beginner 10 gal nano, help please!

[sc8kv123]

Hey guys,

I'm new to the saltwater world and could use some help with my new nano. I just recently bought all the stock of a 6 gal jbj nano which included 15 lbs of live rock, a blasto coral, waving hand coral, the remains of another frag, a couple nassarius snails, a couple hermits, asteria stars, ocellaris clown, and i've noticed a few bristle worms at night.

The plan was to put everything into a 10 gal setup with the 6 gallons of water that was originally in the 6 gal setup in combination with boxed "natural salt water" from the ocean (bought from lfs). The tank was setup and running for 4 years before I bought it and was told this would be safe to do..Whats your opinions on this?

Equipment: standard 10 gal, Coralife dual high output fixture with 10,000k daylight & actinic, Hydor Koralia nano 240 gph, Aqueon 300 gph circ. pump (recently added for +circ.), 50 watt heater, and hob filter rated for 20 gal. running Phosguard and floss.

Day 1: Setup and acclimation went great with no problems. Everyone seemed to be doing fine and all my parameters tested out with no problems.
Just waiting for it to clear up now.



Day 3: Everything has seemed to clear up and all the stock looks great to the extent of my knowledge. All water parameters are in good range. My friend gave me a small coral so I acclimated it and added it in with the addition of a skunk shrimp. I'm not sure what the coral is though..maybe a member of the agariciidae family? Anyone have any ideas?



Day 14: The tank seems to be doing just fine at this point. Everything is getting used to their feeding schedules now. I did a 20% water change and tested my parameters and they were all in range.



Day 18: Today I added 2 new members, a pompom crab and a what I am told is a sebae anemone. I was told my clown and the anemone would not take to each other because they are from different oceans?

It only took a few hours for him to go exploring in it and he loves it. He finally gave the other coral a break.



Day 21: Tonight I started noticing what I believe to be detritus building up. Its exposing some dead circulations areas that I didn't notice before. I noticed my ammonia jumped up to .2 ppm. I'm going to vaccum and do a 20% water change. I'm not sure if the detritus could be the cause of this or not, any feed back would be appreciated.




I would just like any comments, opinions, tips, etc. Any feedback/criticism would be appreciated. Also if there is anything i've done wrong or any misleading information that i'm following please let me know, i'm here to learn and try to make the least amount of mistakes in the process. Any help you guys can give me would be great.

I'll keep this updated to document my process.

Thanks everyone!

 

[ReachTheSky]

Did you use the old sand as well?

 

[sc8kv123]

Yup, I tried to use as much original as I could to prevent new tank shock or causing the tank to start a new cycle. Should that work?

 

[ReachTheSky]

Using the same sand is always a big no-no. That goes doubly for four year old sand. Sand collects huge amounts of detritus over time which when disturbed will get released and cause a myriad of issues, like what you're experiencing. Anoxic and anaerobic zones near the bottom layer, given the right depth and conditions, can contain especially harmful components, like hydrogen sulfide.

The same rocks can be used but it is highly recommended that old sand always be thrown out and replaced.

 

[Nor_Cal_Guy]

At this point, I would NOT remove the sand. Changing the sand bed would be more stress on the livestock then it's worth IME.

Start off with weekly 10% water changes using a gravel vac religiously for every ounce of water you take out. Make sure and vac all around the tank. Move small rocks and vac, vac, vac. You can also do 1/2 gal changes twice a week using this method. I have done this with success. I got rid of so mean brown hair algae in super fine sand.

 

[sc8kv123]

Thank you for the tips guys. So I should leave my sand in there and do weekly water changes, should I keep or throw out the sand that gets vacuumed up? Could this cause my tank to start a new cycle? I came home from work last night and noticed the corals looking a bit stressed and a quite a bit of algae growth throughout the tank. I did a quick cleaning and tested the parameters; My nitrites and nitrates were up and my ammonia was at .2 ppm. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? I'll post some more pics of the its current state when I get home from work tonight.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i would not vacuum the entire sand bed every time. this can also cause problems as it stirs it up even more, and vacs, especially in a 10g are not super efficient, releasing a good bit cloudy poop back into the water column…that is if you don't vacuum out all the water of the tank trying to clean it.

instead, i would divide your tank into 4 quadrants and focus heavily on one per water change, this will allow you clean the sand well without emptying the tank of water…

i would also buy a couple nassarius snails to aid in moving the sand and keeping things cleaner.

if your tank is showing ammonia, then it is pretty much time for fairly drastic measures…i would be trying fairly big WC almost daily, but avoid going deep into the sand…it is more important to clear the ammonia right now…cleaning the sand may help with ammonia spiking but it could easily churn up more….

you might be better off slowly vacuuming out the sand, one water change at a time…you can then properly clean it and put it back in after things settle down..using the old sand is fine, but you have to clean it first...

