Inhabitants advice!

[psanimals]

Hey, i’ve been looking around and these are the species i would love to have in my inverts only tank, i would love to know your opinions on which ones can be housed together? Any personal experience and advice would be incredible! For reference it’s a 3ft tank and will not have any corals.

yellow footed hermit crabs
decorator crab
cowrie
short spine urchin
tuxedo urchin
sand shifting starfish
mottled starfish
strombus snail
tiger tail cucumber
pink spiny cucumber
tropical abalone
trochus snail
nassarius snail
peppermint shrimp
brittle star


Thank you!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I would suggest to remove the stars except for the brittle star, most sand sifting starfish don't survive long in our tanks, they die of hunger slowly. Brittle stars will eat whatever you feed the tank.

Why not a large show size snail? So many more snails you can add to the that list...... Ninja star snails? Bumble bee snails? Have you seen the dragon throne turbo snail? The pink turban snail? The spiny pacific turban snail?

Cowrie snails are a must.

No conches?

IMO peppermint shrimp is rather unattractive, have a look at coral banded shrimp or blood shrimp, or sexy shrimp, bumble bee shrimp.....

I would remove the decorator crab from the list, I believe it might eat the other inverts. Instead how about some porcelain crabs, pom pom crabs, pitho crabs, strawberry crab, emerald crabs. Also so many different kinds of hermits, why only one kind?

No nudibranches? No featherdusters?

I've had a couple of small invert tanks over the years, they are a lot of fun. Since you're doing a 3' long tank, I think you can make your list more exciting.

 

[littlefoxx]

Hey, i’ve been looking around and these are the species i would love to have in my inverts only tank, i would love to know your opinions on which ones can be housed together? Any personal experience and advice would be incredible! For reference it’s a 3ft tank and will not have any corals.

yellow footed hermit crabs
decorator crab
cowrie
short spine urchin
tuxedo urchin
sand shifting starfish
mottled starfish
strombus snail
tiger tail cucumber
pink spiny cucumber
tropical abalone
trochus snail
nassarius snail
peppermint shrimp
brittle star


Thank you!

AVOID CUCUMBERS. One got in my sump somehow and crawled into the return pump. Nuked my tank.

 

[psanimals]

I would suggest to remove the stars except for the brittle star, most sand sifting starfish don't survive long in our tanks, they die of hunger slowly. Brittle stars will eat whatever you feed the tank.

Why not a large show size snail? So many more snails you can add to the that list...... Ninja star snails? Bumble bee snails? Have you seen the dragon throne turbo snail? The pink turban snail? The spiny pacific turban snail?

Cowrie snails are a must.

No conches?

IMO peppermint shrimp is rather unattractive, have a look at coral banded shrimp or blood shrimp, or sexy shrimp, bumble bee shrimp.....

I would remove the decorator crab from the list, I believe it might eat the other inverts. Instead how about some porcelain crabs, pom pom crabs, pitho crabs, strawberry crab, emerald crabs. Also so many different kinds of hermits, why only one kind?

No nudibranches? No featherdusters?

I've had a couple of small invert tanks over the years, they are a lot of fun. Since you're doing a 3' long tank, I think you can make your list more exciting.

Thanks for all that info! I think a lot are unfortunately not available in australia though, so my options are a lot more limited!

 

[psanimals]

AVOID CUCUMBERS. One got in my sump somehow and crawled into the return pump. Nuked my tank.

dang really! that’s disappointing, they are so cool. i heard they could nuke tanks but thought it was a rare thing.

 

[littlefoxx]

dang really! that’s disappointing, they are so cool. i heard they could nuke tanks but thought it was a rare thing.

Me too until it happened to me!

 

[AH-6ApacheChief]

I had a real problem with green hair algae for a long time and didnt want to use chemicals to treat it because of the stress on the fish but I finally went to urchin. One at first and now have 4 redish ones and one haloween and now my tank is under control. I also bought 2 cucumber and they are really cool. my algae problem is almost non existent. PS my largest cucumber split in 2 and after a small search I found that that is how they reproduce (asexual reproduction). My tank is a year old 55 gallon with a 20 gallon sump. The sump is divided into the intake with 2 sox then into the largest portion with sand bottom and lots of seaweed then into a 2 inch devided chamber with round pellets with hole in it like a thick straw in 1 inch lengths and 2 bags of carbon pellets then into the return chamber with a carbon filter with its own pump for more cleaning and one that has medial reactor with ferrous oxide to reduce the phosphate that has its own pump and then of course the return pump. I have a decent amount of snails to help the cleanup, 8 narcissus, 4 green crabs and a few other but I cant remember what they are. For fish I have 4 pajama cardinals, 2 clown with a blue tipped anemone, chocolate chip starfish and one haloweeny starfish and one really cool solid red starfish with long legs but not real fat like the chocolate ones, one yellow tail blue damsel ( had 2 but one started being an ***** and started beating up on my clown so he is in timeout in my 10 gallon seperation tank) one spotted sand sifter and 2 blenny sandsifters that dont get along but the littler one is fast enough to stay safe from the other larger one. 2 chromis and the only corals I have are a hammer that I have almost a year now and a hammer. I was worried that they wouldnt make it thru my ugly phase but they held on and now are doing GREAT. So much for my rant and thanks for reading it. I I will try to post a pic if I can figure out how to. Oh well I just spent 30 minutes trying to find out how to post it and I am too stupid or maybe it just wont let me. Be well everybody and dont give up on your tanks. Over the last year I have gone thru close to $1000 in fish and corals but I figure if I spent this much money getting started whats another few $1000.... LOL Stay well my friends