TeenyReef's 10g Fusion - ATO Disaster

[Lula_Mae]

9 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Hah! I would have jumped ship when nitrates hit 15 to 20 and did a water change. 

 

Carbon dosing is nice but guessing the bacteria and nano skimmer have a hard time keeping up with the bioload? 

 

I just need to figure out what to dose to keep macro growing so I don't need to carry so much water upstairs... Guess it's time to start playing around with some iron in the QT tank 😛

Look for some of @Weetabix7s threads where she mentions what she doses for macros. I definitely remember something about it in one of her two most recent tank threads (40b and waterfall tanks I believe).

[Cannedfish]

Despite all the troubles the tank still is the gold standard of nanos! Though I love the look of this tank, I am secretly glad you are going bare bottom, as I have considered doing this. Not necessarily because of nutrient issues, but because of all the extra room it creates for coral. I can envision the entire bottom being covered with high-end zoas, or acans, or both.

 

I honestly can't believe you can go so long with out a WC... if I go more than 4 days things really start to go south, so that's definitely a testament your skill (or maybe the lack of mine?).  Seeing your success with NoPox, I may have to start to dabble with it...

[mitten_reef]

31 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

Seeing your success with NoPox, I may have to start to dabble with it...

as if your tank routine is busy enough...😂

[StinkyBunny]

20 hours ago, Tamberav said:

 

I don't think it was the alk... I think i just didn't neglect it enough lol... It loved my first reef tank ever and doing okay in the 25g but I skipped a bunch of water changes. Also it could just be that it shipped poorly ....or maybe it was the temps as that apartment ran kind of hot that they all died in...

 

It's not going to die this time... Damn it! 😄

 

 

I got $100 says your alkalinity was low, it's about the only damn thing that will kill Xenia.

18 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Hah! I would have jumped ship when nitrates hit 15 to 20 and did a water change. 

 

Carbon dosing is nice but guessing the bacteria and nano skimmer have a hard time keeping up with the bioload? 

 

I just need to figure out what to dose to keep macro growing so I don't need to carry so much water upstairs... Guess it's time to start playing around with some iron in the QT tank 😛

Go easy with the iron, I only use 1ml/30 gallons.

[teenyreef]

On 10/29/2018 at 12:46 PM, Cannedfish said:

Despite all the troubles the tank still is the gold standard of nanos! Though I love the look of this tank, I am secretly glad you are going bare bottom, as I have considered doing this. Not necessarily because of nutrient issues, but because of all the extra room it creates for coral. I can envision the entire bottom being covered with high-end zoas, or acans, or both.

 

I honestly can't believe you can go so long with out a WC... if I go more than 4 days things really start to go south, so that's definitely a testament your skill (or maybe the lack of mine?).  Seeing your success with NoPox, I may have to start to dabble with it...

Thanks! I'd really prefer to go without NoPox. I've found the more I use it, the worse the side effects. Encouraging high levels of bacteria growth in your tank is only a good idea to a certain degree. It also seems to rob the corals of nutrients they would rather have, and things just generally seem to get out of balance. I think a little bit is good but the amount I've needed to compensate for my fishy overload is not good.

 

Speaking of which, last night I completed Operation Bare Bottom. I also removed Doug the Puffer while all the rocks were out, and put him in the 30g frag tank where he can eat the vermetid worms that have been proliferating in there. 

 

Eventually I will rehome the green banded gobies from the 30g to this tank. 

 

After removing most of everything (I ended up doing about a 40% water change in removing the rest of the sand):

 

...and now everything back in the tank, with cloudy water and pissed off corals:

 

[Lula_Mae]

3 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks! I'd really prefer to go without NoPox. I've found the more I use it, the worse the side effects. Encouraging high levels of bacteria growth in your tank is only a good idea to a certain degree. It also seems to rob the corals of nutrients they would rather have, and things just generally seem to get out of balance. I think a little bit is good but the amount I've needed to compensate for my fishy overload is not good.

 

Speaking of which, last night I completed Operation Bare Bottom. I also removed Doug the Puffer while all the rocks were out, and put him in the 30g frag tank where he can eat the vermetid worms that have been proliferating in there. 

 

Eventually I will rehome the green banded gobies from the 30g to this tank. 

 

After removing most of everything (I ended up doing about a 40% water change in removing the rest of the sand):

 

...and now everything back in the tank, with cloudy water and pissed off corals:

 

I bet just having Doug out will make a big difference in nutrients. 

