Nano Cube Help!

[qtpinoyboy408]

Hi! Thanks ahead of time for helping with my Nano. About a little more than a month i bought my nano. It is a 12 g nanocube with 50/50 powercompact light. It has bio/mech/chem filtration. I have 8 or 9 lbs of live rock and 20 lbs of live rock. Now i have two clowns that i dont know what they are. I think they are clarkii's but i don't know please help to id them if you can i posted a picture. I had 5 asteria snails and 2 turbo snails. 2 of the asteria snails and 1 turbo snail died I don't know why. They looked hardy when i got them but then they just stopped eatting. I had a lot of alge on the glass but they just all stopped eatting so much and some of them died. None of them hang out on the rocks anymore either. I don't understand what's wrong with them. My clarkii's have used to have a lot of seizures. They just start to twitch for a few seconds. and then go back to normal like it didn't happen. I also have a bubble anenome for my clowns but one of them is territorial. I bought them to be a matting pair but they never get along. Is there a way to make them get along they aren't that much of a differnce in size. I'm worried about my bubble anenome and my frilly mushroom coral i don't know if they are okay together. Will they kill eachother because they both move slowly around the tank. I don't know if anenomes fight with coral. I'm also worried about my cleaner shirmp and wheither my bubble anenome will eat it if it gets close. I had a domino damsel that the bubble anenome ate already so i'm worried for my shrimp. When i got my bubble anenome it got along fine for about a day or two and then it shriveled up and then came back to life. I has done this a few times already I don't know if it's gonna live or not. I what other things do i need to keep my tank in good shape in terms of trace minarals for coral and my fish and anenome and shirmp and snails.

 

Sorry about all these questions. I really love this fish tank and i want it to be as natural as possible for them to live. If you can answer any or all of those questions i would love to hear your response. I put a list of the parameters and live stock i have at the bottom.

 

H2O Parameters

Ammonia (always) between 0-.25 mg/L

Nitrite 0 mg/L

Nitrate 5.0-10mg/L

PH 8.0-8.2

Saltity 1.025

Temp 78-81

 

Filtration:

Live rock 8lbs ( more uncured than cured)

Live sand 20 lbs

Bio Balls

Cermaic Wheels (bio)

Carbon (chemical)

and a mechanical filter

 

 

Things that i have/use:

Instant Ocean Sand

Liquid Calcium

PhytoPlex

Iodine

essential Elements

strontium and molybdeum

superbuffer-dKH

Test kit for high range ph, amonia, nitrite, nitrate

 

Ps. If you can please help in telling me what else i need for the inhabitance of my tank

 

Thanks a lot!

Ryan

[Paulc]

I'd be worried about the loss of the snails and the peculiar behavior of your clown fish. I would have suspected a water quality problem but your water parameters look OK .... not sure what's wrong ?

[stan]

Your tank is only a month old. You also mentioned that you have some uncured liverock, which i believe takes quite some time to cycle. I suspect your tank isnt quite cycled yet and you've simply overloaded your tank with too much livestock.

[palaegic]

I don't think a rock-solid answer is in the cards qt. You may get lots of opinions however.

 

Here's mine;

Your system is still extremely young. I find the fact that you have measurable ammonia cause for concern. I can certainly tell you what you shouldn't do anytime soon - don't add any other livestock to your system.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, take the following steps - I emphasize slowly

be religious with small partial water changes, make sure you are not using tap water for top-offs or changes. Test the water that you are using prior to mixing it up with salt (you may skip this if you are using RO/DI water) There should be absolutely no measurable ammonia.

Observe your fish closely, particularly for saltwater ich - I recommend this based on your description of "shimmying" Cryptocaryon will look like fine white spots on the animal. If you determine that you do have white spot disease, do not add a copper treatment. Look specifically for a "Reef Safe" remedy, one that does not contain copper sulfate.

 

Consider removing the bio-balls that were included with your system - in short, they actually hinder the efficiency of your sand/liverock biofilter.

 

Stop dosing your tank - at this early stage of it's maturity, it doesn't require the additives you listed above.

 

Make sure you are feeding your anemone - these are extremely difficult animals to maintain.

 

and lastly, it is crucial that you add no more livestock until your system is stable. Wait it out - there's plenty of time. Accept that you are likely to make mistakes and have losses, just don't keep repeating those mistakes, it will make you poor and leave you very frustrated.

 

Keep us posted

[qtpinoyboy408]

your right! the amonia in my water changing water is bad. I used water from the tap but i thought it i left it out long enough it would just disapear. Either that or i put some live rock in there to cure it and i think it created ammonia.

[qtpinoyboy408]

i have hermit crabs do you think that why my snails died? oh yeah and can you give me advice on my coral and anenome. Will they kill eachother? should i just take my anenome out it shriveld up again. erg.

[seaker]

I thought you needed better lighting for an anenome than a nano cube could provide?

[rehren]

even bubble tip anemone's suffer in nanocube lighting. if you can safely remove it that would be the first step to prevent killing it. after the tank is more established you can think about having one in the future - it sounds like you have rushed things a bit. you also are going to want more than 8 lbs of rock in that tank, so buy another 5-8 lbs of cured rock.

 

i imagine your tank is still cycling - the water paramters can be changing a lot which could account for things not being normal in your tank.

[qtpinoyboy408]

Ohkay the anenome had to go bye bye. i did a partial water change with di water. I just need to keep doing that and i'll be fine? my clown fish is heart broken. I have a frilly mushroom. my sebea clown don't like it tho. is there anything i can put in that will substitue the anenome when my tank is back to normal?

[nanocat]

When you're ready (I'd wait a couple of weeks at least), you can add a frogspawn or torch and there's a good chance the clown will host in it eventually. It took my perc 8 weeks before it decided that was home.

 

I don't think I'd add any rock directly to the tank since it has fish in it. Buy a 10g. for $9.99 and add a heater and powerhead. You'll be good to go for curing the new rock, and afterwards you'll have a nice tank for QT or growing macro algae. As for treating any fish in the nano cube...IMO, "reef safe" is not the best solution. QT and treat fish out of the nano, then you don't have to worry about inverts or killing off any biological life growing in your sandbed.

[cuteios]

Hey Ryan, Where do you get your stuff over there? I remember there used to be that huge fish place in san bruno. I'm just wondering if it's still around.