I need stocking suggestions!

[Dr.Gonzo]

Okay here’s the situation. My mum was in Flordia and asked me if I want anything so I told her to get me some sand out of the ocean. I didn’t think she would do it but she brought me a coffee can full of sand and crushed up shells and a gallon of sea water.

I tore up my 5 gal planted tank and relocated it to my 10gal Dutch style tank. I picked up some salt a hermit crab and food for all the tiny clams that came with it. Everything is fine so far and pending some water tests and some LR I’m stumped on what else I can put in there and have it live happily.

It only had 2 WPG so I know any corals are out of the question. I’m looking for 1 fish to put in there and a few inverts like shrimps, snails, feather dusters, crabs, ect…

Any suggestions?

 

[Dr.Gonzo]

Help I'm a nano-noob! Bump!

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Little snails (like bumblebees, nassarius, etc.) and/or dwarf hermits would work, as would a shrimp. You would probably be able to do one small fish, like a clown goby or something like that. Not sure about the feather dusters...

 

[jessey]

katie has a clown fish in her 5.5, and that seems pretty successful.

how is it going, using the sand from the ocean (or the gulf.. where in florida was she?)? i've thought about doing that before, since i live in florida and all, but i never knew if it could work, lol.

 

[Dr.Gonzo]

I guess we'll see! some of the clams have died off but I guess that is to be expected. the hermet crab is doing well so I guess it isn't too bad in there, I'm going to get a water test here in a day or two.

thanks for the suggestions! keep em comming!

 

[1979camaro]

You did not mention this, but if you do not have live rock yet, this is the time to get some...

 

[Dr.Gonzo]

I have a question. I have some honeycomb limestone I would like to use instead, will it work? If I stick it in the tank will it populate with the bacteria needed?

 

[CoolWaters]

it would be better if u got something like calcium rich rocks that was a piece of coral thousands and millions of years ago *crazysmil

im not 100% sure about Live rock but im playing it safe and getting the real thing.

 

[Dr.Gonzo]

Limestone is made up of mostly calicum so I'm safe there, the only problem I see with it is that it is much more dense than the stuff found in the store, but the shape of this stuff is killer.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

You would be fine using limestone, but you will want to seed it with real live rock... that's where all the good bacteria are, and they'll eventually populate the limestone too so it is also live. If you like the shape of the limestone better, you can "hide" the real live rock underneath/behind it and only really see the limestone.

 

[Dr.Gonzo]

Too late, I went out last night and purchased 5lbs of live rock. I like the shape of the honeycomb limestone but the nano rubble I got looks better I think. Lots of purple!

I still need a fish idea when I get to that step.

The water is super cloudy too, will I have to a bunch of water changes to get rid of that or will it settle?

 

[ram man]

besides fish there are some pretty cool inverts you can keep. there are mantis shrimp, sexy shrimp, pom pom crabs, harlequin shrimp if you can spend a little extra for their live food, and pistol shrimp that you can have pair up with a goby. My favorites are the mantis and harlequin shrimp, mantis because of their power, color and the fun of feeding them, harlequins because of how they look, how they feed, and are something alot of people dont keep in nanos.

 

[TheFighterFish]

The water should settle in one or two days granted you don't mess with the tank.

Personally, I don't think any saltwater fish should be put in a tank smaller than 10 G. I think all the shrimp/hermits/snail plans are cool to do and you should definitely take that route.