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I had a short cycle
- Thread starter sbelyo
- Start date
I love having inverts in my tanks. That said, I have run 20g tanks for about 12 years now, and I don't know that adding more hermits would be the best idea. From my experience, if you add more hermits, you might not have enough food for them unless you are feeding very heavily, which will mean that they will either (1) attack and kill your snails for food or (2) attack and kill each other. I would suggest you stick with those 20 hermits for now. If your "red legs" are scarlet reef hermits, they will get pretty big and eat a lot of algae. I am not sure how large the blue legs you got are now, but I have had them get pretty big too. As they grow, they will need more food, and if you overstock, the blue legs will get cannibalistic or predatory.
You also don't necessarily need a source of ammonia. What you need is something to either kick start the nitrogen cycle, or, something which creats the same result as adding an ammonia source, which can be achieved by adding bacteria through a commercial preparation. As you have livestock in the tank now, you really don't want ammonia, so I would consider adding bacteria. In my experience, inverts like your conch are very intolerant of ammonia, and any fish but damsels are likely to die.
In a 20g tank, you will be stocking very small fish. In comparison to a tang, a Blue leg hermit, even if starving, isn't a threat. Add a small goby, and you have a problem.
Try to compensate by over feeding, and you may have a water quality problem.
I am not trying to tell you what to do, but I have made theses mistakes before, and I would hate to see you make the same ones.
You also don't necessarily need a source of ammonia. What you need is something to either kick start the nitrogen cycle, or, something which creats the same result as adding an ammonia source, which can be achieved by adding bacteria through a commercial preparation. As you have livestock in the tank now, you really don't want ammonia, so I would consider adding bacteria. In my experience, inverts like your conch are very intolerant of ammonia, and any fish but damsels are likely to die.
In a 20g tank, you will be stocking very small fish. In comparison to a tang, a Blue leg hermit, even if starving, isn't a threat. Add a small goby, and you have a problem.
Try to compensate by over feeding, and you may have a water quality problem.
I am not trying to tell you what to do, but I have made theses mistakes before, and I would hate to see you make the same ones.
To be honest, I can't remember if it was 10 or 20 hermits but I'll keep the way it is. I'm positive (well almost) that there's plenty of bacteria in there. The sand was live and it came with a free package of bacteria. Plus the live rock I have was from Malulu's huge sump. That stuff was crawling with life.
For now I'm feeding once a day. I'm about to test the levels right now to see where we are at. The snails and crabs have been in there for 3 days so that should be enough to see something
For now I'm feeding once a day. I'm about to test the levels right now to see where we are at. The snails and crabs have been in there for 3 days so that should be enough to see something