New Tank Set Up Questions

[mannamachine]

Hello!

Long time aquascaper, but this is my first Opae Ula tank.
I have a 2.1 Gallon tank cycling now and I have a few questions.

Some background about the tank:

My substrate, salt, chaeto, super moss, and calcium carbonate rocks are from supershrimp.com. I intend to also purchase snails and shrimps from supershrimp as well. Substrate is 1/2-3/4in deep, I added two thoroughly cleaned dragon stones and a thoroughly washed natural sea fan. The light is from buceplant and intended for aquariums, on a 12 hour cycle. Distilled water turned brackish to specification, salinity is in range (1.010SG)

• As an aquascaper, I love a clean look. So I buried the calcium carbonate rocks in the sand- will this still appropriately buffer the water?

• I can't find anywhere on the website or forum if the MTS make for a healthier tank in general? I don't necessarily want snails but if they mostly burrow I wouldn't mind them, especially if they eat poop and clean the substrate and generally would make for happier shrimp. 10 feels like a lot for this small of a tank, but I'm reading over and over that it is fine?

• Once I see algae, I will add the shrimp. Would it be okay to start with 15 so I can actually see them from the start? This set up has a lot of hiding spots.

• I am a compulsive tank cleaner, once established- is it okay to scrape the algae off of the glass for a clean look so long as I don't touch the substrate or rocks?

• The lid for this tank is a flush mount lid, with little silicon feet on the edges, so there is about a 1/16in gap. Is that good or do I want to remove the feet so it's flush and just air it out once a month or so?

Thank you so much!!

[Mustafa]

Hey there!

Good looking tank! Before I answer your questions, I would like to point out that the sea fan in the background mostly causes trouble. They are not like stony corals made of minerals, but are made of mostly protein and decay slowly in the water polluting the tank and killing its inhabitants sooner or later. Plus, they tend to be full of preservatives and other chemicals to "make them look good and shiny" if you bought them as just room decoration or for arts and crafts and not specifically for aquariums. Many "sudden" and "unexplained" shrimp deaths occur in tanks with sea fans.

Having said that, the burried calcium carbonate rocks should work. The snails are burrowing snails and keep the substrate healthy and aerated, plus they eat unsightly brown algae/diatoms and possibly even shrimp crap, so we recommend them for every tank and we never start a tank without them. The snails are very small when we ship them and you won't even notice the 10 snails since most of them will be burried in the substrate for most of the time. Their growth and reproductions will directly depend on the amount of food you feed, which shouldn't be that much in a Supershrimp tank anyway (every 3-4 weeks). Yes, 15 shrimp are fine...even 20-30....these guys have a very low metabolism so they produce extremely little waste.

Yes, you can scrape the algae off the glass, you want to see your shrimp after all. As for the lid...it's up to you! Even if the lid is flush, it probably won't be airtight. So it all depends on how often you want to add water due to evaporation.

Hope this helps!