 

[Nor_Cal_Guy]

I agree with NanoReef, if you are showing ammonia spiking, change the water often. even every other day. 5-10% and rinse your filter pads. Even change them often if you can afford it. Get some carbon running as well. That will help remove toxins in the water.

I would throw out the sand you vacuum and slowly replace it after you have the sand bed under control.

 

[sc8kv123]

Hey everyone,

I've been doing 10-20% water changes daily and my sand bed seems to be doing a lot better. I put two more nassarius snails in and they have been doing their job without a doubt. I've been collecting my sand from my water changes in a container and consistently pur boiling water over it and mix.. I then drain and repeat. I haven't actually added the cleaned sand back in yet though.

Although my sand bed has improved my water quality is still struggling. My nitrites are at .25 ppm and ammonia tested the same. I've also had an outbreak of a red algae on my rocks (looks like red cyano? I'll post pics later), and green hair algae everywhere. Is this a result of my high nitrogen levels? I just bought a hob refugium, it should arrive in a couple days. What do you guys suggest for me to add to it? Also should I think about investing in a nano skimmer?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Nor_Cal_Guy]

Yes on the skimmer. Slow down any feeding you are doing. Clown fish can survive on feedings every 2-3 days, even using pellets,-cleanest food when used properly. Continue changing water frequently until those levels get lower: 0 nitrites, 0 ammonia, and declining nitrates.

Post his res pics so we can better see the issues. Also, fresh round of test, phosphates, kh, ca, mg, am, etc. What ever you can test, test.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

be very careful with boiling water and anything in your tank…

people have gotten very sick from literally boiling the rocks….adding boiling water to sand isn't much different…

if you are going to keep the sand you can bleach it and run it under tap water….after you have it all bleached and run through use a product like prime to remove any further traces of bleach...

 

[Nor_Cal_Guy]

I would veer away from bleaching sand. It's just no worth it IMO. Risk is to high.

I'm just saying, vacuum a good amount of sand out of the tank, until your algae problem starts to decline. If you end up pulling most of the sand out, you can replace it carefully without making a stand storm in your reef.

 

[sc8kv123]

Okay guys,

So I came home last night and the tank wasn't looking so great. Lots of algae all over everything. I tested all of my parameters and my ammonia, nitrite/nitrates, and phosphates were all up. I went ahead and did a 20% water change and vacuumed up some of the sand. After refilling and testing my parameters had improved but were still at pretty toxic levels. I went ahead and did a dose of chemiclean to help clear up some of the cyano. Here is the tank before I did anything to it.

View attachment 306109







The algae had spread all over the tank. I'm still trying to identify all the different types of algae so I can research and find the safest way to remove it all. If you guys have any suggestions I would appreciate it!

 

[sc8kv123]

Early this morning I went to the lfs to grab some supplies. I picked up some purigen, chemi-pure, phosguard, and carbon. I lowered the dosage of everything and divided the media out to be put into 2 different hob filters. I got everything set up and running around 9:45 this morning and then tested everything again around 4:30 this afternoon.

The test have all shown huge improvements!
-Drops-
Phosphate- 0ppm
pH-8.4
Nitrate- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Ammonia- 0ppm
KH- 180ppm

-Strips-
Phosphate- 0ppm
pH-8.4
Nitrate- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Ammonia- 0ppm
KH- 180ppm
GH- 180ppm

Also, with only doing half of the dosing time with the chemiclean the red cyano has improved by a lot. After i'm sure the parameters are stable I was planning on trying to get rid of all the other nuisance algae. Any tips?

 

[Nor_Cal_Guy]

Just be patient, keep that water changed weekly at minimum until the algae gets under control. And don't feed your fish very much if possible.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

I would veer away from bleaching sand. It's just no worth it IMO. Risk is to high.

