puny critters (about 1/5 the size of the kind I used to get from the LFS) be able to keep up?

3. Do I need to put in any food at all for the blenny?

4. Will one fish be enough to provide enough poo to support the entire ecosystem?

Thanks a bunch!! This is tough as I have to drive 12 hours round trip to even a marginal LFS.

[tims]

hehh perry got any turbos in the order? they will make fast dinner of that hair, the LMB will help with some of the filament type but doubt he will do much on the hair, he ill take various types of food once he knows that it is food, but you really dont have to suppliment his diet much at all. you have that skimmer kickin ?
the hermits will do a slow but nice job, watch for shell grabbers..

[Phishnoob]

Hi Timmah,

I have the skimmer going nuts now and need to empty it every day with skimmate looking like Sobe green tea. I have the Remora Pro and got the Mag 3 upgrade.

The clean up crew was from www.saltwaterfish.com. The service was excellent and everything is alive just little. The snails are called turbo/astrea but look like little turbos. I got 25 of them and 10 Nassarius to get used to my future overfeeding for the sand bed. The crabs and shrimp barely got out of the bag before eating away.

I am just worried all these guys can survive and grow big over the next 8 months of winter without more fish and food in there.

edited: I just checked the tank and LMB is swimming all over munching down like crazy. My last one just sort of hung out and waited for the rest of the fish to get fed.

[tims]

yeah the astea are good at it, the mexican variation i think is way better but the IMO..
they will weed each other out as time goes on, sotra the fitest/ strongest thing if food and shels are not avaible. but since you have afish in there and will end up feed it , i thnk you will be good to go for a while..

[tdwyatt]

start using sinking algae pellets when the hair algae disappears for the LMB, let him clean the tank until then.


buy a RO/DI filter for the tank, don't use the well water any more, you live on a golf course, and all that stuff they treat the greens with dissolves in water and goes SOMEWHERE...

[Phishnoob]

I have my RO all set up again now Tom..one of the Spectrapure 3 stage. I ran irrigation tubing along the walls right alongside the satellite cable so all that needs to be done to fill or make mix water is flick a valve in the laundry room.

Two 25% water changes were done in the last two weeks before adding critters and I am planning 10% a week from now on. Once the algae disappears the lighting will be gradually increased as well.

[tdwyatt]

Good!

So Where Are The New Pix???

[Brent Cone]

Originally Posted by tims

yeah the astea are good at it, the mexican variation i think is way better but the IMO..
they will weed each other out as time goes on, sotra the fitest/ strongest thing if food and shels are not avaible. but since you have afish in there and will end up feed it , i thnk you will be good to go for a while..

I agree!