Yesterday, I added a Blood Red Fire Shrimp to my tank and some Chaetomorpha (spaghetti) algae to my sump, $34.95 and $10 respectively at my LFS. To support the chaeto, I also added to my sump a light from an old 2.5 gallon aquarium, which now makes my sump a refugium, I suppose.
I've never had a crustacean before, so after doing some reading about shrimp and crab I decided to give it a try. Not only is the shrimp supposed to help clean the tank, but it also should help clean the fish of parasites. It's supposed to be reef safe (thinking about the future, here). The shrimp is brilliantly colored -- the red and the white coloration is striking. But as my LFS predicted, it has pretty much stayed hidden underneath a rock for much of the day. We'll see if it starts getting more confident. I'm taking it one step at a time -- I may go back and add a cleaner shrimp to the tank as well, which should be more visible during the day.
I added the chaeto to help combat the nuisance algae that has been blooming in my tank. Last week, I measured 0.25 ppm phosphates in both my tank water and the tap water, so I ordered an RO/DI unit to help as well, but that hasn't come in, yet. I noticed the chaeto at the LFS and they said it was pretty rare that they have it in stock, so I went ahead and got it even though I don't have the RO/DI unit yet. I figure there will always be some phosphates and having the chaeto should only help. I held off on buying a turbo snail, though, until I see what the new algae situation will be.
