webuhgnar
New Member
Hi there,
(Tank is no longer green after 2 days with a green killing thing.. just for the record lol)
I am 2 months in on my tank, and I can’t say it’s going very well. I oscillate between excitement and love and “what was I thinking”.
I was on a marine biology course trip in FL, SC and NC and brought home a couple hermit crabs for my kids (and a vacant whelk with macro and feather dusters and barnacles)… I remembered having a hermit as a kid and how low key it was. Terrestrial hermits are low key. I’ve spent a boatload of money and time trying to keep these guys alive. I learned that I shouldn’t have even attempted to put animals in the tank until it had been cycling for 6 months. Lots of oops along the way.
At this time I have a 20 gallon tank with 3 striped hermits, a gastropod of some sort residing on one of the shells, a few different macroalgaes, one small plug of soft coral polyps, 2 peppermint shrimp, 2 nautilus snails, 1 Mexican turbo, and a large anemone that was attached to the live rock. There’s a myriad of copepods as well.
While I wasn’t planning this and it’s way more than I knew I was signing up for, I’m kind of in love. I don’t want any fish and plan to keep it strictly invert. In my ideal world it would be a low-maintenance, self-cycling system that is teeming with life.. but maybe that’s not really possible. At this time, I’m just trying to achieve a balanced situation and figure out the right amount of food/nutrient inputs.
Anyways, I’m very open to opinions and/or reading suggestions!
Cheers,
Kari
(Tank is no longer green after 2 days with a green killing thing.. just for the record lol)
I am 2 months in on my tank, and I can’t say it’s going very well. I oscillate between excitement and love and “what was I thinking”.
I was on a marine biology course trip in FL, SC and NC and brought home a couple hermit crabs for my kids (and a vacant whelk with macro and feather dusters and barnacles)… I remembered having a hermit as a kid and how low key it was. Terrestrial hermits are low key. I’ve spent a boatload of money and time trying to keep these guys alive. I learned that I shouldn’t have even attempted to put animals in the tank until it had been cycling for 6 months. Lots of oops along the way.
At this time I have a 20 gallon tank with 3 striped hermits, a gastropod of some sort residing on one of the shells, a few different macroalgaes, one small plug of soft coral polyps, 2 peppermint shrimp, 2 nautilus snails, 1 Mexican turbo, and a large anemone that was attached to the live rock. There’s a myriad of copepods as well.
While I wasn’t planning this and it’s way more than I knew I was signing up for, I’m kind of in love. I don’t want any fish and plan to keep it strictly invert. In my ideal world it would be a low-maintenance, self-cycling system that is teeming with life.. but maybe that’s not really possible. At this time, I’m just trying to achieve a balanced situation and figure out the right amount of food/nutrient inputs.
Anyways, I’m very open to opinions and/or reading suggestions!
Cheers,
Kari
