do you have this problem with your nano?

[Dan Thrash]

those of you with a nanocube...or anyone without a skimmer on their nano....do you always have stuff floating around in the water?

granted, my nano has only been set up for 2 weeks with livestock now, but i always have stuff floating in the water column. i have a surface skimmer and a maxi-jet 900 with a hydor flo for the flow. two things causing my problem.....first the mini blue legs (3) that i have are constantly picking at the rocks and i notice every once in a while, a cloud of stuff comes floating up and gets in the water column. second, when i change the ball of filter floss in the first compartment (i change it weekly)...a whole ton of stuff goes flying and cloudes the tank a good bit. it dies down after a few minutes, but i always have little particles of something floating around.

does anyone else have this problem? anything i can do to minimize it?

thanks for the help,
Dan

 

[ACBlinky]

I've got two skimmerless nanos. The 5.5g has two small HOB filters, one has a little floss but it doesn't really get dirty - there's just not much in the water and only two tiny bluelegs and a couple snails, so nothing's stirring up the sand. There ae loads of teeny feather dusters as well, filtering out whatever they find.
The 21g is a different story. The clowns are constantly digging around in the sand making a mess (they're like little kids, I swear), so I use a 2" x 4" piece of 50 micron floss as the last stage of filtration in the HOB. I replace the floss weekly, it does a fantastic job of clearing the water and as a result it gets pretty funky.
I'd try some 100 or 50 micron floss, and maybe throw some carbon in the filter as well - it seems to really help with cloudy water, at least in some cases.

 

[Evyllchyld]

I had the same problem with my nanocube, I played around with the direction of the water flow (by rotating the powerhead direction) and one day it was crystal clear, it was absolutely amazing, its been 3 weeks now and every morning I wake up and am still amazed at how crystal clear my water looks.

 

[Dan Thrash]

i have carbon in the first chamber and the filter floss gets pretty dirty after a week. i have a feeling that the hydor flo doesnt direct the flow so the stuff floating in the water goes in the surface skimmer. i think it just sort of suspends it spinning in the water. maybe i'll have to try it without the hydor and maybe try the initial fitting.