jam.jo
New member
Hello,
I have a new tank, it was previously set up for 3 months in my old apartment, I moved in June, and just reset the tank up this week. I have a 20 gallon nuvo fusion aquarium, 1 ecotech radion xr15, skimmer, purple caribsea life rock, live sand, biofilter in the back contains seachem matrix and zeolite, also running carbon mixed with zeolite from fluval. I am using red sea salt- the blue sps dominant kind. My tank is run with the neptune apex, temp I am keeping at 77.5-78.5 degrees F. My pH was 8.16 all day and dipped to 7.99 at night so I turned on the skimmer for oxygen increase. CA 500, salinity is a little high 1.028- Reads as 36.1 on the Apex. DkH 8.9. My ecotech radion light I have set on the AB+ template, but reduced the lighting to 10% for acclimation period which will ramp up to a total of 80% intensity in 30 days. I do have a nero 3 powerhead and a hydor koralia but I have them turned off most of the time, I only turn them on for a short period of time when the BTA is attached to the rock. Otherwise I just have the nuvo fusion return pump set at 8 and sometimes increase it to 12. My return nozzles are the spin stream nozzles for wider random flow.
I cycled the tank with microbacter start xlm and had dosed quickcycle (ammonia) up to 2 ppm. Within 3 days I got zero readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. So I decided to add 2 clownfish, but one of the clownfish was paired with an anenome. Anyways I put them in the tank and now I read that I shouldn't add the anenome until 6 months have passed. I did get an ammonia spike to about .5 ppm at 1 am after adding the fish at about 2 pm. I dosed seachem prime at 1 am and put an ammonia alert in the tank to monitor ammonia. I came back 2 hours later and the free ammonia is reading zero. I will redose in 24 hours if ammonia shows up again in testing. I am also being very careful with feeding the fish, I have frozen mysis I am feeding the clownfish. Ammonia has not spiked at all today like it did last night- free ammonia reads 0 because I added prime, nitrite is .50 after that spike and prime is neutralizing that as well for now. BTA detached itself from the rock and is laying at the sandbed. It did spit out a small amount of zooxanthelle last night I'm guessing because my lights are better than petco's. Mouth looks good, no damage on the BTA. I attempted to move it to the top of the rock 3 times today, and each time it sits there for an hour or so and then detaches. I'm leaving it where it is to see if it moves from that location. It does have a clownfish hosting it too.
Anyways I keep reading about fluctuations will kill the anenome"¦ I guess I want to know how to keep my tank from fluctuating too much. Do I need to do more water changes more often? Do I just need to monitor ammonia and nitrite and nitrate closely? Should I be worried about CA and ALK fluctuations with red sea salt if I do monthly water changes with no corals? Any advice would be appreciated.
I have a new tank, it was previously set up for 3 months in my old apartment, I moved in June, and just reset the tank up this week. I have a 20 gallon nuvo fusion aquarium, 1 ecotech radion xr15, skimmer, purple caribsea life rock, live sand, biofilter in the back contains seachem matrix and zeolite, also running carbon mixed with zeolite from fluval. I am using red sea salt- the blue sps dominant kind. My tank is run with the neptune apex, temp I am keeping at 77.5-78.5 degrees F. My pH was 8.16 all day and dipped to 7.99 at night so I turned on the skimmer for oxygen increase. CA 500, salinity is a little high 1.028- Reads as 36.1 on the Apex. DkH 8.9. My ecotech radion light I have set on the AB+ template, but reduced the lighting to 10% for acclimation period which will ramp up to a total of 80% intensity in 30 days. I do have a nero 3 powerhead and a hydor koralia but I have them turned off most of the time, I only turn them on for a short period of time when the BTA is attached to the rock. Otherwise I just have the nuvo fusion return pump set at 8 and sometimes increase it to 12. My return nozzles are the spin stream nozzles for wider random flow.
I cycled the tank with microbacter start xlm and had dosed quickcycle (ammonia) up to 2 ppm. Within 3 days I got zero readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. So I decided to add 2 clownfish, but one of the clownfish was paired with an anenome. Anyways I put them in the tank and now I read that I shouldn't add the anenome until 6 months have passed. I did get an ammonia spike to about .5 ppm at 1 am after adding the fish at about 2 pm. I dosed seachem prime at 1 am and put an ammonia alert in the tank to monitor ammonia. I came back 2 hours later and the free ammonia is reading zero. I will redose in 24 hours if ammonia shows up again in testing. I am also being very careful with feeding the fish, I have frozen mysis I am feeding the clownfish. Ammonia has not spiked at all today like it did last night- free ammonia reads 0 because I added prime, nitrite is .50 after that spike and prime is neutralizing that as well for now. BTA detached itself from the rock and is laying at the sandbed. It did spit out a small amount of zooxanthelle last night I'm guessing because my lights are better than petco's. Mouth looks good, no damage on the BTA. I attempted to move it to the top of the rock 3 times today, and each time it sits there for an hour or so and then detaches. I'm leaving it where it is to see if it moves from that location. It does have a clownfish hosting it too.
Anyways I keep reading about fluctuations will kill the anenome"¦ I guess I want to know how to keep my tank from fluctuating too much. Do I need to do more water changes more often? Do I just need to monitor ammonia and nitrite and nitrate closely? Should I be worried about CA and ALK fluctuations with red sea salt if I do monthly water changes with no corals? Any advice would be appreciated.
