classroom setting up 10 gal. QT this afternoon

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Here's an update of the last few days. We also have a couple of questions.

All water test show that everything is remaining stable: 0 ammonia (both tanks), 0 nitrite (both tanks), 10 nitrate (both tanks), SG 10 gal. 1.027, SG 30 gal. 1.026, temp in both tanks 79F.

Thursday: received pods & cuc from reefcleaners.
Friday: purchases for 30 gal. 1 pajama cardinal, 2 clownfish, & 1 featherduster

Questions: What else can we add in the 30 gallon? The current stocking list is 3 pajama cardinals, 2 clownfish, 2 peppermint shrimp, snails, & 1 feather duster.

We have brown algae growing on the top of the base rock now, is this ok?

We're thinking of getting 1 hermit crab. Is a scarlet reef hermit or a blue legged hermit safe a good choice for our 30 gal.?
 
Without a skimmer or sump setup you really won't want to overload the bioload. There are a lot of factors but I think a rule of thumb is 1" of adult size fish for 5 gallons of water. That means you'd want a total of 6" of adult size fish. Or maybe it's 1" per gallon. lol I really can't remember, don't quote me on that! But you can do some googling.

Your brown algae is probably diatoms, which consume the silicates, and is very common after cycling a tank. It will dissappear on it's own once all of the silicates are consumed. It is very ugly I know but is only temporary.

You should be fine with the crab. I have several red and blue legs. I also have this large crab (~2-3 inches) that would eat my snails and other crabs, so he is in solitary in the refugium.
 
30 gallon pictures.
 

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It's really nice to finally have some fish swimming in there after all of the waiting. All of the fish pretty much stay on the right side of the tank, though. It sounds like we're probably fully stocked for fish in the 30 gallon. We'll concentrate on possibly adding in some more invetebrates: scarlet reef hermits, maybe a couple more featherdusters, and a couple of cleaner shrimp (if they go on sale).

We're hoping to get either a pair of ocellaris clowns or a pair of bangaii cardinals later this week to stock the 10 gallon, and hopefully get the firefish to come out of his bolthole more often. We also need to order something for lighting; leaning toward a Marineland LED hood as we'll just keep it a FOWLR set up. On Saturday the firefish wouldn't eat, would come out and grab food (either finely chopped frozen mysis shrimp or brine shrimp) and then spit it back out. Yesterday it didn't even come out of his bolthole when I fed the tank. Is there anything we can try to entice him to eat?
 
Sometimes mine hides for awhile. And if there's too much competition during feeding time, then it won't eat.

I know lighting makes all the difference with my two firefish as far as getting them to come out of their hole. Minimal lighting apparently equals bedtime to them lol
 
I have never had to entice my fish to eat but if they are still getting used to the tank and other fish you could try soaking the food in garlic. I have heard that helps get fish to eat.
 
We found the firefish last night - dead. We found it when we put on a new fluorescent lighted hood. I think it starved itself to death. The water quality is all good, and it didn't appear sick before it stopped eating.

The new hood has a single T8 bulb with a 18,000 K rating (Hagen Power Glo); will this be enough lighting for some low light corals, such as mushrooms?

We'd like to get something for blue LED lights to run for nighttime. Does anyone know what might work for that?

Would a blue/green chromis be ok in the 10? We'd like something hardy that we'd be able to see more often. We're open to any other suggestions too. Right now that tank only has a few snails and 1 peppermint shrimp.

Another 10 gallon question regarding water flow: What powerhead or circulation pump would be good for that size tank? What we have right now is an Aquatech 170 gph powerhead and it seems like it's a little strong and blows around the sand. Any suggestions here would be helpful. We have a Whisper 40 HOB filter as well, but it doesn't seem to add much flow.

30 gallon update: We added in 4 scarlet reef hermit crabs yesterday. The clownfish really have personality! One of them is doing summersaults, and they have picked out one of the caves where they pretty stay at nighttime.
 
Sucks about the firefish! :(
It could've been stressed from the new environment as well. How did you acclimate?

A 10 is too small for a chromis and they don't like to be alone.

I believe corals will need some actinic lighting but I am not sure, perhaps someone will chime in with a better answer.

170 gph flow is good. That is turning over your tank 17 times. A lot of people aim higher but with a smaller tank that's pretty good. Aim it off of the sand towards the back of the tank or on the rocks. I have 1290 gph flow in a 55 gallon.

Clownfish are my favorite fish!
 
We did the bag float method for acclimation, but small amounts of aquarium water and very slowly, taking 1 1/2 - 2 hours. He was in there for over a week, and just stopped eating 2 days before he died.

I'm not sure what happened, but one of the hermit crabs was out of it's shell and dead last night - is it possible that one of the peppermint shrimp attacked it?
 
Oh man, sorry to hear about you fish and crab. :) Not sure what is going on. Just keep a very close eye on parameters and make sure everything is in tip top shape. Sometimes, a fish just doesn't do well in captivity no matter what you do for them.
 
The hermit might have molted the fire fish it might have been stress. Most marine fish are poisoned in order to be captured and the after effects take weeks or months to show up.
 
It happens. From what I've read on here and from personal experience newer-ish tanks are very unpredictable.

Crabs are pretty hardy. It's very possible it molted.. one of mine just did. Do you see anything in the shell still.. or in another shell? Once they shed their old body they will tuck themselves into the very back of the shell for a while while they grow their new exterior.
 
We'll have to check out the shell. It's upside down and the body was quite a distance from the shell and then yesterday was gone, so I figured the peppermint shrimp probably ate the body.

Everything else looks like it's doing very well, infact we're still finding new things: worms, small featherdusters, and tiny pods in the sand bed. There is one huge bristle worm. I haven't seen the whole thing, but what I saw of it was about 4 - 6 inches long and quite thick.

There is something growing one one of the live rocks in the 10 gallon tank that is brownish. We'll have to take a picture to post to make sure it's ok.
 
We still haven't seen the hermit crab, so I think it's probably gone.

We purchased an ocellaris clownfish pair for the 10 gal. yesterday. The smaller one has one pectoral fin that's smaller than the other. The children named it Nemo.

Can you ID the brown thing that's growing on the live rock for us?
 

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Clowns look great. Two in a 10 gallon is really pushing it. They are messy eaters so make sure to keep up with pwc's cause your trates will go up fast in a small tank.
 
Just wondering, what do any of you feed your fish/invetebrates?

We've tried Ocean Nutrition's Prime Reef Flakes, and Formula One frozen cubes and the clowns and PJ cardinals don't seem to eat them very well. We also have frozen brine shrimp and frozen mysis shrimp that they take to fine, just wondering for variety to keep everything healthy. Also, should we be feeding the feather dusters anything specific?
 
I feed New Life Spectrum Marine Formula pellets and that is it. According to all the LFS I have talked to it gives a great blend of foods and all my fish love it and eat very well.
 
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