[vlangel]

Wow, that is going to make a difference.  I always hate to see sand go but I moved the ponies into a bb display.  It definitely helps eliminate detritus.  I love it and I hate it, ha ha!  Not your tank teeny, I always love it.  I was meaning bb tanks.

[teenyreef]

6 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I bet just having Doug out will make a big difference in nutrients. 

I think so too! Plus he needs to eat all the vermetid worms in the frag tank 

[teenyreef]

4 hours ago, vlangel said:

Wow, that is going to make a difference.  I always hate to see sand go but I moved the ponies into a bb display.  It definitely helps eliminate detritus.  I love it and I hate it, ha ha!  Not your tank teeny, I always love it.  I was meaning bb tanks.

I have the same love/hate feeling about BB tanks. They always look so pretty and the nutrients are easier to control, plus you can really increase the flow since you don't have to worry about blowing sand around. But I like the look of sand, and of course there are lots of inhabitants that just won't be happy without sand.

[teenyreef]

Things are all cleared up now! Everything is just kind of stuck in there for now. I'm going to do some rescaping when I have time, so I'm not worried about how it looks. I'm just concentrating on getting the nutrients down and getting everything healthy again first. Then I can do some new corals.

 

November FTS and top down:

 

 

[vlangel]

9 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I have the same love/hate feeling about BB tanks. They always look so pretty and the nutrients are easier to control, plus you can really increase the flow since you don't have to worry about blowing sand around. But I like the look of sand, and of course there are lots of inhabitants that just won't be happy without sand.

Yep, you nailed it!  Thats exactly how I feel about bb tanks. 😊😬

[ninjamyst]

i love the look of sand but they are so much harder to maintain...i may go BB in my 350.  i already removed 50% of the sandbed and it helped with dino tremendously.  debating now whether to put back the 50% or remove the rest.  It makes it much harder to place corals on the bottom without a sandbed though...

[HarryPotter]

Hmmmm.... With a tank this small,  is sand bed maintenance a challenge @teenyreef? To me sand in your tank looked so much more natural. Surely it would be a few minutes a week to mix it up in a 10g? 

 

(I don’t mean to be critical- i wouldn’t say  anything negative if the decision to go sandless was more “final”/expensive like it would have been in a big tank. But here, I feel like constructive criticism is fine because 1. You’re cool and can take it w/o offense and 2. If you change your mind you can easily add it back without much work/cost.) 

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, HarryPotter said:

Hmmmm.... With a tank this small,  is sand bed maintenance a challenge @teenyreef? To me sand in your tank looked so much more natural. Surely it would be a few minutes a week to mix it up in a 10g? 

 

(I don’t mean to be critical- i wouldn’t say  anything negative if the decision to go sandless was more “final”/expensive like it would have been in a big tank. But here, I feel like constructive criticism is fine because 1. You’re cool and can take it w/o offense and 2. If you change your mind you can easily add it back without much work/cost.) 

That's a great question, and I felt the same way which is why I kept the sand for so long. But the reality is that without completely removing all the rocks it's not possible to do a good enough job of keeping the sand stirred up. There just too much in the back that I couldn't get to. 

 

Plus I want to try growing some corals that will encrust on the sandbed. 

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, ninjamyst said:

i love the look of sand but they are so much harder to maintain...i may go BB in my 350.  i already removed 50% of the sandbed and it helped with dino tremendously.  debating now whether to put back the 50% or remove the rest.  It makes it much harder to place corals on the bottom without a sandbed though...

It's amazing how much crap comes out of the tank when you remove the sand. And I did a lot of regular sand bed stirring. 

 

I know a lot of people put in some kind of insert on top of the bottom glass, usually abs plastic. That gives a surface for things to glue onto. I haven't decided if I'm going to mess with that or not yet. 

[HarryPotter]

3 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

That's a great question, and I felt the same way which is why I kept the sand for so long. But the reality is that without completely removing all the rocks it's not possible to do a good enough job of keeping the sand stirred up. There just too much in the back that I couldn't get to. 

 

Plus I want to try growing some corals that will encrust on the sandbed. 

 

I assume you meant corals that will entrust on the bottom- I agree that would look cool.

