Pretty-Sure-I'm-Doing-This-Wrong 10g Nano Tank

[quemist]

Hi, guys!

So I'll go ahead and update about what little progress I've made on my build and what weirdness is ensuing.

In "Keeping Austin Weird," I trade nemirn two tacos for lights, bulbs, and a 5gallon and a 10 gallon tank. I love that tacos are currency here.

When I told him I was starting my first reef he replies "Ohhhhhh mannnnnn...... yeah..... This isn't going to be the easiest to start out on, but good luck." I piled all of the equipment in my ragtop Jeep (secured with bungee cords) and drove veeeerrry carefully home.

Tanks were washed out, dried, and I purchased some "live sand" and reef-labeled sand. Added all of the sand to the 10g, then thought better of it and set 1/3 of it in the 5g. Mixed the water according to the package, then set aside the 5gal.

On the 10g, I have a set of two lights, a powerhead, filter, temperature monitor. I threw in three live rocks and a hawaiian featherduster.

However, when I added everything it became CLOUDY. I think the sand is just too fine.

This morning, it settled out a bit.

so here are some initial questions:

1) What can I do to prevent that silt from kicking up?

2) So..... Live rock. I get the concept of things growing on it, but is it going to "sprout" or should I get some frags?

3) What are some good starter things to put in a nano build?

[Jimbo662]

Congrats on getting your first tank set up.

1. Not much you can do about the silt. It'll settle down after a couple of days. Some fish will dig around in it and cuase it to stir up some too.

2. Live rock is a place for beneficial bacteria to grow. Bacteria acts as you filter and eats all the bad stuff...ammonia, nitrites, etc.

3. You don't want to put anything in the tank until after it has cycled...meaning you see a spike in ammonia and nitrites and wait for them to come back down and register 0. This could take several weeks. Not sure if the feather duster will survive a cycle.

Also, directions on salt is more of a guideline. You need to get a refractometer to test the salinity of the water.

What kind of lights do you have? This will determine what you can keep in the tank.

Best advise for anyone starting out is to research / read as much as you can. Check out a bunch of the tank build threads to see what others have done / gone through so you can learn from others experiences.

James

[+Mlaw]

Don't worry about the water being cloudy, it will settle down eventually. The one thing you might want to check is the flow from your HOB filter. Make sure it isn't stirring up the sand constantly, otherwise you'll never get it to settle. If it might be stirring things up you can move a rock under the flow so the waterfall isn't going straight onto the sand.

Some live rock comes with things already on it, such as that feather duster, but most of the really cool stuff you're going to want in there has to be added. You need to wait for your tank to cycle before adding anything. Then, depending on your lighting and ability to keep up with water changes/purity you can start adding things.

What kind of lights are you running?

[nori4dori]

Congrats on your first reef tank! You always have to start somewhere, but you are at the right place here at ARC. A few pointers I can share based on my own experience as a saltwater newbie:

1. As Jimbo662 mentioned, you will need to check salinity of the water regularly. You can either get a refractometer for high accuracy, or you can get a cheap hydrometer from Petco or any fish store. If its too high, add more water. If too low, add more salt.

2. You will need to cycle your tank before you put any livestock in there (coral or fish). This will take you anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. The longer you wait patiently now, the more headaches it will save you later. Best way to cycle: throw half of a frozen uncooked cocktail shrimp (cooked is fine too but uncooked works better) or a small piece of any uncooked fish in your tank. Watch it rot and melt away in a week. If you can get a saltwater test kit (~$25 at Petco), you will want to test your water around 2 weeks after you added the shrimp. You can also just take a small sample of your water to your fish store and have them test it for you. You need to wait until both ammonia and nitrite is down to 0 and nitrate is high. If you cannot test, waiting for 3 weeks after adding the shrimp is a safe bet. Since you already have live rock in your tank, your cycle shouldn't take too long.

3. Once your tank is cycled, it is time to start doing regular water changes. The first water change you want to do atleast a 50% change to get rid of all that nitrate from the dead shrimp. After that you can do 10% water change weekly. For water change, always use RO/DI water from the Glacier machine at HEB. Mix salt with it to the right salinity (test with your hydrometer).

4. The first livestock you want to add is snails. You can get $1 snails - astrea, turbo, cerith, nerite, nassarius... at your LFS. Watch the snails for a week or two. If they do fine, you are ready to slowly add coral frags or fishes. Since its a small tank you don't want to add any more than 2 nano-safe fishes (goby or clown).

