13g Nano Reef

[Chrisfish]

Welcome to R2R, really nice nano tank! Yes it's going through the uglies but that will go away.
Looking forward to seeing more.!

 

[WarEaglesReef]

I dig the rock scape, man! And welcome to the new tank uglies! Haha. Hopefully they don't last too long for you.

I'd wait until your ammonia levels read absolute zero and then add the first members of your clean up crew. The low reading that you have probably wouldn't affect them, but better to wait than lose livestock. I used the Red Sea reef mature program on my new tank, and based on my water testing it suggested adding the clean up crew about a week and a half too early. Pretty sure those date recommendations are based on using already established live rock as your biological filter rather than dry rock. If I were in your position I'd go with a couple of trochus snails for the glass/rocks, a few nassarius snails to start stirring your sand a bit, and a few hermits to start with.

And, yes...that AI Prime will absolutely let you grow SPS when you're ready for them. My montipora and stylophora both LOVE that light and grow like absolute weeds.

 

[AdamWTF]

I dig the rock scape, man! And welcome to the new tank uglies! Haha. Hopefully they don't last too long for you.

I'd wait until your ammonia levels read absolute zero and then add the first members of your clean up crew. The low reading that you have probably wouldn't affect them, but better to wait than lose livestock. I used the Red Sea reef mature program on my new tank, and based on my water testing it suggested adding the clean up crew about a week and a half too early. Pretty sure those date recommendations are based on using already established live rock as your biological filter rather than dry rock. If I were in your position I'd go with a couple of trochus snails for the glass/rocks, a few nassarius snails to start stirring your sand a bit, and a few hermits to start with.

And, yes...that AI Prime will absolutely let you grow SPS when you're ready for them. My montipora and stylophora both LOVE that light and grow like absolute weeds.

Thanks! An thank you for the advice on the CUC too, I will hold off and await the correct numbers before I grab them, atm I’m just watching it the tank grow uglier and uglier by the day lol.

Corals are definitely going to be an interesting venture! I’m really excited to try and see how it all goes, I just want my equipment to start arriving already!!

 

[AdamWTF]

A little update followed by a question!

So my skimmer has finally arrived and seems to be working well, sadly it’s not in the nicest position but due to the location of the tank and the fact we have some shelves above placing it on the side has been my only option. Without doing this I wouldn’t be able to remove the collection cup.

It’s been on for about 2 days now and you can see it’s already removed a fair amount of waste from the water. I do have some issues with this skimmer atm, it’s filled my tank with micro bubbles but I was assured this will end after it’s finished breaking in.

I’m still awaiting the arrival of my new controller and the AI Prime HD, these should arrive this week. I also have 6 snails arriving for the tank on Tuesday, I’m holding off on crabs for the time being until I feel there will be sufficient food for them.

Question time! So you can see the green hair algae is now starting to grow, alongside this I’ve already had the diatom outbreak? I think that’s what it’s called anyway, all the brown on the rocks, this has started to die back now. However you should be able to see what looks like a red algae forming on the dry rocks? I’m not aware of what this actually is? Could anyone enlighten me? Is it good, bad or normal?

 

[AdamWTF]

So I've since found out this is actually cyanobacteria and omg has it gone rampant! I've done my water tests and everything seems to be in the desired ranges now so I'm a little confused on how this has happened? Is it a normal stage of the tank uglies or have I potentially done something wrong? I'm aware of staying on top of my water changes, I'm doing around 20% every week and yes I use RO/DI water, the salt I'm using is the Red Sea blue bucket for anyone new to the thread. Does anyone have any advice on this for me? Something I can do to eliminate it? Should it slowly disperse on it's own with suctioning and water changes?

 

[najer]

Nice scape.
I run a 55 litre with a rear section.
That puts out 600 lph through the back section plus I have a Sicce 2000 lph powerhead, I would suggest seriously thinking about more flow.

 

[AdamWTF]

Nice scape.
I run a 55 litre with a rear section.
That puts out 600 lph through the back section plus I have a Sicce 2000 lph powerhead, I would suggest seriously thinking about more flow.

I have since the start of this thread updated to a Jaebo SW-4 which is pulsing on about half it's max power, you think it needs more than this? Flow isn't something I'm fully aware on correctly how to do tbh, advice on this would be muchly appreciated.

 

[najer]

I have since the start of this thread updated to a Jaebo SW-4 which is pulsing on about half it's max power, you think it needs more than this? Flow isn't something I'm fully aware on correctly how to do tbh, advice on this would be muchly appreciated.

You need to have surface agitation and be just short of your sand moving, I would raise the output a bit.

 

[AdamWTF]

You need to have surface agitation and be just short of your sand moving, I would raise the output a bit.

I do have water agitation from a hang on the back filter running with carbon inside. I also have a pretty nice wave effect from the pulsing of the wave maker, turning up the speed much more than this and I notice it starts a vacuum creating a little whirlpool from the surface to the propellor.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

So I've since found out this is actually cyanobacteria and omg has it gone rampant! I've done my water tests and everything seems to be in the desired ranges now so I'm a little confused on how this has happened? Is it a normal stage of the tank uglies or have I potentially done something wrong? I'm aware of staying on top of my water changes, I'm doing around 20% every week and yes I use RO/DI water, the salt I'm using is the Red Sea blue bucket for anyone new to the thread. Does anyone have any advice on this for me? Something I can do to eliminate it? Should it slowly disperse on it's own with suctioning and water changes?

Doesn't really look like cyanobacteria to me from what I can see in those pics. Just looks like regular new tank algae to me. If you think it is, check out this thread which was super helpful for me when I thought I had cyano. Has a simple test you can do to confirm if it's cyano or something else. Turns out mine was spirulina algae rather than cyano, and a standard dose of chemiclean cleared it right up and I've had no issues since.