Ryan's Salty Crew

[ryans.salty.crew]

Hello everyone!

 

Decided to join and make a nano reef forum in order to keep track of my own tank progression while sharing with everyone. Hopefully I can get some great advice as well as pass some along.So far one of my favorite parts about this hobby is the seemingly endless knowledge that I have to learn and the fact that I have a piece of the ocean in my living room. 

 

A little bit about myself and my tank: I am new to the salt water community and this is my first saltwater tank. I’m super excited to watch it grow and see how long I can keep it up and healthy. I picked up my tank from my best friend who has had it up and running for many years. He had stripped it clean and just left the live rock in the water for months before I got it from him. I’m fighting the urge to let the tank grow before upgrading...hopefully will be able to last a couple years…I have SO much learning to do.

 

Social Media: TBT

 

Tank: Fusion Nano 10 (12” x 15” x 13”)

 

Light: AI Prime 16HD

 

Pump: Syncra 0.5 Silent

 

Wave Maker: Jebao Mini (SLW-10)

 

Heater: Idk (Controller: Inkbird probe)

 

ATO:  "Prism ATO" - By ReefBreeders

 

Rock: Live rock

 

Sand: CaribSea Seafloor, Special Grade

 

Filtration: Filter Floss

 

Fish food: Brine Shrimp, pellets

 

Coral food: Brine Shrimp, Reef Roids, Red Sea AB+

 

Fish: 2 clowns (no name) and a cleaner shrimp (Name: “Jacques” from finding nemo)

 

Clean Up Crew: 3 astrea snails, 2 nassarius snails, 3 hermits

 

Lighting Schedule: 

 

 

 

 

Tank pics

04/2022

[joshthebox]

Great looking reef! 

[ryans.salty.crew]

Top down for the weekend

 

[ryans.salty.crew]

1ml of RedSea AB+ in my 10g

 

[ryans.salty.crew]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:46 PM, 10g4Me said:

1ml of RedSea AB+ in my 10g

 

I think the small amount of Dino's that I have loved the RedSea ab+. I won't be using that again anytime soon.

[ryans.salty.crew]

Added a Molly to my aquarium in hops that it will get rid of some of my hair algae. Hope this works! 

[ryans.salty.crew]

On 6/11/2022 at 9:00 PM, 10g4Me said:

Added a Molly to my aquarium in hops that it will get rid of some of my hair algae. Hope this works! 

Confused. Did I get the wrong type of Molly? He just sits at the top. Hasn’t been down to pick at any algae. I’ve heard people say after a couple days that all hair algae is taking care of…. Is it just patience or did I make a mistake? 

[Ratvan]

I have had balloon mollies and sailfin mollies, some just take a bit of time before getting hungry enough to go looking.

[ryans.salty.crew]

1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

I have had balloon mollies and sailfin mollies, some just take a bit of time before getting hungry enough to go looking.

Still waiting, but seems to be more comfortable swimming around the tank.

 

Have been thinking of getting a emerald crab that will eat hair algae. Will he out compete the molly? Don't really love mollies, love the idea of a emerald crab though. 

 

Any suggestions?

[Ratvan]

I've never had a Crab in a reef tank except for hermits so couldn't comment, I would assume not though due to the speed of the molly and mines appetite

[schgr.cube]

3 hours ago, 10g4Me said:

Still waiting, but seems to be more comfortable swimming around the tank.

 

Have been thinking of getting a emerald crab that will eat hair algae. Will he out compete the molly? Don't really love mollies, love the idea of a emerald crab though. 

 

Any suggestions?

 

I've always had great success with emerald crabs and hair algae, and the one i just recently got devoured a decent patch of bryopsis overnight. I'd vote that over Mollies.

[ryans.salty.crew]

On 6/17/2022 at 3:32 PM, schg said:

 

I've always had great success with emerald crabs and hair algae, and the one i just recently got devoured a decent patch of bryopsis overnight. I'd vote that over Mollies.

Ever have any problems with emerald crabs eating corals? I have a mostly zoa tank (I need to post an update. My tank has changed so much since the profile picture

[schgr.cube]

3 hours ago, 10g4Me said:

Ever have any problems with emerald crabs eating corals? I have a mostly zoa tank (I need to post an update. My tank has changed so much since the profile picture

Nope, no issues, and I have owned about 5 emerald crabs over many of my tanks. They have made me nervous on occasion by looking like they were picking on something, but i could see they were just picking things off around it and not actually eating it.

[ryans.salty.crew]

Made some changed recently. Added a ATO to my system and decided to go with mostly Zoas and soft corals. I added a orange Discosoma mushroom that’s found himself a spot under my hammer, and a couple more Zoas. 

