Softie reef on a student budget

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

The "unkillable zoa" after the crash. The gsp stayed retracted for many days after the crash. This zoa only for a few hours at most. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Couple of "durings" and one immediately after I got my act together and did a bunch of maintenance after 11 days of barely looking at the tank. Yep, I'm a very bad person.

Yuck

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

And some from last night and this morning. 

We move and learn. Sometimes we move over rocky roads but we keep moving. 

[Ratvan]

Sorry to hear about the tank crash and the fish, seems like you have managed to get things back on track which is good. You will find that in small tanks things can go wrong very quickly, but you're doing your best which is the main thing and this is definitely a learning experience (sorry looking for that silver lining) 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Don't worry. I look for silver linings too.....better than throwing my toys out of the pram and giving up entirely. (I did consider doing that, lol)

 

Will I ever know exactly what went wrong? No....

 

 

My thoughts are I didn't sift the sand often enough. (see the black pockets in the crash pic?) and nor did I remove accumulated debris from amongst the scape - it was too complicated leading to dead spots the flow did not reach, so buildup of waste organics produced waste.  I probably also overfed and stocked far too fast.  Then the trochs died (why? Not sure. Maybe they came sick - I'd had them less than 3 weeks when they died - maybe it was the stress of the move. Maybe they were old. Maybe it was a combination of any of those things.) and this led to just enough ammonia build up to cause a bacterial die off, hence the catastrophically bad parameters which killed the other snails, and the fish. 

[Ratvan]

7 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Don't worry. I look for silver linings too.....better than throwing my toys out of the pram and giving up entirely. (I did consider doing that, lol)

 

Will I ever know exactly what went wrong? No....

 

 

My thoughts are I didn't sift the sand often enough. (see the black pockets in the crash pic?) and nor did I remove accumulated debris from amongst the scape - it was too complicated leading to dead spots the flow did not reach, so buildup of waste organics produced waste.  I probably also overfed and stocked far too fast.  Then the trochs died (why? Not sure. Maybe they came sick - I'd had them less than 3 weeks when they died - maybe it was the stress of the move. Maybe they were old. Maybe it was a combination of any of those things.) and this led to just enough ammonia build up to cause a bacterial die off, hence the catastrophically bad parameters which killed the other snails, and the fish. 

I dont sift my sandbed but i tend to use a baster to blow detritus out of/ off of the rocks and then syphon this up off the sandbed once cycled. Did the tank smell of anything in particular when the crash happened? I think that the snails were probably the start of the snowball effect here 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Smelt like a compost bin. I think they were the start of it all too. 

[Ratvan]

2 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Smelt like a compost bin. I think they were the start of it all too. 

Sulphur/eggy smell? Sounds like an anaerobic build up 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Can't remember tbh. Would anaerobic buildup be from dead snails or pockets in sand? Or bacterial processing of snail ammonia creating pockets in substrate?

[Ratvan]

1 minute ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Can't remember tbh. Would anaerobic buildup be from dead snails or pockets in sand? Or bacterial processing of snail ammonia creating pockets in substrate?

Could be any, in my experience with this in my tank, the tank was fine until i dislodged the sandbed and released the gases which caused a very similar problem of livestock losses, bacterial blooms etc. I would have thought if this was the case you would have noticed this immediately after moving the tank.

[Murphs_Reef]

You have Nass snails so they will stir the sandbed for you. Albeit slowly. 

If your a bit sloppy on maintenance, get another Nass and a couple Cerith. The are good sand bed surfers and the Cerith will climb glass and rock as well. .

 

BTW I have loads of snails BECAUSE I'm a sloppy maintenance guy 👍🏼

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Got a phosphate issue now .... 0.5 - 1ppm by my eye. (Pics are same test once without flash and once with).

Hence lots of hair algae on everything.

Need to lower phos

Also how to people scrape GHA off coral/live rock? Can't get this stuff off. 

 

All other parameters ok. Nitrates low though at 0ppm. pH changes throughout the day. Corals happy but would be happier without the GHA.

 

I need more surface movement too. What pump would be good for a tank this size, small and SILENT? 

 

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Getting itchy for more corals 🤫🙃

[Ratvan]

8 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Got a phosphate issue now .... 0.5 - 1ppm by my eye. (Pics are same test once without flash and once with).

Hence lots of hair algae on everything.

Need to lower phos

Also how to people scrape GHA off coral/live rock? Can't get this stuff off. 

 

All other parameters ok. Nitrates low though at 0ppm. pH changes throughout the day. Corals happy but would be happier without the GHA.

 

I need more surface movement too. What pump would be good for a tank this size, small and SILENT? 

 

 

To get rid of GHA you will need to manually pluck it from the rocks, pinch it off in small sections.

Just surface agitation? A small airpump and airstone would work, failing that any wavemaker should work as long as you angle it at the surface

[Murphs_Reef]

How's the tank going? 

[filefishfinatic]

if you plan on getting wild colelcted snails, i wouldnt. most snail species that are large that i know of are carnivorus predators. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

dang, sorry no update in a long time. Uni kind of took over my life. (In a nice way though). Unfortunately I had to send the reef home and it took a bit of a downturn during this time; when I came home for xmas holidays, salinity had risen to 1.041, and there was aiptasia and GHA everywhere. So far I've done two treatments of aiptasia-X with good results and have been taking off a little GHA every day. Both nasarrius snails and the Green Star Polyps and Zoa colony are still alive, though, and the parameters are good although the phosphate was a bit high but has now been brought down with water changes. 

I've got a wave maker coming to replace the black box utility pump I'm currently using, and also have an ATO on its way, and (and this is where I've been a bit naughty) six more snails, more softies, and a peppermint shrimp coming from cellar marine 😄 but I'm obviously going to QT and dip this time around before putting into the tank. 🙂 

 

Sometimes it's kind of disheartening looking at my tank with its two small corals and algae and bare rock but really, I keep forgetting that I only first got it wet in August, lol. Progress is slow but progress is happening, though a lot of it is me learning stuff rather than huge visual changes. But I don't have a ton of money to throw at it so have to do things in small increments. Apart from the algae though the the tank seems to be doing well. Lots of copepods and spirorbird worms. I never actually feed the nassarrius snails, they seem to get whatever they need from stuff they find, and the snails I've bought are all deitrus/algae eaters. I'm hoping the set up will end up fairly low maintenance lol and sort of look after itself but look nice when stuff grows in. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

What I came home too. Looked ugly as hell but parameters ok except for marginally elevated phos 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

The aiptasia when it was at its worst 😂

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

After an aggressive algae removal session; 

Then after the first round of aip-x, when I realised my GSP colony was still alive 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

This morning 🙂

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

And everything as of ten minutes ago. Zoa retracted because of the flow issue which will be rectified tomorrow when the wave maker arrives. Ditto gsp at the back is retracted for the same reason I think so gonna angle current up a bit so it's more gentle lower down.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Oh bugger, new wave maker super ####ing loud loud 😭 can anyone recommend a a SILENT wave maker/powerhead!? 

[DNR88]

Sicce Nano Voyager 1000 works very well and quiet.

 

Looks like a mess right now, good luck with the tank. 😉

[A.m.P]

6 hours ago, DNR88 said:

Sicce Nano Voyager 1000 works very well and quiet.

 

Looks like a mess right now, good luck with the tank. 😉

I love Sicce, but that might be too much flow for 5 gallons.