Right Track?

[Bloodbuzz459]

Afternoon guys,

So, my (first saltwater/reef) 20G nano has been running since the end of January. See below for spec.

Everything seems to be going well and my parameters have held steady for two months barring my pH which seemed to drop from 8.3 to circa 8.10 when I switched from Fluval salt to RSCP.

I had brown algae/diatoms on all my rocks, sand and glass. On my rocks this has turned to a very bright green and spots of red/purple/pink algae seems to be appearing slowly on my rocks and two small spots on my powerheads.

Only downside is there is still brown algae forming on my sand bed frequently and on the glass sporadically.

I do have a rather large green 'mushroom coral' growing out of the side of my live rock which seems to be doing very well. (The rock was from a tank breakdown) apart from that no corals yet.

My question is am I on the right track here? I'm not adding any supplements etc. should I be? Any advice?

Thank you all in advance for any advice.

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Weekly 12L water changes with RODI/Red Sea Coral Pro.


Stocking:
2 Percula Clowns
1 Cleaner Shrimp
3 Trochus Snails

Params:
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Calcium: 460
Magnesium: 1380
Alk: 8.2 dKH
pH: 8.0 (might be 7.8 not sure, hard to tell on API)
Salinity: 1.025 (rarely ever below 1.024)

Tank:
Fluval Reef Lighting (8 Hours. About 70% blue/white with a dip of about 50% for 2 hours)
2 Hydor Nano Powerheads
HOB Skimmer
Eheim EccoPro Canister (Matrix, Carbon, Phosguard, Purigen)
6KG Live Rock - 6KG Real Reef Rock
Red Sea White Dry Sand

 

[kevin21]

For sure, you look to have everything under control nicely. Keeping up with your weekly water changes will be more than enough to maintain your levels. When you start adding more corals, be sure to test every few days or every day rather, to see what they are consuming. Remember anything with a skeleton is going to consume calcium faster than a coral without. Other than that, you are looking good! Enjoy the ride.

 

[nereefpat]

Afternoon guys,

My question is am I on the right track here? I'm not adding any supplements etc. should I be? Any advice?

Looks good so far. Don't add any supplements that you can't test for. And with Ca, Mg, and Alk in line, there is no need to add for that either, for now. Any more corals in the near future? it looks like you're ready.

 

[Bloodbuzz459]

Thank you all.

Looks good so far. Don't add any supplements that you can't test for. And with Ca, Mg, and Alk in line, there is no need to add for that either, for now. Any more corals in the near future? it looks like you're ready.

Defintitely. What corals would you advise to start with?

One other thing I have noticed is I have quite a cloudy water surface, not so much noticeable looking into the tank from the top but noticeable when I look upto the surface from the bottom (if that makes sense).

I have one of my nano powerheads breaking the surface from one corner and the return from my canister in the other but doesnt seem to break it down much. Considering adding the eheim spray bar to maybe get greater agitation? (The bright green tubing of the Eheim is awful). I managed to hide the outflow with my skimmer.

When I do a new build I will definitely sump.

 

[nereefpat]

Thank you all.



Defintitely. What corals would you advise to start with?

Easiest stony corals would be: candycanes, branching hammer, frogspawn, favia, and duncans.

One other thing I have noticed is I have quite a cloudy water surface, not so much noticeable looking into the tank from the top but noticeable when I look upto the surface from the bottom (if that makes sense).

I have one of my nano powerheads breaking the surface from one corner and the return from my canister in the other but doesnt seem to break it down much. Considering adding the eheim spray bar to maybe get greater agitation? (The bright green tubing of the Eheim is awful). I managed to hide the outflow with my skimmer.

You can manually remove the surface film by gently laying a paper towel on the surface. But to fix the problem, more surface agitation and surface skimming needs to be done. Perhaps more flow on top, or maybe you could add a surface skimming attachment to the canister.

 

[Bloodbuzz459]

So, I'm using a Fluval PS1 skimmer. It seems to skim but its a pain for microbubbles might switch to the Hydor Nano. I just managed to pick it for a reasonable price but think I will be glad to get rid of it.

Is surface skimming different to this?

 

[nereefpat]

I missed the Fluval PS1 skimmer before. Anyway, the film on the surface would be removed by a protein skimmer. However, the constituents of the film have to be in the water column for the protein skimmer to get them. You can knock them back into the water column with more flow, or you can find a way to surface skim. The latter is usually accomplished by the weir of an overflow on a sump-type setup. It can also be accomplished by attachments on protein skimmers or canister filters that make the pump pull water from the surface of the tank. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Bloodbuzz459]

I will have to have a look into that. Eheim make a surface skimmer which seems to get good reviews but on top of the Fluval Skimmer, two heaters and two power heads its really going to eat up more space in the tank.

Thats why I though a spray bar might just do the trick if I put it at the water level and it should cause enough agitation evenly across the surfact to get it into the water column. I actually quite like spray bars but general consensus seems to be that their not recomended in saltwater/reefs.