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The rock came after the sand, and no we don't have egg crate, I'm afraid. I had made sure the rock on the bottom was pushed down to th glass when we did our initial aquascaping. my concern is precisely as you suggest, that something collapsed on the shrimp, pinning it under the rock. I last saw...

About a month ago, we bought a Tiger Pistol Shrimp and a Barber Pole Goby from the LFS. They seemed to adapt to tank life rather well. Initially they created separate burrows, but within about a week they paired off nicely. The Pistol Shrimp was very industrious, digging furiously and moving...

I've already posted some pictures in the "Getting Started" gallery, but things have progressed along well enough that I can start sharing pictures in a gallery format. We acquired the tank at the end of April, added the live rock once the salt levels were good, and I discovered that the tank...

My family is working on our Nuvo Mini 38 gallon tank. So far, so good. It has been operating for well over a month now with live rock, and had cycled very quickly. I've been slowly adding clean up crew to the tank, but now have a population of about 33 total critters purchased, plus the...

I should ask if we are "done" as far as our clean up crew. 16 hermit crabs, 2 Emerald Crabs, 2 shrimp, and 13 snails are in the tank now. I would like to add an urchin and or a starfish of some description beyond the hitch hikers we already have.

Hopefully those asterinas won't be a problem. We've now to rounded out the clean up crew with five Zebra Turbos. They're certainly bigger than the trochus snails, but hopefully they find enough to eat. The algae has really come under control now, especially with the Emerald Crabs. We may be...

A few more pics to share. Things are starting to mature nicely: First a shot of the three anemones in our tank, all posing in the same frame. Two are at the bottom and one is at the top: A couple of what may be pest starfish. I'm not sure of the type, but if you can help me that'd be great...

For nearly two weeks, we have had our clean-up crew in our new 38g Nuvo Mini tank. Things are going fairly well, although today I had to remove an obviously dead snail. Right now, our tank consists of 10 Blue-legged hermit crabs, 7 Trochus snails, 1 peppermint shrimp, and 1 Halloween hermit...

Well. Seems our new aquarium has 3 anemones. I've included pictures of each. I'm sure one is Aiptasia, but it is very small. The other two are much larger (about 1" across), and seem to be the same type. Anybody able to help? If the two are benevolent, should I be feeding them?

Well... "Jack" seems to have adapted to his new shell, although curiously enough once on the sand, he drags it around... there's even a small trench showing where he's been. The little guys do seem to be keeping the algae largely under contol, although there are a few places where it's getting...

Sorry for the bump, but a bit of an update. Looks like the smaller polyps may be a resurgent White Star Polyp Coral (Yay?), and the other is a benign Anemone (forget the name). Our Halloween Hermit Crab traded in its shell for a bigger one this morning, but I am concerned that the shell is both...

Our new tank progresses well with the clean-up crew in place. It's not full sized yet, but getting there. On Sunday I noticed a small aiptasia on the backside of one of the rocks... not really in a reachable position. We decided to get a single Peppermint Shrimp and a few more blue-legged...

Okay... a short update and some new pictures. Yesterday I noticed a small aiptasia on the backside of one of the rocks... not really in a reachable position. We decided to get a single Peppermint Shrimp and a few more blue-legged hermits. Not surprisingly, the Peppermint Shrimp, which my...

For these guys, float acclimate was fine since they are pretty hardy. When I do shrimp, or other inverts that are more sensitive to changes in salinity, I may end up doing drip. I try to make sure my salinity matches the tanks from the LFS. There's a conflict of sorts though, in that I've also...

Well, a fresh update. I added the first of the cleaning crew today. A modest amount, but they started in on munching on stuff right away. They look very happy the buffet. :) In all I got 3 smaller turbo snails, 5 blue-legged hermit crabs, and one Halloween hermit crab. The latter is probably...

The live rock came out of the tank at the store, went into a foam containers, we drove home which was 15 minutes away, we took the rock upstairs, and I put it straight into the tank without doing any arranging. The aquascaping came later... so the rock was still obviously wet when I put it into...

Actually, I overdosed it. :P Put in the amount for algae control rather than tank start-up! I know that Diatom blooms in the early stages are perfectly normal... its certainly growing quickly... which means I may need to get the clean-up crew in there sooner than expected.

Just doing an update. I spiked the water with a very small amount of Ammonia yesterday, but curiously enough the water tests both later in the day and this morning showed hardly a blip. Ammonia is still at 0.25, perhaps a bit lower, and both Nitrites and Nitrates are showing at 0. The pH is a...

I have Bacteria in a Bottle. I've used some of it, but there's a step 2 that I can also make use of. I may dose that tonight. Ive been reluctant because it reduces ammonia spikes.

Day 3 after live rock. This morning's tests show the same as before. Salinity stable at 1.023; 0.25ppm Ammonia; 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. pH is also stable at 8.0. That tells me my cycle hasn't started yet. Wondering if I should go get a shrimp. :) Also, seems the Aiptasia has gone into...

I pushed down and rocked it to make sure it was stable, so we are good on that count.

Well, we've done some aquascaping today. So I have a picture to share: On closer inspection it looks like we have a few more hitchhikers, some welcome, at least one not. There are at least four tiny Brittle Stars in there, but at least one Aiptasia (I think). It's tentacles weren't extended...

No new pictures just yet, we'll be doing some aquascaping this afternoon. I've now been testing levels. I'm doing it each day just to get used to it. So far yesterday's test and today's test were exactly the same: pH: 8.0; Ammonia: 0.25; Nitrites: 0; Nitrates: 0. Salinity 1.023. So while...

A few more pictures to share. We picked up the live rock today and put it in the tank, siphoning out some water to make room for it. Right now it's just in a pile at the bottom. We'll do some arranging maybe later today or tomorrow afternoon. As soon as we put the rock in, I saw a tiny little...

I think adding in the matrix without rinsing it borked my salt levels again. When I tested the water today, the salinity had spiked up around 1.027-8. I removed some water, added in some fresh to see if I could bring it down. It tested at 1.022 immediately after testing, but I will let things...