am i over stocked on clean up crew

[pairenoid]

5 blue/red leg hermit
2 (new) nassarius snails, they are pretty big..
1 tiger conch(does not clean that well in one side)
2 nerite snails
1 midas blenny
1 ywm
tiger pistol shrimp
gsp
xenia
mushroom and polyp
i want to add a fire shrimp, is that possible? or any other shrimp?
20 long

how much would you feed this tank per day? I usually give a pinch of mysis, i crumble up 1 other small shrimp, and a few pellets

i tested my nitrates and they raised again, even though i am only using ro water from the fish store. I think i am still over feeding, but will adding the snails help? i already do 25% water change once a week, i will try to feed less. I feed this much because my midas and ywm eat a lot. They eat the entire meal within minutes, i wouldnt personally think its over feeding since they eat it all fast

 

[Ericwm]

I have a 29 gallon with 12 hermit crabs 2 cleaner shrimp 1 conch and 2 stomitella snails as my CUC. I have a occilaris clown a midas blenny and a coral beauty as well as a bit of coral (lps and softies). I would think you should be fine with adding a shrimp, mine do a good job at clean up as well as way any leftover food. I feed quite a bit as well because my coral beauty and midas blenny are pigs.

The nitrates may be from another source, mine have never been out of hand and like I said I feed a lot and perform a 10% water change biweekly. it could be a few things. What kind of filtration do you have? How much LR is in your tank? How long has your tank been running?

 

[Beengirl]

What are the nitrates at and what test are you using?

 

[LaWoWee]

tiger pistol shrimp

i want to add a fire shrimp, is that possible? or any other shrimp?

I'd be cautious with other shrimps. In nature, pistol shrimps prey on shrimps like cleaners.

 

[pairenoid]

i dont know how i forgot but i meant to say i have a peppermint shrimp, and i wasnt sure if it would get along with the fire shrimp

nitrates look to be 20-40 ppm, hard to tell, but definitely not 0. I tested my ro water and it comes to 0 and my tank looks much darker

i think im at 4 months cycled maybe 5. At one point i had good nitrates when i started using ro water. I think it spiked due to topping off with distilled water, even though distilled water should be clean, i tested it. I use the api saltwater test kit, im pretty sure working because i test ro and distilled water to be at 0

 

[Beengirl]

IME, API test results need to be divided by 4. I have API and Red Sea, and I would test same tank with both and API was always about 4x higher result than Red Sea. So I don't think your Trates are as bad as you've been thinking. Hope that helps.

 

[pairenoid]

yes it does help, because when i look at my tanks ive seen several different eggs and different growths that i read are good tank parameters, and the nitrates are haunting me still lol

plus all my creatures look happy, i hear they dont do well at 40 nitrates

im going to be able to do more heavy water changes though since my ro unit gets here tomorrow

 

[Leonardo7689]

IMO dry foods add more nitrates and phosphates than frozen foods. Just based on my experience but not really sure