[Planeden]

hi, welcome. just a couple of things in response to furan28:

1. in case it is not obvious - if salinity is too high add FRESH water. also a mistake some make is that you should top off with fresh water. salt does not evaporate, so you have to add fresh water to replace evaporation. not trying to imply you ain't bright, but i've seen/heard others make that mistake. when you add salt, you want to add salt water, mixed with a higher salinity, to your tank. or use salt water for top offs for a while. don't add salt crystals to the tank directly once you have livestock in it.

2. i would buy a test kit. at the beginning you are going to want to watch your parameters frequently (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate mostly). unless your schedule allows you to get to a fish store frequently (every 2-3 days) buy a test kit to do it yourself. the junior chemist liquid test kits are cheaper and more accurate. you have to notice the number of tests you get to really see the savings most of the time.

i will let someone else do most of arguing about hydrometer vs. refractometer. one thing to note about refractometers, they need to be calibrated occasionally.

[quemist]

2. You will need to cycle your tank before you put any livestock in there (coral or fish). This will take you anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. The longer you wait patiently now, the more headaches it will save you later. Best way to cycle: throw half of a frozen uncooked cocktail shrimp (cooked is fine too but uncooked works better) or a small piece of any uncooked fish in your tank. Watch it rot and melt away in a week. If you can get a saltwater test kit (~$25 at Petco), you will want to test your water around 2 weeks after you added the shrimp. You can also just take a small sample of your water to your fish store and have them test it for you. You need to wait until both ammonia and nitrite is down to 0 and nitrate is high. If you cannot test, waiting for 3 weeks after adding the shrimp is a safe bet. Since you already have live rock in your tank, your cycle shouldn't take too long.

4. The first livestock you want to add is snails. You can get $1 snails - astrea, turbo, cerith, nerite, nassarius... at your LFS. Watch the snails for a week or two. If they do fine, you are ready to slowly add coral frags or fishes. Since its a small tank you don't want to add any more than 2 nano-safe fishes (goby or clown).

Whoa! This is awesome!! I'm going to go check this out now...

One thing-if my screen name didn't give it away- i'm a chemist. I've done environmental testing for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Currently trying to devise an easy method thats cheaper than the rest of the tests out there. If I develop a reliable home-based one.... you guys will be the first to try it!!

What kind of lights are you running?

I have.... a blue one and a white one... (noob here!) I'm not sure of the wavelengths, but I can check.

[FarmerTy]

Well, if I had to guess, you either have power compacts or T5 bulbs for lighting. Since you mentioned you got it and the tank for breakfast tacos as currency, I'm going to guess power compacts. They are fine for keeping some softies but nothing that requires a ton of light.

For the test kits, $20-25 will get you probably over a year's worth of tests for all 3 parameters so I'm not sure you can beat that price much more than that. But if you are doing it just for kicks, your results would be interesting to see.

Kind of reminds me of when they had us make litmus paper back in elementary school.

I'm sure you are familiar with the chemistry behind cycling your tank but the biology of it might interest you as well as you look into it further.

Best advice out there is just to go see people's tanks, maybe as you are buying frags after your tank finishes cycling and then mimic as best you can their methodology for the tanks you like.

Each person's tank is as different as the owner's are and the animals they keep. At least you can mimic one's that are similar to what you want and then personalize it from there and make it your own.

[FarmerTy]

Nevermind, looking at that picture of your fixture, looks like you may have T5 bulbs, which at that height off your water, can grow just about anything.

[quemist]

yeah, I like to do chemistry tests just for giggles....

So, I had a hawaiian feather duster that was attached to one of the live rocks I had. It's become less of a duster as its lots all of its little "feathers"

Is this because of the nitrogen cycling or because of it not being able to acclimate to the tank?

[FarmerTy]

I would say predominately nitrogen cycling as they are pretty sensitive to ammonia. Once your denitrifying bacteria population starts to build up over the month, that should remedy it but by then, I'd be surprised if you still had a live feather duster.

The other issue is a food source. While not impossible to keep in a small tank, feather dusters rely on suspended particles of food in the water for their nutritional needs. Since you don't have any fish and your reef tank is not established yet, the amount of planktonic material in your water columnn is very low and it will starve to death. I would look into rehoming the feather duster personally. They are poor candidates for a nano sized tank and efforts to try to feed them by broadcast feeding in the water column will normally end up polluting your tank in the long term with excess nutrients. If you try direct feeding, they usually just retract when the blast of food comes their way.

Typically, their first sign of declining health is crown bailout... where they basically ditch their crown. The 2nd step you might see are efforts to try to relocate. There have been some who have also witnessed a last ditch release of gametes in the water coloumn in response to an imminent death as a survival tool for future generations.

[quemist]

OK I finally got a test kit and even took a sample of water to the aquadome for advice and they were super, super helpful.

Yes, the feather duster finally bit the dust, but interestingly I have a small one that is growing on the live rock I installed. I also have two small snails that are in pretty good shape.