 

Some things are closed because my clear shrimp thought he was getting food and goes crazy whenever he even thinks of food. 

[schgr.cube]

Looking good!! The RFA looks great there in the front. 

[ReeferSB]

What ATO did you go with? I just got the Prism ATO from Reefbreeders for my Nuvo 10 but I haven't set it up yet.

[ryans.salty.crew]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:48 PM, schg said:

Looking good!! The RFA looks great there in the front. 

Thank you. It's funny that you say that, the RFA moved last night after being in the same area for months and decided it wanted to sit in the same hole the small mushroom is sitting in. So it's currently crushing my mushroom right under the hammer. 

[ryans.salty.crew]

On 6/29/2022 at 9:29 PM, ReeferSB said:

What ATO did you go with? I just got the Prism ATO from Reefbreeders for my Nuvo 10 but I haven't set it up yet.

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I've been dealing with a concussion and I had to figure out the name of it since it was second hand from the same guy who I bought my tank, stand, and all my corals from.

 

The ATO is called "Prism ATO" - By ReefBreeders. It's about $70 off of bulkreefsupply.com. 

 

After adding this, I have seen a HUGE difference in my tank. Coraline algae growing rapidly on the back wall, corals being happy and open, and fish being more active. In my 10g the small amount of evaporation really matters. 

[ryans.salty.crew]

This weekend I removed my Molly and added a Blenny/pistol shrimp combo. Missing my Molly and already seeing a build up of hair algae where he was munching it all away. Also added few more clean up crew. 

 

My LFS informed me that snails and hermits won't eat hair algae. Is this true? (I feel like this sounds like a dumb question because I thought they do. He said a clean up crew won't fix my problem) Only walked away with 1 snail and 1 hermit extra because he said that wouldn't be my fix. I have been feeding less. I'm aware of the nutrients build up that has been occurring due to me feeding more over the past 2-3 months to defeat my dinos. Dinos are now gone and dealing with hair algae is now a much easier pain. Any advice would be apricated.  

[Theshallows]

looks nice!

[ryans.salty.crew]

1 hour ago, 10g4Me said:

This weekend I removed my Molly and added a Blenny/pistol shrimp combo. Missing my Molly and already seeing a build up of hair algae where he was munching it all away. Also added few more clean up crew. 

 

My LFS informed me that snails and hermits won't eat hair algae. Is this true? (I feel like this sounds like a dumb question because I thought they do. He said a clean up crew won't fix my problem) Only walked away with 1 snail and 1 hermit extra because he said that wouldn't be my fix. I have been feeding less. I'm aware of the nutrients build up that has been occurring due to me feeding more over the past 2-3 months to defeat my dinos. Dinos are now gone and dealing with hair algae is now a much easier pain. Any advice would be apricated.  

After further thought, I am going to take these steps.....

 

1) buy 2-3 more hermits and 2-3 more astrea snails

2) manually clean the tank the hair algae of the rock when doing a water change

3) clean the sand bed (hair algae has started to grow on top)

 

Any advice would still be apricated. First salt water tank and first time dealing with hair algae 😂

[ryans.salty.crew]

Striving to be transparent with my posts about reefing. You can't always post the pretty pictures of the tank.

 

About a month ago this is what my tank looked like. Lots of feeding, hair algae all over. 

 

[ryans.salty.crew]

 

I had just got done messing with the tank, moving a couple zoa's and placing the toadstool in. 

 

While purchasing the toadstool yesterday, I took my water to get tested at my local fish store. While testing calcium the Hanna checker was getting 600+, while alk was 8.1. 

 

TIPS ON WHY MY CALCIUM IS SO HIGH?

 

I only have soft corals and only do water changes within the last couple of months. A couple months ago I did dose reef roids until it effected my algae by making it grow and I dosed AB+ a couple times as well. 

[4d-Rock]

Hey, cool tank. I appreciate the journal as I'm new and working through a bit of hair algae myself.  Trying to find an effective nano herbivore but still don't have a good solution.

 

As for the Calcium, if you aren't dosing much that doesn't seem to make sense.  Something I've read/heard alot of in my research is that if you have an overly off reading, the first thing to do is be suspect of the test, re-test, and then re-test again with a different method/kit.

 

[ryans.salty.crew]

3 minutes ago, 4d-Rock said:

Hey, cool tank. I appreciate the journal as I'm new and working through a bit of hair algae myself.  Trying to find an effective nano herbivore but still don't have a good solution.

 

As for the Calcium, if you aren't dosing much that doesn't seem to make sense.  Something I've read/heard alot of in my research is that if you have an overly off reading, the first thing to do is be suspect of the test, re-test, and then re-test again with a different method/kit.

 

I believe it is the test. I am going today to another LFS (Local fish store) to retest