How do you prevent a crash?

[Spiderman]

Hi

I have a 25G SWFO tank with a royal gramma, two small percs, and a banggai cardinal. Inverts : a cleaner shrimp, 3 snails and a hermit crab. I have an Eclipse system, and I change 10% of the water each week. I'm obsessive about water quality and making sure that i feed them properly.

I don't want the system to crash - it's been up around 10 weeks now. Do I need to add a protein skimmer? Do I need to improve water flow? Do I need to add more inverts to reduce the bioload?

In around a year's time, I'll upgrade to a 90G tank, and I want to keep these guys safe and sound so I can move them there. I don't want to spend more if I can for this 25G tank, which will eventually be my QT tank.

Any opinions and advice would be greatly appreciated! You guys are the best!

[Foible]

How often do you test your water? What are the parameters? Protein skimmers get rid of lots of gunk that pollutes your water. Adding more inverts will INCREASE the bioload - they are creatures, too and they eat and breathe and make waste. Plants, however, do remove wastes from the water but lighting can be tricky. I'd just keep on top of the water quality using partial changes to keep the nitrates down. I'd suggest investing in a reverse osmosis water filter, they are worth their weight in gold. Bought mine off eBay for cheap. Makes nice water for people to drink, too. City water has some pretty shocking stuff in it.

[ScurdOfCychlidz]

also just something that popped up in my mind...how would you put a protien skimmer on an eclipse tank without cutting?

btw love the fish you have.

[Hara]

Adding more inverts will INCREASE the bioload

That is not true. Scavenger inverts remove more bioload than they
produce therefore, they do not add to it.

[Spiderman]

that's the problem....i probably can't have a skimmer til i upgrade to a 75G ank

[specialk]

Keep up on your water changes since you are skimmerless, do you have any corals in the tank? Are you planning on adding corals to the tank?
You could always add more inverts for clean up.
Crashes come in all forms people go on vacation, a heater fails, lose of power, heavy bio load and many more.

Kaye