Help me pick a CUC

crystal181 · Apr 28, 2019

I have a 120 gallon aquarium. I bought it used with some livestock already included. Had the tank for around 6 weeks. Everything is looking good. I don’t think it went through a cycle. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 10-20 nitrates. I test every week and everything has been stable. We transferred all the live rock and what water we could when we moved it. There is an anemone, a pair of clowns, firefish, 2 cardinals, a brittle starfish and a few easy corals. I’m wanting to add a yellow tang and flame angel. (I know I could have problems with the angel nipping the coral) I just bought a quarantine setup. Seeding a sponge filter from my sump. I am also wanting to get a clean up crew. What can live with my livestock? I was thinking of a peppermint shrimp to help with a bit of aipstasia I invertantly inherited. But not sure what can exist with the anemone. Hermit crabs, snails? I would appreciate any help at all. Thank you.

Saveafish · Apr 28, 2019

I'd forget the peppermint shrimp, it'll pick at your nems. Hermits will in time kill all your snails. Maybe a matrix crab/emerald crab, heave on snails. A good mix. Margaritas if you keep your tank under 78. Turbos, cerith, a few for sand shifting.

norfolkgarden · Apr 28, 2019

Lol, your blue leg hermit crabs will for sure kill any ceriths and steal their shells.

For that size tank you can do 3 of the smaller tangs but come back for them later.

You will need to manage that carefully and hit up hotrocks and 4fordfamily for their expert advice when the time comes on which ones *may* get along. They will all need to be added at the same time for most likely success.

The flame angel is another dirtbag.
I wouldn't keep a tank without one! They are my all time favorite fish. Lol, that includes my precious prima Donna copperband. We have a small male and an even tinier female in a 75 gallon. I can't really do 3 in that size tank.
The nice part is the male is still small even after 3 months and spends more time annoying the female then anything else.
A single one gets fairly territorial about the entire tank and bothers everyone else.

In a 120 you can have a small harem of flame angelfish.
Again, Something that needs to be planned carefully with the perfect size of each fish and 2 that are still smaller females.
We can come back to that as well. Partly because the tank will become "theirs" and they are horrible to new additions. Maybe worse than the tangs.

You will want a lot of rock and hiding places and areas of restricted line of sight to help keep everyone happy.

Back to the original easy clean up crew.
4 trochus snails and maybe 3 small Turbo snails. Half dozen blue legs and a 1/2 dozen dwarf zebra hermit crabs and a few scarlets mostly because they are beautiful.

Skip the crazy cowrie, conch and sand sifting starfish and anything not brittle starfish or serpent starfish for now.
After a lot of your research, a few of them have a cool place in a large, old established tank.
Maybe a year from now. :-)

Money cowrie would be fine but strictly for fun. 3x the price and not as efficient. Just easy to identify the correct small cowrie and cool. Ours is 6 years old.
Lol, get the 4 trochus workhorses first.

Some people swear by emerald crabs. Some people swear at them.
I don't add but 1 tiny one and hope i don't regret it too much later.

In a 75 gallon tank with 40+ nitrate we have no hair algae.
2 small turbos, 4 trochus and the money cowrie and maybe 6 remaining hermit crabs.

Dwarf ceriths or planaxis (another cool specialty snail) might need 1 per gallon of water.
Nothing else does. And I would only start with 20 of those. :-)
And no blue legs. ;-)

Whatever you add too much of starves and dies and adds to your nitrate and phosphate.
:-/

Your tank sounds like it is going to be epic. :-)
Have you started a build thread yet?