[jsgates]

Ok, I will be posting up pics soon! My 80 ga. reef tank is at the end of the cycle. Brown diatom algae is almost all gone. Performed some water tests again last night and everything looks great!

PH: 8.2
ALK: 5.5
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Total Ammonia: 0
Free Ammonia: 0

After installing some fans in the canopy and monitoring for a few days, my water temps have gone from the low to mid 80's to a constistent 76.5 degrees. Everything is looking great, and I just added my first dose of Coralife PurpleUp last night. Trying to get that coraline algae going good on my Fiji live rock. Today I plan to go to the LFS and get some mushroom corals and a few members of my cleanup crew. I plan to get the following:

2 coral banded shrimp
4-5 Snails
2 Hermits

This will just be to start things out. I don't like the idea of adding the entire cleanup crew before seeing how the first inhabitants of the tank do for a week or so. So here are my questions:

As far as dosing Purple-Up each night after adding inhabitants, is it ok just to dose all at once, or will I need to get a dosing pump? Don't want to harm my inverts.

And question 2:

My tank is an 80 ga. bowfront, and I'm trying to get an idea of a good # of creatures for the cleanup crew. Can some of you guys make some suggestions as to how many of each invert I should add? Right now I plan to have the following:

4 Shrimp

2 Bumblebee snails

? Turbo snails

? Cerinth snails

? Blue legged hermits

? Red legged hermits

? Sandsifting Sea Star

Any other suggestions? I'm trying to determine how many hermits & snails I should have i n the 80 ga tank.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[glampka]

First off - STOP using Purple-Up. It is going to lead to pH problems. Your coralline will grow in time. You must have coralline to begin with for it to grow. If you don't have any, get a rock or shell with some on it & scrape the algae into your tank. It will spread around by circulation.
No star fish for at least 6-9 months. If you get it now it will starve.

[Tonz of fun]

Your Clean up crew is totally up to you. Im not a fan of snails but i find them necessary. I like crabs more. So on my tank i have more crabs then snails. I have heard some say 1 critter per gallon is the ratio you want. I think thats a bit over kill. I have 30 for my 54g and they do fine. I do have a urchin that cleans up a lot though, I also couldnt get a star fish so I got a some sand sifter crabs to help with that. As for the purple up O think the inventor of that stuff should be shot. STOP USING IT! lol I hope this helps.

[jsgates]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions. Wasn't going to get the starfish anytime soon anyway. Looks like I just wasted $17 on the purple up. Had heard good things about it & Kalkwasser. Yes I already have some coralline algae on my live rock. Purple up was one of last years products of the year for marine aquarium products. How exactly does it cause PH problems? I was my understanding that it is basically a calcium supplement that also contains a small amount of iodine. LFS is not much help around here so I am getting most of my info online. Thanks for the help tons.

[Tonz of fun]

The saying around here is that you dont put anything into your tank that you cant test for. From what I have seen you add purple up to your tank and your PH will go from a cool 8.2 to 6 in the matter of a day.

[jsgates]

Added some mushrooms & Starburst Polyps to the tank today, as well as 4 scarlet hermits, 3 cerinth snails, 3 Margarita snails, & 3 Targus snails. Acclimated everything slowly and everything seems to be doing well. Hermits are already cleaning on the LR. I'm gonna keep and eye on these guys for about a week, and if everything is still doing well, I'll perform a 20% water change and order the rest of my cleanup crew. LFS didn't have any shrimp, and they are not really helpful there anyway.