Am I overstocking?

[Teeb]

I have an 8 gallon biocube that's had pump/filtration upgraded. I currently have:

2 Turbo snails
2 Astraea snails
2 Red Legged Hermits
4 Dwarf Blue Hermits
2 Emarald crabs
1 Small Sand Sifting Starfish
1 Sixline Wrasse


I'm about to order:

1 Citron Clown Goby
1 Green Clown Goby
1 Green Chromis
1 Pom Pom Crab


Do you think I'm crossing the limit of what my tank can handle? Does anyone see any obvious mismatches with anything that I've ordered?

[jpond83]

tank is too small for a sand sifting starfish

[nextreefer420]

i would ditch the starfish, sixline, and green chromis because they will need a larger tank later on. sand sifting starfish are small, but they can deplete a lot of the life in your sandbed

[aggman]

i would also back up on the hermits. for a tank that size i would suggest only 2-3 hermits or the emerald not both. and i like the starfish, but you could go with a few [5] small nassarius snails and some [4-5] astrea snails.

i had a 12g nano for a long time and had 1 small starfish, 5 astrea's, 5 nassarius', and 1 emerald crab. i never had issues with that setup and my glass and sand was always clean and clear. plus you won't have a bunch of dead snails and fat hermits. lol.

~ now this is just my suggestion, not saying this is the only way. it just happended to work well for me.

~alex

[aggman]

oh and for fish i had 3 green chromis [small-not the african kind], and 2 clown goby's [citron, black], and a black combtooth blenny. and they showed no aggression. all were very docile species to begin with. after a good while i gave the chromis to my sister and replaced them with a strawberry psuedochromis and a juvi ora maroon clown.

may seem like a lot but i had docile fish [except for the psuedochromis] and kept a regular cleaning schedule including weekly water changes and monthly sand vacuuming [sp?].

~alex

[Squiers007]

I would ditch the 6-line, he will outgrow that tank quickly if he already hasnt. Also, I wouldnt do the chromis as they will get to large and need space to swim. I would only do the two clown gobies and the pompom crab and leave it at that.

[recoiljpr]

I'm new myself, but IMO that's a lot of livestock. In my 29 gallon biocube my livestock are-

2 False percs
1 Yasha goby
1 Tiger pistol Shrimp
2 Emerald Crabs
6 Blue legged hermits
3 Nassarius Snails
2 Astrea
6 Nerite
4 Margarita Snails (Bought from a LFS who assured me they are good reef snails. I later found out they are cold water snails. They are doing fine, but I will not be getting more)

[Kristy]

I agree that is a lot of livestock, especially to be adding so many all at the same time. You want to only increase your bioload in very small incremenents, as you can often see it tip the balance when you hit too many in a tank that size.

About the starfish....
a small starfish might be ok for a tank that size, but NOT the sandsifting star. The sandsifting starfish is really only recommended for larger tanks (~100g+), as they generally will slowly starve to death in a smaller tank. We learned this one the hard way ourselves as newbies when a sales clerk suggested that it would be a great addition, so we try to spread the word. We even target fed ours to try to keep it happy after reading about the likelihood of it starving, but that only bought us more time before the inevitable.

[JimD]

Sand sifting starfish are really not recommended for any size tank that depends on a DSB and its micro fauna for filtration... They will depleat valuable life in the sand and can eventually render the sandbed useless. Other animals like Nassarious snails and fighting conches are much safer and will do a good job of keeping the sand clean...

[Teeb]

[QUOTE=Kristy;683529]We learned this one the hard way ourselves as newbies when a sales clerk suggested that it would be a great addition[QUOTE]


This is what happened to me. After reading up on them, I think I may give the starfish to my buddy with a 75g along with the 2 big hermits. The sixline stays until he gets bigger at least, he has a great personality and looks too cool.

[nick021892]

Here is a good "list of inhabitants" for a Biocube 8:

5 astraea snails
5 small nassarius snails (keep the sand clean)
2 peppermint shrimp (cleaners and pest eaters)
1 emerald crab (good for nuisance algae)

0 hermits (tend to kill snails, even if extra shells are available)
0 turbos (these will not have enough to eat in such a small tank)
0 starfish (need a much larger sand bed to survive)

1-2 small fish

~these are just some ideas that have worked for me, you may end up with something else of course though...