New again

Hi Everyone,

I am somewhat new again to saltwater keeping, I tried it about 5 years ago, got discouraged and gave up, I didn't do enough reading and am pretty sure I overloaded the tank, which resulted in pretty much all dying.
Anyhow, I am trying my second luck at it again, have a tank going, 20 gallon, 30 lbs of fully cured liverock, 5 hermit crabs, 1 tomato clown and a mushroom coral, level are all at 0, except for nitrate which is about 5-10 ppm.
I would like to know if Shrimp get along with crabs, and I am thinking of only keeping the one fish and adding more mushrooms or polyps, I need some suggestions on good beginner mushrooms/corals.
I also have another question, last november when we went to Cuba, My kids picked up what I believe is broken off coral, white and very porous, and I am wondering if this is safe to put in the tank?

Thanks !!!! look forward to your advice

 

welcome to 3 reef clownlover

if you mean dwarf hermit crabs, then they dont normally pose a problem for most shrimp species and are kept with cleaner, blood, peppermint shrimps etc in many set ups

good beginner corals IME are (but knowing what lighting you had would be ideal )

Green star polyps
Zoanthids
Yellow polyps
mushroom colonies
Anthelia
Clove polyps
Toadstool corals
leather finger corals

the above are not very light demanding and are more parameter issue tolerant than other species

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I have regular fluorescent lighting that came with the aquarium, BUT, I do plan to upgrade the lighting in about 2 months.

 

welcome
if your upgrade is 4 tubes T5 , then Im confident all the corals listed above would be fine
( I have kept all the species above under 4 x T8 tubes in previous set ups)

coral found on beach question
Im in 2 minds on this one - I have done this with items collected on clean beach in Wales UK some years ago and it was fine

but where I am now, I would not take anything and use it without putting it in bleach for a couple of days and then soaking in water for a couple of days and then leaving to air dry (bake in the sun for a week)

Im very much a why take the risk kind of person when dealing with things harvested from nature these days. (Thats just me, others may feel differently)

Steve

 

Thanks again, actually, I have been soaking it is salt water for a few days, and it smells kind of fishy, not sure it this is normal? it reminds me of white liverock, does this make sense ?

 

by the way, the mushroom I have is a green strip mushroom, 3 very little ones on one small rock, and thanks for the info on the shrimp, my choice is blood shrimp, will be my next buy, any special diet you recommend for clowns?

 

Yes make sense, its possibly a coral skeleton and you will be smelling the decaying animal life that was on it

Clown fish eat anything and everything IME, flake, pellets, frozen mysis, frozen brine, chopped prawn, chopped mussel, any thing at all thats edible
I feed mine frozen blood worms once a month and also freeze dried tubifex
once in a while

Steve

 

right now I have frozen brine shrimp, but will buy a different variety on the weekend, thanks for all the info, I'm sure I'll be back with more questions !

 

am also thinking, I may skip the Cuba rock, just in case as you mentioned above, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Thanks
Terry Ann

 

Going to get a light:

Current Nova Extreme T5 Aquarium Light

Two 24 Watt SlimPaq 10K T5 HO
Two 24 watt 460nm Actinic Blue T5 HO
Dimensions: 24" x 8" x 2.5"
96 Watts/.84 Amps
Mounting legs
Performance driven electronic ballasts. Independent control over 10K and Actinic lamps.

This is strong enough for corals, right?