My 12 gallon nano

[Braun036]

Thank you I hope it stays that way! lol I am really corncerned the calcium level is not high enough at 425. The guy told me to feed 10 drops in the morning and 10 at night of this coral food. I think that is a lot I thought once a week would work? 

[Weetabix7]

46 minutes ago, Braun036 said:

Thank you I hope it stays that way! lol I am really corncerned the calcium level is not high enough at 425. The guy told me to feed 10 drops in the morning and 10 at night of this coral food. I think that is a lot I thought once a week would work? 

 

What coral food is it?

Or was he talking about something to raise Calcium?

[pj86]

The excitement of adding corals. You seem to be approaching everything carefully, which is really good. 

 

What coral food did your LFS suggest? With food be careful with dried food or broadcast feeding, it fouls the water faster. I prefer to target feed corals with a pipette to reduce the chance of overfeeding.

 

Can't wait to see the development of your tank.

[Braun036]

Thank you I hope it stays that way.  Now that guy at the LFS told me to feed my corals twice a day 10 drops in the morning and 10 at night does that sound right? 

 

 

 

So i think I just over reacted and I hope I didn't do any damage, it was time for my weekly water change so I become by vacuuming the sand and then the rock. I did about two gallons. Then I added my water back into the tank.baling with all my chemicals while really only two I add 2.8 Ml of 8.4 and I had 2 ml of calcium.  After doing I forgot that I need to blow my rocks off with a turkey  baster  And I couldn't believe how much junk came off of them. So my whole tank looked cloudy and I started to panic and I didn't want all that going into the sand.  So I become scooping out about 2 gallons of water again and performing another water change.  Along with adding in about 2 ml of 8.4 and 2 ml of calcium. And I added I little bit of coral up.  I will check all my levels in about an hour to make sure everything is okay. This is really a learning experience but I really do not want to learn the hard way.  After I just added that hammer in. I think I also need to just relax and enjoy the tank. The only reason I did a water change is because after performing a water check my nitrates were 5 ppm and I think that happened because of my mistake that was make last night. When the coral food cap was not on all the way and a good amount of the food went into the tank. 

 

 

Is is there anything I need to be doing? Everything at the moment looks to be doing fine.  

 

 

[Braun036]

I am sorry I did not see your post earlier my phone was not updating the site so I am now just seeing your post and which is why I repeated my self twice on the feeding. The food he recommended is phyto Feast. And from reading my earlier comment you will see that I had an accident with it. Thank you for your nice comment I really appreciate it and I can't wait to see what this tank is looking like in a couple of months to a year.  Okay from now on I will target feed I like that idea better than just putting it into the whole tank like I did. Now I have only done that once since I just bought it last night. 

 

Weetabix they told told me that my calcium is fine at 425 they would like to see it around 450 though. But the problem is the LFS's test kits are all reading my calcium level at 400-425 I have had this tested at three different stores when I do it at home I am getting 360.  So last night I ordered the ones they use in the store the salifert brand I am hoping that is better than this API test kit that doesn't seem to be very accurate. They do have my dosing 2 ml of calcium every morning so we will see how that turns out. 

[Braun036]

 Salinity 1.026   Alkalinity 9.9   Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 0  calcium 420 and Ph is 8.4 so everything looks to be in order. 

[J-Ranko]

6 hours ago, Braun036 said:

Thank you I hope it stays that way! lol I am really corncerned the calcium level is not high enough at 425. The guy told me to feed 10 drops in the morning and 10 at night of this coral food. I think that is a lot I thought once a week would work? 

 

Twice a day feeding is excessive unless we're talking about an non-photosynthetic coral.  Corals are primarily photosynthetic and derived most of their nutrition from the light (technically from their zooxanthellae which use up light).  You'll only end up polluting your water with that amount of feeding.  

 

Calcium at 425 is nothing to worry about either. That's within acceptable range.

[Weetabix7]

7 hours ago, J-Ranko said:

 

Twice a day feeding is excessive unless we're talking about an non-photosynthetic coral.  Corals are primarily photosynthetic and derived most of their nutrition from the light (technically from their zooxanthellae which use up light).  You'll only end up polluting your water with that amount of feeding.  

 

Calcium at 425 is nothing to worry about either. That's within acceptable range.

 

Agreed, and I'm glad you got Salifert test kits, they're better quality and more accurate. 

If you are going to be adding chemicals to adjust your Calcium & Alkalinity regularly, you will need to also be testing for those 2 things just as regularly. 

[Braun036]

17 hours ago, J-Ranko said:

 

Twice a day feeding is excessive unless we're talking about an non-photosynthetic coral.  Corals are primarily photosynthetic and derived most of their nutrition from the light (technically from their zooxanthellae which use up light).  You'll only end up polluting your water with that amount of feeding.  

 

Calcium at 425 is nothing to worry about either. That's within acceptable range.

