Tank ready?

[adamlodge14]

Hi guys!
My tank has been running 2 months+ now, I have some softies in the tank and a Yasha goby/ pistol shrimp pair.
I’m thinking of doing a decent sized LPS order including: acan, Duncan, Blasto, Frogspawn, Candy cane.
Am i ready for some LPS?
Here are some pics of my tank

 

[terraincognita]

What sort of tests do you recommend?
Is salifert good? I don’t really have enough money to get a full set of hanna testers so something that’s still good, but in the cheaper side would be better.

The hanna alk checker alone is $50.

Only reason I say to get it over and over is once you have it the reagent is cheap, and it's the only one you will ever need.

With salifert or other's you will have to continually rebuy the whole kit I think, and it's just a longer process and you don't get a digital read out.

Hanna is worth the investment.

Otherwise yeah salifert or RedSea test will work fine. API is fine IMO for Nitrites, Ammonia and just to check if you have Nitrates.

But in terms of how much nitrates you need salifert.

 

[Tchung23]

I was worried with my first torch. So I bought a relatively cheap one just incase. Worked out fine and my tank was younger than yours.

 

[adamlodge14]

The hanna alk checker alone is $50.

Only reason I say to get it over and over is once you have it the reagent is cheap, and it's the only one you will ever need.

With salifert or other's you will have to continually rebuy the whole kit I think, and it's just a longer process and you don't get a digital read out.

Hanna is worth the investment.

Otherwise yeah salifert or RedSea test will work fine. API is fine IMO for Nitrites, Ammonia and just to check if you have Nitrates.

But in terms of how much nitrates you need salifert.

This is great, I will get a hanna checker, although here in Scotland they are about £70 ($95) but I would rather do it the right way so I’ll think about getting one.
In the meantime is it ok to get some of the easier lps like duncans?

 

[terraincognita]

This is great, I will get a hanna checker, although here in Scotland they are about £70 ($95) but I would rather do it the right way so I’ll think about getting one.
In the meantime is it ok to get some of the easier lps like duncans?

If you got those current LPS doing just fine I'm sure.

 

[Suohhen]

It is hard for us grizzled old folks to give advice on what risks to take. In this hobby you'll hear a lot that patience is the best practice but what does that mean? Change happens very slowly in reed aquaria, even new ones. And so it can be very hard to infer whether a change has had a positive effect and when something goes wrong, which of the recent changes was most to blame.
So basically in your case it can be framed like this, we can be sure that your tank can support softies/lps, but how will they fair in the long run especially when the ugly phase really starts to get ugly. So I would personally hold off and focus on the algae cycle, adding clean up crew and preforming extra maintenance, but I honestly think you'll be fine either way. It's just one of those cases of different strokes for different folks.

 

[adamlodge14]

It is hard for us grizzled old folks to give advice on what risks to take. In this hobby you'll hear a lot that patience is the best practice but what does that mean? Change happens very slowly in reed aquaria, even new ones. And so it can be very hard to infer whether a change has had a positive effect and when something goes wrong, which of the recent changes was most to blame.
So basically in your case it can be framed like this, we can be sure that your tank can support softies/lps, but how will they fair in the long run especially when the ugly phase really starts to get ugly. So I would personally hold off and focus on the algae cycle, adding clean up crew and preforming extra maintenance, but I honestly think you'll be fine either way. It's just one of those cases of different strokes for different folks.

I’m gonna do just that, yesterday I ordered a pistol shrimp (for my Yasha) and a cleaner shrimp. I already have a nassarius snail and am gonna order some trochus snails soon, then once everything has settled down I will think about LPS.
Thank you so much for al your help!

 

[Suohhen]

I’m gonna do just that, yesterday I ordered a pistol shrimp (for my Yasha) and a cleaner shrimp. I already have a nassarius snail and am gonna order some trochus snails soon, then once everything has settled down I will think about LPS.
Thank you so much for al your help!

Trochus are the only algae eater in that bunch and generally a diversity of algae eaters is very preferable as they can be picky and prefer different shapes, some on the glass, sand, rock. My personal favorite is Astrea, even though they get a bad wrap for not being able to right themselves and yet despite that I have had the best success by far over the long run keeping Astrea alive and I have seen some Astrea right themselves in sand and plenty of other snails like trochus getting stuck in the sand the same way as Astrea. Not that Astrea don't have this issue, but I generally find that they usually only need help during the first few days and the snails that get stuck on their back 6 months in are generally fine for at least 24 hours until I get around to righting it. Regardless I think a mix of Astrea, trochus, cerith, nerite, and whatever else you can find is the best approach. Just go slow with the big snails, Astrea and Trochus, one or two at a time.
I know this might seem to be outside the fun of this hobby that we have thousands of options and enjoy customizing to our personality, but CuC is exactly that, it is all about utility.

 

[adamlodge14]

Trochus are the only algae eater in that bunch and generally a diversity of algae eaters is very preferable as they can be picky and prefer different shapes, some on the glass, sand, rock. My personal favorite is Astrea, even though they get a bad wrap for not being able to right themselves and yet despite that I have had the best success by far over the long run keeping Astrea alive and I have seen some Astrea right themselves in sand and plenty of other snails like trochus getting stuck in the sand the same way as Astrea. Not that Astrea don't have this issue, but I generally find that they usually only need help during the first few days and the snails that get stuck on their back 6 months in are generally fine for at least 24 hours until I get around to righting it. Regardless I think a mix of Astrea, trochus, cerith, nerite, and whatever else you can find is the best approach. Just go slow with the big snails, Astrea and Trochus, one or two at a time.

Yeah I would only get a couple to start off with, I may get a mixture of Astrea and trochus eventually.
I like the look of bumblebee snails a lot aswell. And yeah it would probably be best for me to get snails that do better for longer periods of time if they accidentally fall over.

 

[Suohhen]

Bumblebees are one of my favorite and longest lived. They are carnivores through and through but they are one of the only CuC members that is small enough and has a propensity to go deep within the rocks where food often gets lost. However since they also go after microfauna it is generally recommended to keep only a few and only once mature microfauna populations can be established.
I think bigger algae eater snails in general get a bad wrap for getting stuck on their backs but in my experience they stumble around for the first few days and then the only one knocking them over is me.