Sadly, I managed to kill off everything in my nano, except for the hermit crabs.
On Tuesday, I pulled everything out of the tank to install an acrylic partition at one end to do some surface skimming and as a mini refugium. I placed the rock and livestock in a 5 gal bucket with the heater and powerhead, overnight while the silicone cured on the partition. The sand went to a different container with a small heater and some water.
On Wed, I washed the sand with RO/DI, and put everything back in. Everything looked great, and I went to work that evening.
When I got home Thursday morning, the clownfish and coral banded shrimp were looking rough, as were all of my corals. I did a quick water analysis and my ammonia had spiked to 0.4! All values before the move were within normal limits.
I did a quick 1 gal water change and dose of Prime....but the damage was done. When I left for work this morning, only the hermit crabs were moving.
I can only guess that simply disturbing the sand was enough to kick off a cycle. The system is about 3-4 months old, everything has been very stable. I do ~1 gal water change every week, and feed the clown sparingly. (Every 2 days, I give it a few mysis shrimp, which I sprinkle in a couple at a time while he chows down, once he stop eating I stop sprinkling, so the 1-2 unused pieces are taken by the coral-banded shrimp, so there is virtually none wasted.)
Thankfully, I didn't lose too much in the way of livestock, since I was planning on purchasing a few items after Christmas travel....but it's still a bummer. I have new respect for the relative instability of nano tanks....
Anyhoo, thanks for reading my rant. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.
Tom
On Tuesday, I pulled everything out of the tank to install an acrylic partition at one end to do some surface skimming and as a mini refugium. I placed the rock and livestock in a 5 gal bucket with the heater and powerhead, overnight while the silicone cured on the partition. The sand went to a different container with a small heater and some water.
On Wed, I washed the sand with RO/DI, and put everything back in. Everything looked great, and I went to work that evening.
When I got home Thursday morning, the clownfish and coral banded shrimp were looking rough, as were all of my corals. I did a quick water analysis and my ammonia had spiked to 0.4! All values before the move were within normal limits.
I did a quick 1 gal water change and dose of Prime....but the damage was done. When I left for work this morning, only the hermit crabs were moving.
I can only guess that simply disturbing the sand was enough to kick off a cycle. The system is about 3-4 months old, everything has been very stable. I do ~1 gal water change every week, and feed the clown sparingly. (Every 2 days, I give it a few mysis shrimp, which I sprinkle in a couple at a time while he chows down, once he stop eating I stop sprinkling, so the 1-2 unused pieces are taken by the coral-banded shrimp, so there is virtually none wasted.)
Thankfully, I didn't lose too much in the way of livestock, since I was planning on purchasing a few items after Christmas travel....but it's still a bummer. I have new respect for the relative instability of nano tanks....
Anyhoo, thanks for reading my rant. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.
Tom