Need some help with my Nano Tank

[subtera745]

Hey there, so I'm relatively new to actually owning and maintaining a reef tank. My girlfriend got me into the hobby, and I had won a tank in a raffle. So, the issues are, is that my captive bred orchid dottyback has some greyish / white coloration on his back section. At petco (which is the only petstore nearby), he was being picked on by a wrasse, so we picked him up for my tank. Now my tank had cycled for about a week and a half, cut sooner by using bio spira. My levels, at the time had remained constant for a few days so it looked good to go. So, for the most part the tank has been doing fine. However, the zoas that I have put in my tank, don't really open a whole lot. Plus, my mushroom seems to be shrinking himself as well, and the pulsing xenia aren't doing a lot of pulsing, everything just looks kinda sad. I don't know if this is due to water, or simply still adjusting. It's been about a week since I've put them in from a store we had to drive two hours to.

Here's an imgur album mainly focused on the dottyback, but also showing the corals. Terribly sorry for potato quality.
https://imgur.com/a/FbIXSwT

This is a list of the equipment and levels:
-Nuvo Fusion 10Gal
-Filter sock with SeaChem Matrix
-Kessil A80 Mid intensity, Mainly use blue light because Jason Fox usually has his corals on all blue light
-Bio Spira Used to help cycle tank
-CaribSea Black Live Sand Hawaiin Black (however, when we got it we forgot to bring it inside, and it froze in the trunk.
-Dry Marine Rock
-Premixed Saltwater from fish store and hour away
-Tank cycled for app. 1.5 weeks

-Tank cycled!
-five hermit crabs

-Week ago
-Added three zoa frags, Candy Cane corals, pulsing xenia, mushroom, star polyps, palys, small montipora frag


-three days ago
-added acropora frag

today
-2 gallon water change
-app. 30 minutes after water change
- calcium 440 ppm
- kh 196.9 ppm kh
- phosphate 2ppm
- ammonia .25-.5ppm
- nitrite .25-.5 ppm
- ph 7.8-8
- nitrate 5-10ppm

https://imgur.com/a/FbIXSwT

So, the question is, what can I do to make sure the incoming tank crash doesn't occur, and help my little purple bro get better?

Also, in case you do not want to go to imgur, pics uploaded.

 

[Jekyl]

I'm new too but that seems like way too much way too quickly.

 

[RMS18]

First of WELCOME!

Second you have moved way to fast for almost everything! It does not surprise me you are having the issues you are having.

Ok now since i got that out of my system let's see if we can help you out.

First off your tank is not cycled if you are reading:
- ammonia .25-.5ppm
- nitrite .25-.5 ppm
These values should be Zero on a fully cycled tank. These values can hurt or kill your fish. Also the reason your corals aren't looking so good.

Po4 is to high this should be between .01-.05 for a new tank. The dead bacteria from the sand may be causing this in addition to the tank not being cycled.

First off with the dotty back, i'm guessing you did not QT him.. How long have you had the fish? This is most likely stress induced issue from being picked on. The pictures are not clear but i can relate with past issues with fish aggression. Is the fish eating well and what are you feeding it?

Next the corals, your tank is way to new IMHO for corals, i'm calculating about 3 weeks since start up? I'm on 3.5 months with my new system and i will not add corals yet. I can see the ugly stages are starting in your tank as well. It concerns me that your sand froze, the live bacteria was probably killed. SPS corals should not be added for a few months, the tank needs to mature to house delicate corals.

The water you are buying have you tested the RODI water for TDS? A lot of fish stores do not change their RODI filters enough leading to the filters to be exhausted.

Personally i would remove the fish and into a QT tank seeding with Dr. Tims. Then let the tank finish cycling. Keeping an eye on the dotty back and it's health.

If the above is not an option, i would add Dr. Tims live bacteria ASAP to help remove the ammonia. This will at least make it safe for the fish. I would also plan to lose some if not most corals as the tank cycles. You are going to enter the ugly stages soon, i can see them starting on the rock already.

I'm sure other's will chime in on anything i missed. This hobby can be so rewarding and beautiful. I am the least patient person, but in this hobby i was advised from the start to take it slow and maintain stability. There is so much knowledge on this forum, and great people, you will have a beautiful thriving reef one day!

 

[subtera745]

First of WELCOME!

Second you have moved way to fast for almost everything! It does not surprise me you are having the issues you are having.

Ok now since i got that out of my system let's see if we can help you out.

First off your tank is not cycled if you are reading:
- ammonia .25-.5ppm
- nitrite .25-.5 ppm
These values should be Zero on a fully cycled tank. These values can hurt or kill your fish. Also the reason your corals aren't looking so good.

Po4 is to high this should be between .01-.05 for a new tank. The dead bacteria from the sand may be causing this in addition to the tank not being cycled.

First off with the dotty back, i'm guessing you did not QT him.. How long have you had the fish? This is most likely stress induced issue from being picked on. The pictures are not clear but i can relate with past issues with fish aggression. Is the fish eating well and what are you feeding it?

Next the corals, your tank is way to new IMHO for corals, i'm calculating about 3 weeks since start up? I'm on 3.5 months with my new system and i will not add corals yet. I can see the ugly stages are starting in your tank as well. It concerns me that your sand froze, the live bacteria was probably killed. SPS corals should not be added for a few months, the tank needs to mature to house delicate corals.

The water you are buying have you tested the RODI water for TDS? A lot of fish stores do not change their RODI filters enough leading to the filters to be exhausted.

Personally i would remove the fish and into a QT tank seeding with Dr. Tims. Then let the tank finish cycling. Keeping an eye on the dotty back and it's health.

