New to salt water help!

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T

thisguy87

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Feb 17, 2008
46
0
36
tampa
I caught a bunch of small hermit crabs in the ocean and decided to keep them in my 10 gal tank what do I need to do to keep them thriving?

I have a hang on back filter, the sg is at 1.024, they are feeding on sinking pellets for sw or fw fish (I put some squid in there but they havent touched it). actinic blue florescent strip ang gravel. this tank was used for fw a while ago and the filter was used to move water in a larger tank so it is cycled. and an airline w/ bubbler
 
the smaller a salt water tank the harder they are to keep up with try to get a protein skimmer to help reduce toxins an most inverts need iodine an magnesem for them to be healthy
 
I'd be careful dosing anything. Just keep doing weekly water changes & make sure to top off daily with fresh water, to keep the salt from getting concentrated in there. Did you get some sand & rock from the ocean for them? That will cycle the tank.
 
I agree with pufferpunk. With a small tank like that, you have to be extra vigilant about water changes and topping off. I think you should be OK without a skimmer. You don't have a big bioload. As long as you keep up with frequent water changes, you should be able to remove most of the proteins that the skimmer pulls out. WC would also supply the trace amounts of minerals inverts need.
 
do they need a special diet at all, do I need special lighting or anything like that, and wont adding freshwater lower the salinity
 
Not sure about diet, but any kind of lighting should do.

You only add freshwater when you top off the tank due to evaporation. When the water evaporates, the salt stays behind, so actually, adding freshwater actually keeps the salinity stable. Without adding freshwater, the salinity would shoot up, and it will happen real quick in such a small tank.
 
^^^100% correct. im not sure about diet because i have them in my salt tank and dont specificly feed them, they just kinda eat what they can get ahold of. If I was you I would go and get some liverock for them to eat off of. this will also give the tank a good population of copepods which they may or may not eat not sure about that one.
ps-I feed
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aqueon marine flakes
formula one pellets
formula two flakes
frozen brine shrimp
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hope this helped
 
Crabs are scavengers--they will eat whatever they find. Pellets are good.
 
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