Quick question on lighting. Do i have any color options?

Anyone?

 

A green serpant and shrimp are not a CUC. That's stocking your tank. The hermits and nassarius won't have enough to eat yet. They are best added after fish. And it's honestly too much of everything, IME.

 

This is a 50G aquarium btw. I was accounting for any loses that might occur. I've been always a fan of a big-as-possible CUC.
However, what about something like this.
20 Nerits.
30 Florida Ceriths
5-6 Limpets and
1 serpent
Since I'm getting all of this from the same vendor, I would rather get them all at the same time to save on shipping.
I was thinking that since the tank was already cycled the serpent star should still be ok right? (even if they are part of the stock) Granted I can begin feeding the tank.

I was planning on getting the shrimp perhaps sometime next week and the CUC this tuesday.

 

If you want to start stocking your tank, by all means get the shrimp and the serpent. But they are not a clean up crew.

Introducing more snails than algae, means you are going to starve some of them. Don't buy more than you need because you think some will die. Buy what you need and you won't kill as many. One of the reasons people have many empty shells in their tank is that they stock too heavily. You gotta respect the life of everything you put in there. Respect and you will get back from your tank what you give.

But that's me and opinion.

 

Ok so, I do have algae present in the tank. Not a lot, but you can definitely see it.
Should I maybe half it, and then order the other half later on? what do you think it will be a reasonable number?

 

You have algae now because your tank just cycled. You'll have tons of diatoms here in a bit..... and then, with proper maintenance, hopefully you'll have none that you can see.

I really don't want to sound like a meanie. But I kinda like my snails. I've had some of them over 10 years and have gone from little babies to huge monsters. That's a big sense of "job well done" and you deserve to feel that too starting out.

The big over stocked reef packages has always been an irritant of mine. Some even include fish for hair algae! A serpent will add more dirt to a tank than he will clean up. Shrimp, same thing. BUT they are a cool additions, just not a cleaning additions.

 

Don't worry, I take advice well. You don't sound like a meanie
So could you help me out picking out the right amount of CUC?
What do you think should be a good start number? species?

 

I really like asteria, but I don't house hermits in those tanks. They cannot right themselves as they do not naturally live in an area where they have to climb, so they never developed the mechanism. If you don't have hermits and don't mind turning a couple over now and then, they are really nice.



Nerites tend to climb out of your tank. I only keep a handful so I can keep track of them. The ones with the ridges get pretty big and they were always more probes to climbing out and running away from home. Our smooth nerites never climbed out.

If you feed the nassarius, you can stock them now. Just stick the food in the tank with your fingers and they will pop out. It's actually pretty cool to hand feed them. I've only ever stocked about 5 in a tank (small as 55g and as big as 100g) because they would climb all over my fish at food time.

I guess I should ask first what the place stocks and if you have an LFS near you.

Love Cerriths. I would only go 10 at most though.

I have more preferences, but I could loose this post if I don't send it now. Uverse is within 5 minutes and are coming to fix our Internet. Everything could shut down any minute!

Who else has favorite snails. Like the ninja and the orange turbos, throcus, red banded. Oh there's so many nice ones!

 

I was planning on ordering from reef cleaners.org so anything they have should work nicely

 

Reef cleaners has great stock.