I'm just saying, vacuum a good amount of sand out of the tank, until your algae problem starts to decline. If you end up pulling most of the sand out, you can replace it carefully without making a stand storm in your reef.

Risk of what?

I run purigen in my tank, and bleach it every six months. ..

 

[sc8kv123]

Okay, so just time alone will get rid of the algae? I don't need to get a special cleanup crew or anything? And what should I do about feeding the corals that I have? They seem to be struggling. I think with the tank only being a 10 gal and having less than 5 corals, dosing with calcium or anything really isn't needed? Or am I wrong?

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

in those pics the majority of the algae i see appears to be diatoms, the brown slimy looking stuff on the rocks, it will go away on its own…(that said, diatoms are often a sign of new tank syndrome, AKA, your tank is cycling)

the best cleaners i have ever used are Trochus snails, a bit expensive compared to others but do a wicked job everywhere in the tank, plus they can fix themselves if they fall over…

if you can find them, Stomellas, keyhole limpets, chitons, colonista snails, nassarius snails (both sizes) and trochus are my go to's…i tend to fair away from crabs, as they always like to kill and eat snails…other good ones are nerite and cerith snails and fighting conchs.

i avoid ,astrea, margarite, and turbos like the plague….astrea are terrible and the worst by far, margarita, i found just didn't do much of anything but die, and turbos, well they are just too big for a nano. also be very careful and mindful of welks, as they are predatory snails, but are often confused and misidentified (as conchs and nassarius) by LFS people…

anyway as for the bits of cyan and green hair like algae growing in there, the cleaners you have now should take care of that along with a little direction flow in the cyan areas…

cyano is a bacteria not and algae, thrives on nutrients and poor water movement, get that water circulating, what in tank pump(s) are you using?

 

[sc8kv123]

Yeah, I was thinking it was going into a cycle. Thank for all the info on the cleaners, i'll go to the lfs and see what I can get tomorrow. Is my water chemistry finally balancing out a sign of the near end of the cycle? I've also read that introducing new life in the tank can cause a mini cycle.

As for circulation i'm using a koralia 240gph and a aqueon 300gph. I started with just the koralia but noticed dead spots and thats when I first suspected the cyano. So I vacuumed up what was on the sand bed and added the aqueon. Is that more than enough?

 

[sc8kv123]

Update (plus questions)

Update (plus questions)

Hey everyone,

After a few days now the tank has started to rid itself of the cyano algae. I added chemiclean and some oxygen to my tank for 48 hours, then did a water change. I used a little less than what the suggested dose was. When I was told to use an airstone I was confuzed because I have read that it can cause all sorts of troubles with saltwater. But I went ahead and followed the instructions for the most part.. Instead of an airstone I used an airline splitter and put in two bamboo diffusers on each side of the tank to get finer bubbles. While the air pump was running I kept a close eye on my salinity levels also, they didn't seem to move very much.
Here is the tank after the 48 hours.



The hair algae is still continuing to grow even though my parameters are stable. Is phosphate contained within the algae? Could this be keeping it alive?



I'm not sure what to do about it. I've been told to just ride it out and i've been told to get a better cleanup crew. I worry about putting a lot of cleaners in because I don't want to have to supplement their diets when everything is cleaned up. I also have no one to trade or gift them to when I am done with them. So is waiting it out plus water changes going to be my best bet?

Every since I started the chemiclean dose in combination with the added air everything has seemed to be doing a lot better. Could the addition of the "airstones" be helping the life in my tank? Without the airstones I already have good surface agitation. Should I continue the use of the airstone until I get a sump, skimmer, etc.

Everything has seemed to improve other than the xenia that my clown has decided to host in ever since I took out his anemone. It seems like he has completely stressed them out. I'm not sure what I should do in this case? The two colonies are on my two largest pieces of live rock so I really do not want to remove them into the hospital tank. What should I do? Has anyone experienced this?



Also, If you guys don't mind giving me some tips on the care for these guys. I don't really do much for them right now because i'm not sure what to do. Do they need any types of dosing? What should I be feeding these guys? The tank is only 10 gallons and there are only a handful of corals in the tank. Any feedback would be great, I want these guys thrive before I add anything else.