heathermoor
Community Member
Hi everyone. I am new to saltwater. Whereas I'd love a big reef tank I am in my sixties and dont really want to be carrying huge amounts of water about. So I'm starting with a 37 litre nano tank. Not the best choice for a beginner but maybe a better choice for an oldie, so I'm going slowly and learning as I go and I've been reading on here for a while, to learn from the threads on here.
I've got a layer of caribsea live sand on the bottom and a rock structure I made from dry rock and a supply of salt water and ro water from my lfs. I've bought a red sea refractometer and an api saltwater test kit. I've put some Colony in and some little pinches of fish food and also some copepods that I read were a good thing to have at the start and I've tried to create a mini refugium type affair by having a small plastic fry hatchery in there and keeping some macroalgae - I think its called caulerpa - in it, so the copepods have somewhere to go when I get a fish, maybe. I have a freshwater style filter going and also an airstone, turned up quite a lot, so a fair bit of movement. Its not pretty but hopefully is going to work.
I got ammonia and nitrate to 0 according to the test kit and nitrate to almost zero - never higher than 5.0ppm - and the salinity steady. All seemed to be going well after about 4 weeks with testing, so I bought my first livestock. The first thing that made me want a salt tank was I saw some blue leg hermit crabs in the lfs when I was shopping for my freshwater tanks. I know they are fairly lowly in this hobby but I really liked them, not as a cleanup crew but for themselves. So when it came to putting some live creatures in this tank they were No 1 on my list.
I ordered just one electric blue, online, because I had read about them - its only a small tank and they could be a bit fighty was what I'd read which I really dont want to see. But the shop I ordered them from rang me up - they thought there must be some mistake because it was a lot of shipping cost for a small purchase. I had a chat with them and told them the above and they told me no, they were pretty peaceful really and more than one would be fine in that small tank and they would appreciate more of their kind. So I bought another one - two altogether - and a couple of spare shells for them.
They arrived and I acclimated them and everything seemed great. One was more active than the other but both were out and about, eating one or two Hikari Marin S and also Seaweed extreme pellets I put in for them but mostly interested in the algae on the rocks and sand.
They arrived on Friday. All was good. But today, Monday, I think I've got trouble. One of them - the less active one - spent all day yesterday in one place and this morning I got worried about it because it looked like it might just have found itself a good secure place to rest in a rock crevice and sleep OR it might be stuck in there, - so I moved it. It seemed fine and started moving around but looked a bit sort of deferring and defensive towards the other one. I haven't seen the other one touch it but they spent a good bit of time staring at each other, before both going their own ways.
But in the last 3 hours I've found the one I moved out of the crevice on its back with legs in the air, twice. I missed how it got like that both times - I watch for ages then the minute I go away to make a cup of tea or something when I come back, there it is, upside down. Both times I've turned it back over and it walked away. The other one is not actively attacking it, though. I've not seen it attack it or even wave a claw at it. But who knows what happens at night, is what I'm thinking.
When they sleep, they sleep next to each other, together. Whether this is the choice of both of them, or just one of them though, who knows?
The upside downer is now resting on a shelf in the rocks, looking a bit dithery and uncertain and the other one is stamping around the tank in a new shell it has chosen, happy as larry, sampling everything it comes across. It doesn't seem to be especially going after the other one.
I know there will be a lot of experience about these creatures on here. I'm sorry to mix an introduction and a question - apologies if that is bad manners. Have I done a stupid thing, getting two of them, or any other stupid things for that matter? Should I have just left the one that was probably sleeping alone and its just disorientated because I disturbed it? Do I need to separate them before something bad happens? Is there a way of instantly safely cycling a new tank for one of them if I need to split them up?
Thanks to anyone whe takes the trouble to read this.
I've got a layer of caribsea live sand on the bottom and a rock structure I made from dry rock and a supply of salt water and ro water from my lfs. I've bought a red sea refractometer and an api saltwater test kit. I've put some Colony in and some little pinches of fish food and also some copepods that I read were a good thing to have at the start and I've tried to create a mini refugium type affair by having a small plastic fry hatchery in there and keeping some macroalgae - I think its called caulerpa - in it, so the copepods have somewhere to go when I get a fish, maybe. I have a freshwater style filter going and also an airstone, turned up quite a lot, so a fair bit of movement. Its not pretty but hopefully is going to work.
I got ammonia and nitrate to 0 according to the test kit and nitrate to almost zero - never higher than 5.0ppm - and the salinity steady. All seemed to be going well after about 4 weeks with testing, so I bought my first livestock. The first thing that made me want a salt tank was I saw some blue leg hermit crabs in the lfs when I was shopping for my freshwater tanks. I know they are fairly lowly in this hobby but I really liked them, not as a cleanup crew but for themselves. So when it came to putting some live creatures in this tank they were No 1 on my list.
I ordered just one electric blue, online, because I had read about them - its only a small tank and they could be a bit fighty was what I'd read which I really dont want to see. But the shop I ordered them from rang me up - they thought there must be some mistake because it was a lot of shipping cost for a small purchase. I had a chat with them and told them the above and they told me no, they were pretty peaceful really and more than one would be fine in that small tank and they would appreciate more of their kind. So I bought another one - two altogether - and a couple of spare shells for them.
They arrived and I acclimated them and everything seemed great. One was more active than the other but both were out and about, eating one or two Hikari Marin S and also Seaweed extreme pellets I put in for them but mostly interested in the algae on the rocks and sand.
They arrived on Friday. All was good. But today, Monday, I think I've got trouble. One of them - the less active one - spent all day yesterday in one place and this morning I got worried about it because it looked like it might just have found itself a good secure place to rest in a rock crevice and sleep OR it might be stuck in there, - so I moved it. It seemed fine and started moving around but looked a bit sort of deferring and defensive towards the other one. I haven't seen the other one touch it but they spent a good bit of time staring at each other, before both going their own ways.
But in the last 3 hours I've found the one I moved out of the crevice on its back with legs in the air, twice. I missed how it got like that both times - I watch for ages then the minute I go away to make a cup of tea or something when I come back, there it is, upside down. Both times I've turned it back over and it walked away. The other one is not actively attacking it, though. I've not seen it attack it or even wave a claw at it. But who knows what happens at night, is what I'm thinking.
When they sleep, they sleep next to each other, together. Whether this is the choice of both of them, or just one of them though, who knows?
The upside downer is now resting on a shelf in the rocks, looking a bit dithery and uncertain and the other one is stamping around the tank in a new shell it has chosen, happy as larry, sampling everything it comes across. It doesn't seem to be especially going after the other one.
I know there will be a lot of experience about these creatures on here. I'm sorry to mix an introduction and a question - apologies if that is bad manners. Have I done a stupid thing, getting two of them, or any other stupid things for that matter? Should I have just left the one that was probably sleeping alone and its just disorientated because I disturbed it? Do I need to separate them before something bad happens? Is there a way of instantly safely cycling a new tank for one of them if I need to split them up?
Thanks to anyone whe takes the trouble to read this.
