nano tank

[starfish123]

decommed my old tank due to hair algae outbreak, diatom attack, coral death etc. hope to achieve a better result this time. tank is a 2 by 1.5 by 1.5 ft tank. ios design was illegally taken form bro Kaykay (hope he don't mind). just found his tank very appealing.transfered everything from my old tank to my new one except my jireh quick start and red sea prism. skimmer was changed to bm nac3+.

[starfish123]

ok, would like to ask a few questions...

1) how come i cycle my tank for 4 days aready no2 still 0? threw in 4 0.5 cm cubes of henry reef gourmet, need to add more?

2)is it safe to add in henry goodbye po4 remover now?

3)should i change the filter floss because it is really dirty but i am suppose to have organics and dirt during cycling right?

thanks in advance

[MadScientist]

1) no, it takes time, may take from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. if you want it to be faster, try using commercial bacterial cultures and keeping your biomedia as dark as possible helps. what is your ammonia reading? if it is 0, turn off your protein skimmer.

2) yes, phosphate has minimal impact on cycling, bacteria need some phosphate, but we are talking about very minute amount, which cannot be detected by your test kits nor your remover can remove.

3) yes and no. filter media can be changed but do not disturb biomedia, unless you are trying to culture detritus decomposers.

[starfish123]

ammonia=not tested as no test kit, but by right it is suppose to go down and by now nitrite should go quite high right? or maybe is because i transfered all the filter media from my old tank to my new one.

other questions: is 800l per hour enough for my return? and is sandbed a must if i want to keep mandarin fishes? do not want to add sandbed as i suspect it is the sandbed that was the cause of the algae attack in my old tank. if it is a must then i will not have mandarin fishes.

[MadScientist]

Possible. Cannot confirm until you tested all 3 parameters.

How high is your tank from sump? You also need to see the hmax. Use the graph provided by the pump to determine the actual flowrate from height/hmax.

Not needed, however, mandrain fish requires special diet. You may need tons of lr to sustain them. A fish that's not recommended to keep unless you own a very huge and matured tank.

[starfish123]

yesterday tested nitrite found that it was 0.2ppm and tank from sump is 16''.

[MadScientist]

What's the brand and model of your pump? Seems like your tank is starting to cycle

[reckless]

adding more liverocks in your tank would be good but careful not to create dead spots. cheers!

[MadScientist]

agree, live rocks make your tank alive!

[starfish123]

planning to add liverocks along so as to not let my tank look so bare as i should be stocking up pretty slowly on corals. as for the mandarin fishes, would reconsider abt it.

[starfish123]

any advice on how to stick GSP on wall? cause i want to hide the ios with it.

[law1210]

put superglue gel on the GSP mat and stick it on the wall.

[starfish123]

gsp mat?

[starfish123]

anyone who used bm nac3+ can advice on the breaking in period of this skimmer? this is the 5th day of usage and still not getting black skimmate and skimmer still releasing microbubbles

[law1210]

gsp mat?

GSP grows together on a purple color mat. If your frag comes on a rock, then you hv to get it off the rock in order to stick on the wall. For my case, my Blue Tang actually pulled the whole GSP off the rock (maybe it wasn't stick very tightly on the rock in the first place). So I took the whole piece of GSP, put glue gel on the bottom of the purple mat and stick it onto another rock of my choice.

[kaykay]

Hi bro, no I don't mind a single bit. On the contrary, I'm flattered.

Some suggestions.

1. Micro bubbles from skimmer.

Raise the skimmer higher, maybe by 6-8cm. Use something to prop it up. It'll help remove most of the microbubbles.

2. Don't get too anxious of the cycle. Time will take care of the major part. Our part is to have patience.

I dosed Brightwell Microbacter7 to boost bacteria during this time too.

3. I tried to introduce all of the live rocks at the same time so that the die offs all occur at around the same time.

I reckoned that I do not want to disturb the bacteria cycle too much in such a small water volume.

4. I used 12kgs of live rocks. Maybe 10kg would be better as I find my tank a little too cluttered now.

5. Maybe a small pc of black acrylic to cover the sight of the filter media and the skimmer will make the tank visually more appealing? Otherwise more rocks will also do.

My 2 cents.

[MadScientist]

gsp is?

[starfish123]

thanks for your advice,bro kaykay, may i know what is the height of water in your skimmer compartment? because mine is quite low, ard 6inch, but max is 10inch. am dosing the tablet type aquapharm bacteria. for live rock i washed all my previous liverock so that all the pest will die off as my previous tank had alot of problems with bristleworms and bobbitworms. maybe ard 6kg. will add more today

[starfish123]

GSP grows together on a purple color mat. If your frag comes on a rock, then you hv to get it off the rock in order to stick on the wall. For my case, my Blue Tang actually pulled the whole GSP off the rock (maybe it wasn't stick very tightly on the rock in the first place). So I took the whole piece of GSP, put glue gel on the bottom of the purple mat and stick it onto another rock of my choice.

so stick the mat on the glass? can let it stick naturally on glass?

[starfish123]

gsp is?

green star polyp

[starfish123]

put in np biopellets into my tank yesterday into my diy fluidised reactor(just a mineral water bottle with a pump), today my tank become very cloudy. any idea on how to resolve this problem? put in only abt 100ml.

[law1210]

so stick the mat on the glass? can let it stick naturally on glass?

Can, but u hv to hold it there until it sticks on the glass one day. haha...juz joking. Use glue stick it on the glass is faster. On rock, we can still use rubber band to hold it until it sticks naturally. On glass, quite tough. Bro Kaykay's suggestion of using a black acrylic to cover the back is also good.

[kaykay]

My water level in the skimmer reaches the red ring. The white dot is between 3 to 4.

[starfish123]

what about the water level outside the skimmer?

[kaykay]

what about the water level outside the skimmer?

The water level outside is about at the level of the red disc just above the skimmer pump.