Quiet the beginner's problems.

[Paddy42]

Hiya,

 

I had been charmed by marine reef tank not long ago,

but I have gone completely mad about it.

Simply because I enjoy fish keeping and I love gardening.

Where marine reef tank is like mixture of these altogether 😄

 

I have started my reef nano tank nearly 2 months ago and its has cycled

as:  NH3 - 0, NO3 - 0, NO4- 0, PO4 - 0-0.03.

PH between 7.6 and 8.2  depends on the time of a day.

 

                        Now, I realise I need to let the tank to mature, but I though it would be like with my freshwater one..

                        Where I have loads of live plants and everything was fine since it cycled.

                        but not here.. not in reef tank <DearMe>

 

So moth ago I bought some CUC to make sure this reef tank start off on right foot.

I got 5 astraea snails and 3 red leg hermit crabs.

 

They were doing fine, but recently In my reef tank some sort of long hair algae-ish stuff started to appear.

Right before my tank has cycled, and the nitrite was around 0.25ppm, and then disappeared magically but instead green slime crap started appearing on the aquarium wall.

 

I have done a little research and found out that there might be something to do with my substrate.

I have quiet thick layer of live sand (reef sand) as recently brown crap started accumulation on the substrate.

 

Tried to clean it once a week but.. the brown stuff appears and hour after I sifted the sand.. ? 

and its quite hard to get between rocks, so I have decided to deal with this in a bit different way.

I went to LFS and wanted to buy Goby fish to take care of my substrate for me. Unfortunately I have been told that adult Goby wouldn't have enough food in 55L reef tank.

and adult gobys is all they have. But instead, I have explained what my struggle is and they advised me that I could do with some more CUC as apparently there should be 1 CUC member per every 2L of a tank?  

 

 

What do you think guys?

It seems a bit a lot to me, and wondered if they just wanted to sell me more than I need.

They not expensive ones, 5 CUC for £7.5 so its not the end of the world but still.

I don't want overcrawded tank with CUC.  Plus I dont want them just to "do the job" - clean the tank and then die from starvation.

I'd prefer the CUC takes it time and deal with the problem slowly but make sure they will have enough food afterwards

rather than getting too many CUC and after couple of weeks loose half of them. 

 

But I have decided there and then to get batch of 5.

I have chosen to get 1 more trochus snail as they seems to be doing well with eating algae on the glass walls.

I also got 2 nassarius snail and some other snail with longer-ish shell that bury itself under the sand same as nassarius but it eats the sand corrupted by algae and other bad stuff and than just spit it out.

 

I will see how they do in a week time and might get some more.

 

My only question is, how many CUC you need?

Is it in fact 1 CUC per each 2L? OR is it  a bit too much?

I don't mind the snails I got yesterday as they just burred themselves xD

I cant even say I don't like the looks of it, as they invisible 🙂

 

Is It okay to have more than 3 red-leg hermits in 55l  tank?

I have heard its 1 per each 20l. If you can advise on this one as well, It would be highly appreciated 🙂

 

 

Thanks for all your comments and good advises. 

Paddy

 

[yoshii]

Algal, cyanobacteria, and diatom (golden brown stuff) blooms are totally normal in a newly cycled tank! The tank will go through it's ugly stages in the beginning. 

 

As far has how many hermits per liter, all that just depends on the tank. It's good you don't want to add a bunch of CUC. I'd say keep what you have, add a few more if you feel they can't keep up. Just keep in mind the algal blooms will die back soon (usually in a few weeks)

 

Also, if you don't have fish yet and think the hermits don't have enough food, you can feed them fish food too

[WhatsReef]

Some hermits also like the algae sheets you can rubber band to rocks.  If you get your CUC from the LFS then add your CUC slowly. Go pick up like 10 mixed snails/hermits (research which ones are best for you) and put them in there once your ready to start your CUC then give it some time. I like nerites a lot but some people don't like the eggs they lay on the glass. Left hand hermits are really cute. Halloween hermits are cool larger hermits to have one or two of and there are different variation. Scarlet reef hermits are cool as well. The latter two get larger so think about whether you want to have large shells sitting in the sandbed for them... if not you can stick to smaller hermits.

 

Sexy shrimp will also clean the rocks much like hermits and are fun for small tanks. They kind of group together and hang out in packs which is cool.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

[Paddy42]

3 hours ago, yoshii said:

Also, if you don't have fish yet and think the hermits don't have enough food, you can feed them fish food too

I do have 2 baby clownfish and 3 chromis.

They been added gradually over nearly month time. First were the 2 clown fishes. Got them about 2 weeks after saying up the whole tank. Then 1 chromis and few frags week after and recently got 2 more chromis.

 

Not thinking about more fishes so far as I think this is enough for 55l tank.

 

I might get 1 or 2 more, but not just yet.

Next weekend I'll probably grab 5 more mixes snails and that's it, as I have realised how cool the nassarius are and that I didn't really think before of anything that would sift the sand.  Which they do. Together with the other snails.

 

So I might just grab 2+3 snails and I was also thinking of getting 1 dwarf blue hermit crab and 1 emerald crab.

 

As I have seen how they clean corals from algae and even keep the live rock healthy.

 

What are yours experiences with dwarf blue crabs and emerald crabs?

 

I know I will have to look out for them as if they haven't got enough food they might organise little picnic on my corals 🤣

[Clown79]

If you could post a picture, we could help with the algae type you have and how to go about correcting it.

 

You have no nitrates which isn't beneficial but depending on how much algae you have, you may be getting inaccurate test results.

 

Cuc is dependent on need.

 

I've always had more than a few hermits in my tanks, they keep things clean. They aren't lazy, always eating.

 

I keep spiny star astreas, a few trochus, nassaurius, and ceriths

[Paddy42]

Yesterday I turn the white light on about 6am as I was having my morning cup a tea and I sat by the tank watching it.

 

I went for a walk and to grab some more snails afterwards and when I came back home a few hours later (lights were on all the time) I though it was different tank. Literally. I made video.

 

You could se the algae on the glass from inside.

 

I have gently wiped the algae from inside and squeezed into separate container. Water was bright green. Done this cleaning few times and now didn't have anything since morning. But not using that much white light as the algae seems to love it.

 

Keep a bit of whither thou as the corals feed on it. But will keep it on only for 7-8h in total, where the brighter light will be only for couple of hours in the afternoon. The rest of the time I will lower the white light and keep mostly dimmed blue light with just a bit of white light.

[Clown79]

It's an algae bloom.

 

What water are you using? Rodi, distilled, or tap?

5 fish in a 14g is a lot of fish. Generally 2 recommended possibly with a third small one like a goby.

 

What lights are you using? Can you control percentages of each led colour?

[Paddy42]

RO water from LFS.

Light: ZOOX NANO REEF LED

 

Not getting any more fish I suppose.

I'll see how they go about. Might take 1 or to back to LFS..

[Clown79]

17 minutes ago, Paddy42 said:

RO water from LFS.

Light: ZOOX NANO REEF LED

 

Not getting any more fish I suppose.

I'll see how they go about. Might take 1 or to back to LFS..

RO  or RODI. There is a big difference.

[Paddy42]

Well they sell it as RO salty water so I presume it's RO.

 

What is the difference?