The only corals I have in the tank are GSP a little frag of Xenia a leather coral and I just added a hammer coral.  So do you think feeding once a week is okay or once a day I truly do not know. 

9 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

Agreed, and I'm glad you got Salifert test kits, they're better quality and more accurate. 

If you are going to be adding chemicals to adjust your Calcium & Alkalinity regularly, you will need to also be testing for those 2 things just as regularly. 

Yes as you know I test like 3 or 4 times a day. lol I am so worried about the tank. lol I just want everything to be as good as it can be. 

[Weetabix7]

Honestly, I wouldn't feed with that more than 2-3 times a week, esp with the corals you have. 

[Nano sapiens]

1 hour ago, Braun036 said:

Yes as you know I test like 3 or 4 times a day. lol I am so worried about the tank. lol I just want everything to be as good as it can be. 

 

Unless you REALLY enjoy testing, you can dial the testing back to around 1x/week, especially considering your low bioload and type of organisms.  If the Hammer (or any type of hard coral) starts growing, then you may find 2 or 3x/wk testing for Alk is needed.

[Braun036]

Okay sounds good I will feed twice a week then.  I really do not want that stuff messing up my water.  Okay that will work I will test once or twice a week I was finding that stressful and I would be burning though these test kits like once a month.  lol thank you for responses 

[Braun036]

Updated picture for this week. I have to say I am really happy with how things are looking. And I owe all the thanks to you guys!! 

[Weetabix7]

It looks good, and YOU are the one who's been doing all the work!!

[Braun036]

You have been guiding me and I really appreciate at it.  

[Braun036]

So today I purchased a really nice frogspawn coral that I am very excited about. I am still waiting for him to open up. I hope he is by tomorrow.  The problem I am having is where I had to put him made me move my leather coral and I am not happy about where I had to place the leather. Is it okay if I place plug that the leather is on in the sand or is that no good. If that is the cause please leave a comment on where you think I should place him. 

[Weetabix7]

It would be totally fine to place the Leather on the sand, no worries. 

 

The Frogspawn is gonna look really good there, and it looks like a nice specimen. 

I'm a sucker for a really nice Frogspawn. 

[Braun036]

Okay thank you so it would be totally okay for me to place him in the lower right side down in the sand. Okay awesome. I saw that you were on and I was hoping you would respond. lol I really look forward to your advice. Yes as you know I have been wanting a frog spawn for awhile now and today when I saw that I was like this looks a little different from what I am use to seeing so I got it. I will post some pictures when it opens up. Which I hope is tomorrow. Now in the store it didn't look like it's  tentacles  where very long. But I guess we will see. 

[Braun036]

So this is fine then. BevUse I really wanted that red rock to become all GSP one day 

[Weetabix7]

No problem!!

With Frogspawn, you want to put them where they get regular current but NOT where they get all whipped around. 

Although I will say they're tougher than they look. 

On my WC before last I dropped my Frogspawn and some of the tentacles gotta chopped off at the tips on impact which had me totally freaked out, but it looked all happy and puffed the next day, like nothing had ever happened. 

Although if anything along those lines ever happens to you, or you have a coral that looks irritated for a few days and you don't know why, do a lugol's iodine dip on it. 

I use that as a healing dip. 

Do 1 cup tankwater in separate container, 1-2 drops lugol's iodine, 3-5 mins in container, then return to tank. 

Just now, Braun036 said:

So this is fine then. BevUse I really wanted that red rock to become all GPS one day 

 

Yep, no problem!!

[Braun036]

Okay that is a great idea and I really appreciate that I was not sure how something like that worked.  Now is that something you do on a daily basis or just a one time deal per injury. 

[Weetabix7]

4 minutes ago, Braun036 said:

Okay that is a great idea and I really appreciate that I was not sure how something like that worked.  Now is that something you do on a daily basis or just a one time deal per injury. 

 

I do it once when there's an injury or after fragging, and if it's a situation where they're really unhappy, I'll do it once and monitor, then repeat if they don't "snap out of it". 

I don't do it daily unless it's an extreme situation. 

[Braun036]

Okay. Prefect that is great information.

[Braun036]

So today my mom and sister wanted to buy me some coral for the tank my sister bought me a colt and my mom bought me a Duncan.  I really love both corals but my god my tank is way to small for all this. Please review the picture I have post and leave a comment on where things should be going. This is really a lot harder than I thought. 

I already had to shift some rocks around a little bit but I am not sure that made a difference 

[Derrick1980]

3 minutes ago, Braun036 said:

So today my mom and sister wanted to buy me some coral for the tank my sister bought me a colt and my mom bought me a Duncan.  I really love both corals but my god my tank is way to small for all this. Please review the picture I have post and leave a comment on where things should be going. This is really a lot harder than I thought. 

I already had to shift some rocks around a little bit but I am not sure that made a difference 

Looks good to me but what do I know