my nano after 1 year, some issue

[al404]

i did my nano tank in an ADA Cube Garden 60-P tank it is about 17G

I started the tank 1 year ago

 

I have:

- tunze nano skimmer

- 2 Blau 11w led each - 10h a day

- 2 power head, just one running at the time about 1600 L/H each

- tunze osmolator

 

tank is doing fine, during summer it suffer a little for higher temperature

 

i change 10% water each months

 

NO3 about 10 mg/l

PO4 about 0.10 mg/l

 

the point is that mushroom did not grow that much, xenia is pretty stuck too, finger leather coral grove a lot ( the white one was really really small ) but two of them where australian green and now they almost look purple, not sure if is for my tank or if there wasn't real green finger leather coral

 

is my light too low?

 

 

[Clown79]

It could be your parameters. Do you test it?

10% waterchange monthly is very little. Most do 15% weekly. This helps reduce nutrient levels and replace trace elements your corals need.

 

What are the exact specs of the light? The wattage doesn't give us much info.

[al404]

yes, tested yesterday

 

NO3 about 10 mg/l

PO4 about 0.10 mg/l

this is my light, i have 2 of them

this is the best option i found last year for my tank 60 cm x 30cm is not very high 36 cm

http://www.blau-aquaristic.com/nano-led-light.html

21 LED of 0,5w :

Marine Version 14 LED 15000ºK White + 7 Royal Blue

Size without stand: 14,5 x 8,7 x 2,5 cm

[Clown79]

I don't think its too much light.

 

Po4 at .10 could be the issue. Anything over .03 can start to pose issues.

[al404]

my doubt on light was that was not enough and force my softy to adapt and changed color

[Cencalfishguy56]

my doubt on light was that was not enough and force my softy to adapt and changed color

based off your pics I think it's your water change schedule, you should be doing 15-20% weekly on a tank that small

[Balix]

+ 1 on the above. Phos is high too. Your coralline growth is not bad though considering your small water changes once a month.

[al404]

an other thing i did not post is my salinity i'm at 1024 i read about some people raise to 1026 or higher

actually my tank don't really need glass cleaning that often i do it once every week or more, and i scratch coralline algae from back glass ever month or two

[Clown79]

Its not just the glass scraping for weekly maintenance. Vacuuming sand, turkey basting rocks, cleaning equipment, replacing filter floss, rinsing media bags...this is all very important for the health of your corals and tank.

 

Waterchanges weekly reduces nutrient levels and replaces trace elements. Especially in small tanks.

 

Its a tried and true method.

 

Your p04 is high and thats because of the lack of water changes. This will only increase with time.

[Wirewiggler]

Most people perform weekly water changes on nano tanks, are you using ro/di water? Also it would not hurt to be running carbon with a phosphate remover such as Chempure, or bags of carbon with Phosban. I have some large soft corals in my tank and they release some agent in the water that sps corals do not like, the carbon seams to remedy this.

[al404]

I use ro/di water and just did a run phosphate remover in an external filter for 24H and took my PO4 near 0 + a 20% water change

 

I also ordered a new lamp to add, the same of the other 2

they have blue and white channel, i will lower white and raise blue

 

how do i know I'm giving too much light?

[Wirewiggler]

It is tuff without a par meter, to much and they start to bleach witch is kinda too late but they will come back if you nurse them. It helps if you ramp the light, they are sensitve to any change. In the summer I changed my tank temperature from 79 degrees to 81 to lower the times my chiller was cycling and I should have done it over a 2 week period, I lost a few sps with that.

 

Bill