My Tank Is Settling Lets Talk Stock!

[percman]

The much awaited and anticipated tank of mine is up finally and is doing well . I had a bigger tank and it failed so i tore down and started over w/ a, get this, small tank and its working beautifully...i have a 10g nano reef.....i started it very recently but the beauty of it is i used a guys lr and ls from his already established tank of some years......so i got so much life in the sb its unreal....i got pods running all over, tons of little stars, bunch of different worms, not to mention a blue bar xenia frag, polyps, what i believe to be a favites, and TONS AND TONS of rock anemones and feater dusters etc....i also used about 5gallons of his water to add extra stability to the tank. i am running 1X55w. pc lighting over it i have the option of putting the other 55wpc over the tank as well but i dont want to change anything because the xenia has been pulsing like mad for a good week or more.......the tanks temp is about 81......sg is 35........no3's are at 5ppm now......they were around 8ppm the day i first set up the tank but initial die off is expected and has already been taken care of w/out a water change. i have some kind of sps skeleton in my tank as well.....if all goes well i'll try and revive it because i've heard miracles of people putting them infront of a ph and all the sudden the polyps re-appear.......i have the tank loaded w/ lr let me tell you......i bought all the guys rock and sand for a great price and i jammed in as much as i could so i could increase the amount of worms and beneficial bacteria in my tank.......i run 2 ph's in my tank 1 maxijet 201 and a penguin 660.......im not turning either off because they both are pointed in the general direction of the xenia frag and when i attempted turning off one of them the polyps pulled in so im just going to leave well enough alone. my only clean up crew is 2 turbo snails (i think they are turbos) and 1 hermit....not sure what kind its about the size of a nickel has black legs w/ white tips on the legs. so please give me a list of cleanup crew i should get i dont want to deal w/ algae so what are the best glass cleaners.....and i dont want a nasty sb so let me know some good sand stirrers.....as i said i have an abundance of rock anemones (60 some) and i was reading in my biology book that the "golden nudibranch" feeds on anemones.......will he eat these? is there any nudi/opisthobranch's that eat these anemones. i really do like them but i do want to clear out some of them for other corals. now lets talk corals. help me pick some stock corals wise. im considering going shrooms, another different type of xenia, some kind of open brain, maybe a bubble coral, a green favites (mine i have is brownish)......thats all i really really want in there so help me come up w/ some other corals. not too many dont wanna over stock. i realize xenia tends to become a weed but i really enjoy its pulsing motions its relaxing......fill in the blanks all now comes the other tricky part. fish. i love fish. im a sucker for fish. i really like percula clowns (true or false) but every one i bought for the old tank died w/in 2 weeks.....i bought clarkii's too.....died w/in 2 weeks.....the only clown i had luck w/ were my tomato's and they died after 6months......but tomatos are too big for a 10g. i want a fish thats going to make itself none......i dont want a fish that hides 23hrs and 59min of the day......i want an active critter and its probly going to have to be small because of the size of my tank and dont want to over stock the bioload........
wow long post.......help me out all
Percman

[Doug1]

Rock anemones, as in Aptasia? Berghia nudibranks and peppermint shrimp!!!!!!!!
Snails, a wide variety of snails, light on the hermits, the pepps will scavenge also.
Brains need room on the sand, abubble will outgrow the tank hopefully and fish, well one or two the size of a rainfordii or similar gobie, maybe a small bi color if you get algae growing

[Doug1]

Percman I see you found your Identity, I have tried looking but I have a small problem getting into admin area

[Alice]

Sounds like your little tank is hoppin'

Doug's right, either get the nudi's (hard to find sometimes and they die off once the aiptasia is gone) or the peppermint shrimp and get the aips out of your tank before you start adding livestock. I know, it's one more thing to be patient on, but you've come this far...

Bubble corals, torches, frogspawn and any coral that has a tendency to develop sweeper tentacles shouldn't be in a small tank unless you want to end up with a one-coral tank. This goes for anemones as well.

As for fish, gobies and blennies are generally good for a small tank, as are firefish, Pseudochromis, some dottybacks, Royal Gramma, Ocellarius or Percula clowns, maybe even a damsel if you're only going with one fish.

I have a small tank that runs with no skimmer; I do regular weekly waterchanges on it to keep the parameters in check.

Have fun!

~Alice

[percman]

ok i'll look into buying the nudi and pepp's. i think i may have a few aptaisia but in Robert Fenners book The con...............it shows a exact photo of a "Rock Anemone" which is exactly what i have......i have some of those.....some clear ones.....some what may be aptasia. i'm afraid to buy a nudi from my lfs because frankly.....it sucks and their salinity is wayyyyyyyyyy lower than mine and i think that is a big problem. and i live in podunk illinois so not tons of choices in my area right now. any one have a pic of the berg. nudi? another nudi question......do different species of nudi's get along together? just curious. ahhh yes the latest news on my tank....i found yet another unidentified coral in my tank!!!! i believe it is some sort of sponge.....its round shows no deffinite symmetry....is about as round as a quarter......is a metallic green......and is very pourous. i would like to take some pictures of my tank and post them. i dont have a digicam so i'll have to use the regular camera. now is there a way to post pictures off a kodak disk onto a MACINTOSH G4 computer?? if so please email me the "How To". ahhh another kink to throw into the gears......i have a little bit of "bubble algae" or valonia algae. dont mithrax crabs eat this up? what would be best for my tank to rid myself of this stuff. as you can see the algaes like this dont bother me because i'm not going to go into a panic mode every time something goes semi-wrong like i did w/ my last tank. fish wise......i expected just about all of those responses so im doing ok as far as that goes. corals........how about a favites for my tank? i take it the xenia is fine.....as well as the shrooms..... other ideas of mine are.....toadstools, kenya tree coral, green-star polyps, fox coral, trumpet coral......obviously not all of those but those are all on my list......how are they?
Percman

[Doug1]

IMO and IME its hard to beat a tank with an assortment of shrooms, toads, leathers ans the like, everything on the list in your last paragraph are usually easy to keep, tho some of the stuff may over grow your tank, but on the plus side its all fraggable so you can trade with others and reduce impact on wild reefs. You'd be surprised where reefers will turn up

[percman]

does anyone know where i could get a hold of a pair of these nudi's? like i said i trust my lfs about as far as i can toss 'em and trust me the people that work there are pretty hefty so........i'd just as soon have a gaurentee for a few days/weeks via the net or better yet.....a fellow reefer trying to find a new home for his/hers. im not sure which one this is yet but the one i saw in a book was a orangeish color and the body was spherical not flat like the typical nudi. but either one works for me so long as they eat the rockanem's and aptasia.....
Percman

[Fishfriend]

Sorry for the late late reply, I was browsing the messages and I found this...
You can get this aiptasia eating nudis (Berghia) at:
www.seaslug-vs-aiptasia.ebz.com

they sell them for $12 and $15; there is another place but they charge you $28 for each!!!!
I got mine in seaslug-vs-aiptasia, they are very effective!!!, now my tank is aiptasia free just remember to give them to somebody else when they finish their job because aiptasia is all what they eat.

I hope this can help and good luck.

aiptasia eating nudibranch