It’s been a busy few weeks with the tank. I’ve been stuck in “ugly tank” mode. My nitrates have been spiking, so I’ve been performing 90-gallon water changes every week to keep things in check! That’s a lot of work, but it’s worked well, and things are finally stable.
I’m FINALLY able to add some “Cleanup Crew” members to make the tank sparkly, clean, and shiny! (background…invertebrates are very sensitive to nitrates, so they cannot be added until the tank has been cycled fully)
Cleanup Crews (CuC) eat the algae, detritus, and other “gunk” in the aquarium, making it look awesome and well-kept. My tank has been missing these little critters, but because of the aforementioned nitrate spike, I haven’t been able to add them yet. Well…my tank has cycled (see embedded link) now. so it’s safe to add all these little critters.
I added 48 hermit crabs (a mix of red & blue legged), 6 nassarious snails, 4 conk’s, 6 turbo snails, and a couple of urchins. They are working hard to get things all clean and shiny.
It’ll take a few weeks for them to make everything look nice, but it’s great to finally be able to have them. An aquarium is always going to be ugly without these little critters. Plus, they are a lot of fun to watch. More videos and such will come soon.
