Ledger's 13.5 evo

ledger · Jan 3, 2018

Set this tank up 6 days ago, woke up this morning to some nasty brown algae stuff on the substrate, not sure if all the areas it is accumulating are dead spots. Just bought a Aqamai KPS to increase water flow, any tips on placement?

glb · Jan 3, 2018

Those are diatoms, part of a regular cycle in a new tank. They'll eventually go away. Totally normal.

ledger · Jan 3, 2018

Thanks! This cycling process is turning out completely different than what I had read/expected, a week in and never got a spike in ammonia or detectable levels of nitrates/nitrates, maybe the large live rock/ sand was enough to balance that portion of it, just guessing at this point.

Dsnakes · Jan 3, 2018

Yeah starting with already live rock will help. The diatoms will come and go with the cycle. Have you added any source of ammonia? Funny I started my first tank with one piece of live rock with a Kenya tree as well!

ledger · Jan 3, 2018

I didn't put any in, some things I read suggested it wasn't always necessary with good live rock (Like straight out of another tank live rock) etc, I was just going to let it run its course and not worry about putting any inhabitants, but besides the Kenya tree the live rock apparently had snails, brittle stars and bristle worms all stowed away in it so now I'm trying to avoid harming them. Not sure if I should just throw in a piece of raw shrimp now, assume the bristle worm would enjoy that.

Dsnakes · Jan 3, 2018

I probably wouldn't worry about that at this point. Just water tests. What's your plan for stocking?

ledger · Jan 4, 2018

Dsnakes said:
I probably wouldn't worry about that at this point. Just water tests. What's your plan for stocking?

Not entirely sure at this point, still trying to figure out how many/what fish I can fit in here (Imagine 2 or 3 small ones) and what invertebrates, bunch of hermit crabs in there already, do you think the will take care of this aiptasia that emerged today?

Dsnakes · Jan 4, 2018

I'm sure there are more than just that small one unfortunately. A peppermint shrimp will usually eat them. Hermits won't. Easy to remove rock? If so I would pull it out and manually remove by chipping off the small piece of rock it's on and scrub/rinse that spot well.

ledger · Jan 4, 2018

Dsnakes said:
I'm sure there are more than just that small one unfortunately. A peppermint shrimp will usually eat them. Hermits won't. Easy to remove rock? If so I would pull it out and manually remove by chipping off the small piece of rock it's on and scrub/rinse that spot well.

Yeah unfortunately the one piece of large live rock in the tank, I could take it out, but not sure if that would bother the Kenya tree that's also attached to this rock.

Dsnakes · Jan 4, 2018

Kenyas are pretty hardy. You can also cover it in superglue or tomb him in epoxy. Make sure to cover completely

ledger · Jan 4, 2018

Dsnakes said:
Kenyas are pretty hardy. You can also cover it in superglue or tomb him in epoxy. Make sure to cover completely

Ill try the super glue, fortunately I'm due for my first water change today so will be messing around in the tank anyhow, thanks for the advice.

ledger · Jan 4, 2018

Did my best to superglue close the holes in that area, frame of reference went out the window when I took the rock out of the water so not sure exactly which one he was hiding in, haven't seen him pop back out yet though. Stomatella seems to be enjoying the water change