New to SW 10 gallon nano reef diary

there is a very strange looking anemone type brown thing in my tank on a rock...its small...and it has lots of little tentacle like things that retract if anything comes near it. But anyways great news. The Fan works!!!!! i hooked it up and right away the temp started dropping. So now i am getting my heater set right. I bought a 7 inch clip on fan for 8 bucks. Not a bad deal. <3 walmart. Thanks for the advice phenom
Dave
 
idk i actually have been doing research...it kind of looks like that..but at the same time it doesnt...the tentacles or whatever you want to call them are still short. But i will be sure to keep a close eye on it. There is also a strange skinny worm that was just in the middle of my sand...i believe it to be a bristle worm....should i take it out?
Thanks,
Dave
 
Your tentacled thing is probably aiptasia, a common pest anemone hitch hiker. Zap it with some heated lemon juice, kalk paste or Joe's Juice.

No one has really commented on your rock work, so I will. What you have going there is an accident waiting to happen. You have way too many small rocks, barely holding each other up. I'd suggest getting a couple of larger pieces to create a firm base then fill in with those smaller pieces. Your scaping, as it is, will tumble when you add your snails and crabs.
 
I actually like the smaller rocks...yes...this way is much more unstable...which is why i put the large ones on the bottom. It is much better and more sturdy now. I am thinking of buying one large peice though as more of a centerpiece. But thanks for the input on the layout Super Magnolia, I appreciate it. I tested my water..These are the params.

Ph- 7.9
Nitrite-0 ppm
Ammonia- .25ppm
Nitrate- 5ppm

Let me know if things need to change and if things look decent so far.
 
Hey Dave,

1. Heat - if you only run your AC at night, and during the day, it gets 90 degrees outside, how hot does it get inside (the room your tank is in)? If Room temp gets above 80, there is no way you are gonna keep your tank cool unless you do some more active cooling methods. Fans aren't gonna cut it if your room temp is too hot. If your room stays cool enough the fans should be fine.

2. Rock - I would look around here at pics of peoples tanks to see good aquascaping. I personally like "islands" of rock, with some open space too. If I could rescape my tank, I would do a better job. I just have the typical wall of rocks along the entire back of the tank. And keep ur rocks away from the sides of the tank (back doesn't really matter) so you can scrub algae off the glass.

3. Plan out what you want to do with your tank. You've already bought a pretty good light for a 10 gal, and lighting won't be holding you back from keeping soft corals and LPS. Trust me, you'll probably want to keep corals sometime down the road, so plan that out first. If you keep two percs, they'll do fine in a 10 gal, but they will also throw out nutrients like it's their job. You may find that you'll have trouble keeping nutrient levels low enough to keep corals happy with two full grown percs. A lot of people with nano's don't even keep fish, but that is a judgement call, and has to do with what you ultimately want to do with ur tank. Just keep reading and plan ahead :P

Looks great so far though!
 
ItsDave said:
Well it was 90 something degrees out...and i only run my ac at night.
Click to expand...

this still seems unreasonable. you put a 10g water in your house and it heats up to 80F just because outside is 90F? are you sure your thermometer is functioning? maybe it's me but good luck.
 
no...its heating up so much because of the heat generated by my light. But i have solved this problem now with the fan.....So yeah heat wise its good. Also...what false perc and I believe to be a Majano(sp?) Anemone is in my tank on a piece of live rock i purchased. Which is pretty sweet. But yeah amonia is up to .5 ppm so its increasing...hopefully it will spike soon so i can get on with my reef life.
Thanks for the replies.
Dave
 
actually put a blue backround on it today...used the vasoline method....it was messy but it came out very nice. ill post some pics later on.
Dave
 
ok...problem. Well not really a problem just something im wondering about...number one: is it worth putting a protien skimmer on my 10 gallon? and number 2: I want an auto top off, how do i make one and about how much will a DIY one cost.
 
number one: is it worth putting a protien skimmer on my 10 gallon?

well, that's a hotly debated topic amoung nano reefers. IMO, a skimmer will definately help out any system, and if your looking to keep sps its a very good idea to add one, otherwise its optional. weekly water changes will keep everything in line. IMO, if you've got the money and the room for one, go for it. if not you can go skimmerless on small tanks...i'm sure there are plenty of people that will agree and disagree.

number 2: I want an auto top off, how do i make one and about how much will a DIY one cost.

cheapest and easiest is a "glug jug". jug is filled, sealed up, and turned upsidedown, there's to tubes running in to the jug, one that sits at your waterline and runs all the way to the top, one that sits below your water line and goes just inside the jug. when your water line drops air is let in and the water from the jug drains into the tank until the airsupply is cut off when your water line returns to the desired level.
or you can buy a floatswitch...or these are very popular over on NR.

HTH
 
Thanks for the replies. Im thinking about buying the float switch and doing it that way. As for the protien skimmer im most likly going to get one just have to wait for some more paychecks.
Thanks
Dave
 
I like the way you had the live rock origionally, but since it would be ricetky, you could buy some of the under water glue and glue it together, thats what I would do. That glue is meant for glueing rocks and corals to each other etc... a LFS should have it.

Unless I missed it, you could try getting a glass canopy I don't know if that would help or hurt the temps however.
 
As far as a skimmer is concerned, I didn't have one on my old 10g tank, and I don't intend to have one on my new 10g I'm setting up (at least initially). As I used to do, I will perform a 10% water change weekly and see how that goes. If I find my tank developing any scummy problems, I'll spring for the skimmer.

I agree with the others in stating the fact that your rock work does seem somewhat unstable. You definitely don't want a rock falling and damaging a coral in the future, or worse yet, cracking your glass. You seem off to a pretty good start though, so just keep following the advice of Reef Central and you'll be OK! :D
 
ok thanks guys. Ill post some updated pics soon. Ive been kind of busy latley. But i did put a glass cover on it which drasically helped with evap and the temperature problem. I just keep my fan blowing across the glass. I added an emerald crab and a turbo snail to get rid of my hair algea and my red sea weed stuff, there doing a great job :). Ill post some pics later today, im not at home right now.
Thanks for the replies,
Dave
 
Havent updated in awhile. OK...I have now a yellow tail blue damsel in my tank. As far as corals I have button polyps, a hammer coral, a candy cane coral, and some small anemone....no, its not an aiptasia, still not sure of what it is tho. I have also added a new heater which has ended the temp fluxuation problem. Also added a coralife moonlight, 34.99 and worth every cent. Looks beautiful at night. As soon as possible i will post updated pics of everything.

-Dave
 
Wow, had a bit of an issue last night. Made a big newbie of myself. So i realized my new corals werent doing to well. Tested all the params except salinity, thinking well ive been adding water with a salinity of 1.025. I guess it never occured to me that salt water doesnt evaporate. So yeah the salinity was not even readable by my hydrometer. SO i fixed that, got the salinity back down to 1.025 and things are starting to look up. Hammer coral let out its sweeper tentacles right away. The candy coral also bubbled? Swelled? idk how to decribe it but it got bigger. The green stars still havent opened yet, but its only been one day since the big change. IS this normal?

Thanks.
-Dave
 
Yeah, if they survived the initial shock of the super-high salinity, they'll recover over time now that it's back to normal.
 
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