Still cycling, but I'm in the process of re-doing my condo and putting things in places. I currently have a 10g, which I know is far too small and I think after all of my reading its going to end up becoming a quarantine tank or a small nano tank to put in my laboratory.

Being the super broke student I am, I'm looking to get a more permanent tank thats larger, i.e., it can equilibrate easier and I can keep it as my main tank to work on for a while.

I keep seeing 125g and 55g, but is there anything in between? I'm on a budget so I keep trolling the "free" section for the tanks and I've found a couple on CL. Shape? Ideas?

[FarmerTy]

I ran a 10 gallon for 5 years just fine. The only thing with those are as you mentioned... sensitivity to abrupt changes as the water volume allows for less room for error. You have to be religious with your water changes, 20% volume every 2 weeks worked perfectly for me.

You can usually find 65-gallon, 75-gallon, and 90-gallon tanks for your in-between sizes. Though more often you'll see a 55-gallon for sale as they tend to be more common. Size would typically be rectangular or square but there are some that have the bowfront to it. I'm not a personal fan of those tanks as they skew the viewing angle to me and are a pain to clean with a glass scraper if coralline algae grows on it.

Sorry about the feather duster but hopefully your mini feather duster and snails survive the cycle. Just monitor and test the water and when the nitrite and ammonia levels are zero, you're good to go! From that point on, add fish and corals slowly so that your bacteria levels can adjust to each addition to the bioload. Happy reefing!

-Ty

[quemist]

OK more fun questions:

1) My tank is still cycling, lower on the ammonia side, higher on the nitrites, low on nitrates. After it's steady on nitrates, then do I do a 20% change?

2) I know some things are sturdier than others, but I'm having lots of fun with snails and even got an urchin last week. What resources can I go to to tell me what is and isn't compatable?

[Leakytree]

I have a 65g setup for sale. Pm me if your interested.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Leakytree]

OK more fun questions:

1) My tank is still cycling, lower on the ammonia side, higher on the nitrites, low on nitrates. After it's steady on nitrates, then do I do a 20% change?

2) I know some things are sturdier than others, but I'm having lots of fun with snails and even got an urchin last week. What resources can I go to to tell me what is and isn't compatable?

1. Once your test read 0 for ammonia or nitrites then it's time for a WC

2. You can google Maine fish compatibility chart. Here is one from dr fosters: http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/compatibility_chart.cfm

Most LFS will shoot you straight on compatibility, however each fish has it's own personality and make act contrary to the "norm".

Also, I would make a plan/theme for your tank and fully research it. That way you know what you need before you purchase a animal and then try to change your tank to match its needs. Something I've always wanted to try was a nano tank was softie corals and inverts. Lighting would be cheap and the tank should be stable with little nutrient intake.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[quemist]

Tested water today-- we are reef ready!!!!

In the meantime, I'm working on setting up my 29g tank. Can anyone explain what an underbed filter is? I'm assuming you'd have to change it if its a carbon pad....

Stay tuned for fun pictures!!

[nori4dori]

I am not sure what underbed filter is in relation to saltwater. In freshwater tank, people used to use (some still do) undergravel filter, where they have a flow of water through the gravel bed in the bottom (usually by means of a pump). It helps keep the water in the tank clear because all particulates get trapped in the gravel, and nitrifying bacteria grow in the gravel thanks to the oxygen supplied by the waterflow and help break down nitrites. But usually you end up with way too much waste trapped in the gravel that is hard to siphon and clean, and you start battling with really high nitrates. That's for freshwater. I don't think it would be a good idea at all for saltwater.

For your filtration in a 29g, you should mainly look for biological filtration, meaning you want to harbor good bacteria that does the work for you. If you have live rock in your tank that should do the work. Plus you will definitely want to get a skimmer (it will cost you $50+) which removes a lot of the organic waste in your water preventing them from even entering into the nitrate cycle. The skimmer also helps oxygenate your water. The live rock plus the skimmer will be good enough for maintaining basic water quality, but if you really want to get into corals... you may want to start adding some chemical filtration in there as well - something to remove phosphate (phosguard, gfo...), plus you can also throw in some activated carbon which removes organics from the water. These need to be changed every month or every other month. Activated carbon is cheap, but gfo or phosguard will be a little more pricier. But if you don't have proper biological filtration in your tank (live rock, skimmer...), adding chemical filtration will be futile.

You also need to get a wavemaker / powerhead. In a 29g tank, you need to make sure there is good flow in your tank meaning there are no spots in your tank (behind the rocks, on the sand bed...) where there is still water. You also don't want too much flow. It can damage corals by blowing them away, and your fishes won't like it.