 

Plus, they could use the detritus, right? Fish poop goes right into their mouths!  Lol it is like some sort of conveyor system. Feed fish, fish poop, corals eat sinking poop. The efficiency of that is interesting; mechanical filtration still necessary, but would it be less effective given the corals are already reprocessing the detritus?

[Nano sapiens]

While I am a sand bed fan, they are a bit of work to keep up long term (especially if the aquascape doesn't allow easy access underneath the live rock bases).  I'm interested to see how the BB works out long term for you.

[MrObscura]

If I was going to have a lot of floor space I'd consider bare bottom simply because I'd cover it with corals.

 

But most of the time I prefer the look of sand. The number one complaint is It's hard to maintain, but it's real not. Just turkey baste the hell out of it before every water change. 

 

Now, if you try to go the no water changes route, we'll... 

[Nano sapiens]

I guess 'hard to maintain' is a relative term..  IME, if the tank is lightly stocked with fish that are not over-fed, then it's a breeze with a vac and a light turkey basting with the WC.  If one has a heavy bioload (especially a lot of fish, larger fish and/or heavy feeding), then it can become a bit of a chore as more deep-cleaning is needed to maintain the system in tip-top shape.

[MrObscura]

Teeny, I noticed you mention some invisible crud giving your chalice issues. What exactly does it look like? 

 

I have a chalice that I've had for a few months now and all of a sudden there's seems to be some weird splotches on one side despite no changes in the tank and parameters all in line. 

 

My other chalices are doing fine though they are completely different genuses. 

[teenyreef]

49 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

Teeny, I noticed you mention some invisible crud giving your chalice issues. What exactly does it look like? 

 

I have a chalice that I've had for a few months now and all of a sudden there's seems to be some weird splotches on one side despite no changes in the tank and parameters all in line. 

 

My other chalices are doing fine though they are completely different genuses. 

Well, I don't know what it looks like cause it's invisible 

 

Seriously, though, I don't have any pictures right now - the chalice is in a bad spot for taking photos. But it's similar to what I'm seeing on the setosa and bubblegum montipora. I don't really see anything there, just dying coral tissue. 

 

For whatever reason, I've never been able to keep chalices long term, ever. Same for trumpet corals. But that's mostly been in this tank. I don't think I've tried chalices in the 40g.

[teenyreef]

5 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

I guess 'hard to maintain' is a relative term..  IME, if the tank is lightly stocked with fish that are not over-fed, then it's a breeze with a vac and a light turkey basting with the WC.  If one has a heavy bioload (especially a lot of fish, larger fish and/or heavy feeding), then it can become a bit of a chore as more deep-cleaning is needed to maintain the system in tip-top shape.

I agree. My problem is so much sand drifts into the back of the tank when I do deep cleaning, and over time, I just can't get to it in the back. I have to completely remove all the rocks which is a bit of an ordeal.

[teenyreef]

9 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

 

I assume you meant corals that will entrust on the bottom- I agree that would look cool.

 

Plus, they could use the detritus, right? Fish poop goes right into their mouths!  Lol it is like some sort of conveyor system. Feed fish, fish poop, corals eat sinking poop. The efficiency of that is interesting; mechanical filtration still necessary, but would it be less effective given the corals are already reprocessing the detritus?

Honestly I don't know if the coral actually processes the detritus, or the microscopic and other tiny critter that consume the detritus. Or both.

 

As far as encrusting goes...I did mean "glue". In my experience, corals will encrust on glass fairly easily if you can get them stuck to the glass in the first place. But I used to try to super glue corals to the glass bottom in my 4g and they would never stick long enough to start encrusting.

[Tamberav]

I love sand too but removed it in my SPS tank, seems like a huge pain to try and get in there once everything is grown in. I already accidentally fragged my red dragon like 5 times with the damn siphon. I couldn't get the flow I wanted either 😞

 

Now in my softy and LPS tank its easier since they can handle me poking around in there and moving rocks if I want to. 

[Tamberav]

2 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Honestly I don't know if the coral actually processes the detritus, or the microscopic and other tiny critter that consume the detritus. Or both.

 

As far as encrusting goes...I did mean "glue". In my experience, corals will encrust on glass fairly easily if you can get them stuck to the glass in the first place. But I used to try to super glue corals to the glass bottom in my 4g and they would never stick long enough to start encrusting.

If you can get coralline algae growing on the bottom, the glue should stick to that since it actually has a rough surface.