If the above is not an option, i would add Dr. Tims live bacteria ASAP to help remove the ammonia. This will at least make it safe for the fish. I would also plan to lose some if not most corals as the tank cycles. You are going to enter the ugly stages soon, i can see them starting on the rock already.

I'm sure other's will chime in on anything i missed. This hobby can be so rewarding and beautiful. I am the least patient person, but in this hobby i was advised from the start to take it slow and maintain stability. There is so much knowledge on this forum, and great people, you will have a beautiful thriving reef one day!

I bet I know my biggest issue. I think I overfed reef roids and polyp booster... too much of it in the water column probably caused the ammonia and whatnot to spike. My girlfriend has her 29gal that is mature as she's had it for a couple years and it's doing very well. So I think for the time being I may move my corals to her tank.

As for water, I didn't think to test it. That was dumb on my part. Would it be more beneficial to simply mix my own saltwater?

As for the fish dude, he eats like a champ. It's funny because he'll grab a chunk thats a bit too big and try and down the whole thing.

So game plan is as follows:

Move corals to mature steady tank.
Apply nitrifying bacteria to nano tank.
Monitor levels daily.
Monitor Fish bro to make sure he's getting beter.

Research more on getting/keeping a tank steady from the start.


I'll look at potentially adding the corals back in a few months.

Questions:

Since, I'm probably overfeeding the corals and causing this spike, can I assume it may be a good idea to invest in a protien skimmer?


Also, thank you so much for your response. I really do appreciate it, and will take any tough love that people want to give. I feel that healthy criticsms are important to grow and get better with things.

 

[RMS18]

I bet I know my biggest issue. I think I overfed reef roids and polyp booster... too much of it in the water column probably caused the ammonia and whatnot to spike. My girlfriend has her 29gal that is mature as she's had it for a couple years and it's doing very well. So I think for the time being I may move my corals to her tank.

As for water, I didn't think to test it. That was dumb on my part. Would it be more beneficial to simply mix my own saltwater?

As for the fish dude, he eats like a champ. It's funny because he'll grab a chunk thats a bit too big and try and down the whole thing.

So game plan is as follows:

Move corals to mature steady tank.
Apply nitrifying bacteria to nano tank.
Monitor levels daily.
Monitor Fish bro to make sure he's getting beter.

Research more on getting/keeping a tank steady from the start.


I'll look at potentially adding the corals back in a few months.

Questions:

Since, I'm probably overfeeding the corals and causing this spike, can I assume it may be a good idea to invest in a protien skimmer?


Also, thank you so much for your response. I really do appreciate it, and will take any tough love that people want to give. I feel that healthy criticsms are important to grow and get better with things.

Yes it would be best to make your own RODI water and mix salt, this will give you the best layout for SPS down the road.
That's is a great idea with moving the corals to her tank!
Sound great about adding the bacteria...with a cycled tank you shouldn't have ammonia let alone nitrite readings even if you are overfeeding.

Protein skimmers will help out with reducing the waste that can turn into po3 and po4. This depends on your bio-load you plan to have. For example i have a 7 gal with 1 fish (clown) - no skimmer will be required. My 120g has 18 now (i think) and about 9 of those fish require multiple feedings a day, so a protein skimmer is a must for me since it will be SPS dominant. However if you are looking to invest into a skimmer to take out some of your feedings, the cheaper solution is to feed less . 1-2 year mark shoot for about po3 1-3ppm and po4 .01-.05.

We are here to help!

 

[laverda]

Ammonia and nitrite are both toxic to fish and coral at detectable levels with hobby test kits. Especially ammonia. There are several products that will remove it right away like Prime. The fact you have both tells us your tank was not cycled. If it was it should have been able to handle a lottle overfeeding without rasing the levels to dectable.

 

[subtera745]

Ammonia and nitrite are both toxic to fish and coral at detectable levels with hobby test kits. Especially ammonia. There are several products that will remove it right away like Prime. The fact you have both tells us your tank was not cycled. If it was it should have been able to handle a lottle overfeeding without rasing the levels to dectable.

Right, that was a mistake on my part. The corals have all been moved to a mature tank, and we're in the process of moving the fish too. We plan on tearing down the tank and replacing the "live sand" that was frozen, with live sand that wasn't frozen. To ensure that the rebuild has live sand that actually has live bacteria.

 

[laverda]

I would just give it time. Patience is required in this hobby.

 

[subtera745]

I would just give it time. Patience is required in this hobby.

Haha, looks like this hobby will help teach me that. Not used to patience, but I'm figuring that out little by little

 

[subtera745]

Well, it's come to my attention that the testing kit I have the API Saltwater one, could potentially have a faulty formula for the ammonia. So, my levels may be anywhere from 0-.5ppm ammonia. Looks like we will need to be getting more accurate testing equipment.

 

[FGourdin]

Slow down. Nothing good happens quickly in a reef tank. Read, read, read. The fact you are on this forum is a step in the right direction.

 

[Vahanyos]

Lots of good info above and I don’t want to be the next member to say... You moved way too fast bud. Your tank is going haywire trying to keep up with everything.

Don’t worry about keeping corals and possibly fish for at least 1-2 months unless you really know what you’re doing. If you’re new, chances are there’s plenty you have to learn (I don’t mean this in a mean way at all). Stop dosing anything, and let your tank sit for a couple more weeks while monitoring ammonia and nitrite. That’s all you need to look at right now. Your tank is gonna go through it’s own hell before it gets any better - the tank uglies. Everyone deals with them. Your tank is going through a tornado right now trying to stabilize itself but all the additions are throwing it in more of a frenzy.

A skimmer is a very good thing to have and I recommend it for every tank. However, it’s early for you to use one. There IS such thing as a tank being TOO clean and that can lead to bad things. When your tank gets more stable and the cycle finishes completely you will definitely see a climb in nutrients and that’s when your skimmer will help