Newbie first IQ5

[KyawMinNaing]

I think i always wanted to have a reef tank and happened to bought iq5 tank for the very first time,

Mayb I literally fool myself enough in illusion of my own imagination, anyway I just did what i want so allow me to record my silly events here..

Day1

started cycling with ocean direct very fine size white color one inch thick sand bed.

bought a live rock but soak in white vinegar and dry for few days until its whiten in color, hopefully killed all unexpected tiny creatures.

Day7

Installed Par38, replaced stock return pump with Tunze mini pump and start dosing microbeta7

Day24

Stop dosing microbeta7, just followed its printed instruction

Day 26,

Salinity is 1.0235 and NO3 tested n was showing between 15-20 ppm.

made a trip to pasir ris farm way,

bought a green color zoas colony, small mushrooms and goby+shrimp pair, and tube worm.

and of cause some unwanted guests as well..saw a one and half inch long worm crawling on the glass wall after putting all the live stocks,

but couldn't managed to get rid of it, scary..

The zoas and tubeworm were opened/closed responded to PAR light turn on/off,

but little goby and shrimp were disappeared forever ..after they jump into this tiny glass bucket.

waited for a couple of hours, finally couldn't help to calm myself down in patience, lift off all the live rocks and found mr.goby is buried itself in the sand under a rock,worried how it can take its breath.. the shrimp was enjoying itself in the tunnels of maze of another rock, yep I took out the whole rock to know XD

regret after I realized i literally upside down their whole environment and disturb them, lesson learned.

[asg]

dont create thunder storm unnecessary ah. Most LS will hide for first few hours to days when introduced into the tank lah.

[KyawMinNaing]

Hi andtsg,

noted I'l try to avoid hands in the tank,

thank you for your guidance .

[shaohao85]

Ur nitrate is damn high .. 15 to 20 ppm .. did u do regular water changes ?

[KyawMinNaing]

thanks, the tank is only 28 days old and i'm thinking to make some 20 percents change in maybe days 35-40,

[shaohao85]

Do weekly changes instead

[limz_777]

any pic to your set-up ?

[Admiraltian]

A pic of ur iq5 would be nice.

[Silentlurker]

Get a cover for the tank. Goby are notorious jumpers.

[KyawMinNaing]

Suddently on days 41, my zoa were closed and looks sick.

So I decided to make NO3 test again and found its doubled as 30-40ppm,

so I made some water changes and during the WC, i couldn't find my goby, but only a tiny shrimp,

I tried to removed all the rocks yet couldn't find the little goby anywhere in this small tank,

So i concluded myself that it could been dead for a few days and it may have been dissolved or consumed by the shrimp.

Or the body of the fish is buried in the sand somewhere and causing NO3 high ;(

And I found a white cockroach like creature running very quickly on the sand and hiding inside the rocks, couldn't manage to find it again..

Unfortunately, that little creature is even bigger than my shrimp,

Then 2 days later, I made 20% water change again, and managed to drop NO3 to 10-20 ppm.

The zoa looks alittle better, some 1-2 tentacles became opened but most of the others looks sick and closing.

I saw the very tiny cockroach baby with transparent body come out of the rock and walking into the zoa tentacles..

This must be the baby of the creature that I saw the other day,

I was quite upset and I'll probably stop my very first pico marine tank in that point if lose the mushrooms also,

but they still look fine, now I know the mushrooms are most ez to keep.

Then today, I opened the forum and found Silentlurker mentioned about goby jumping which made me think all again in different way.

And I start finding him all over the floor, and sadly yes, I found goby 's dead dry body somewhere on the black carpet.

The goby was jumped mayb when i opened the lid few days ago..

So why my NO3 high, I think maybe my tank is so young and even I overdosed the Macrobeta7 for 15 days straight,

the bio-cycle may not completed yet,

[KyawMinNaing]

.

[chercm]

for cycling you need to be patient and do you have skimmer running at this point ?

i learnt the lesson the hard way . i would suggest to get Salifert for test kit .

[KyawMinNaing]

The silly little tank

[KyawMinNaing]

Dear Seniors,

Can someone please help me how to save my little zoa?

There are white worms and the zoa stop opening and when i take out i saw some white parts?

Now I took out the sick zoa pls let me know how can i treat it?

Thank you in advance.

[Clement Chen]

maybe can take out and try to dip in coral rx, since ur tank is small maybe want to dip all ur rocks as they might be pests. do this a few times to kill all pests. Also when buying corals if not sure if the source is reliable always dip, especially those LFS which harvest from the wild.

[reef garden]

Bro,

I think your Zoas are infested with the white zoa eating nudibranchs. As a temporary measure, you can do a freshwater dip by soaking your Zoas for 5-10 mins in water before returning them back to the aquarium. You will see them turn brown before falling off your Zoas. Try to fish out as many of them that you can see in the aquarium too.

You may want to consider introducing some wrasses eg. six line, that would eat them although I must caution you that with wrasses, you will usually end up with other issues ie. limitation in adding some other fishes, because they eat all the small organisms etc that can support fishes such as mandarin fish. By the way, the six line is beautiful but aggressive so you may have problems introducing some other wrasses in future.

All the best!

[KyawMinNaing]

Dear ClementC and reef garden,

Thank you very much for your time and suggestions.

I'll go and get coral dip and dip all the coral and rocks.

But there is a new things happening again, now i can see small white tiny spots in the water and some on the glass are alive and see those are moving on the glasses.

now I feel like my tank is no coral are thriving but bacteria and parasites.

Only one pistol shrimp, 1 tube worm, 5 red mushrooms are living together with those tiny white creatures.

My action plan is

- get coral dip and dip all of the corals and rocks

- 50% WC every week until Dec wait and see the sick zoa improving

- question is "what if those worms and pests hide inside tick sand bed"

Thanks,

[Admiraltian]

Those white spots u see in ur tank might not be 100% pests. Some could be copepods which are good food supply for ur fishes.

[asg]

+1 above. Bro why not you buy some cleaning crews ie snail hermit crab etc?

[reef garden]

I think bro Admiraltian is right. The white stuff you see could be the Copepods which are definitely much relished in the aquarium. This means no introduction of wrasses for now. My apologies for the confusion caused. Don't lose heart because there are many more fantastic things coming your way if you are patient. If you do not have coral dips, my advice is to at least do a 10 min fresh water dip for all corals with rock bases before putting them into the DT. I bet you would be surprised with how many undesirable worms and critters appear from the rocks. All the best to you!

[KyawMinNaing]

Dear Seniors,

I've a few questions,

1. the nitrate are 100+ (did 50% water change still very red), very important Sirs, Pls help me to show how to reduce Nitrate.

2. My pistol shrimp without feeding anything for 1 months, heard sound when light turn off, and always hiding, what should i feed?

3. mushrooms are still doing well. I'm thinking to buy some more mushrooms, what kind of mushrooms sh i buy?

Thanks,

[mitchell.liang.9]

Do daily water changes of maybe 10 to 20 percent. Whats your filtration system by the way? Also i suggest not adding any more lifestock into the tank before you find the root of the problem.

[mitchell.liang.9]

One more thing what about your water temperature?

[KyawMinNaing]

Thanks for respond Mitchell Liang,

As a beginner, I didn't put anything back chamber, 1st component is filter wool, third chamber is return pump.

I think I should start consider to put skimmer at second chamber but i'm just consider about its noise,

For temperature, got a fun for day time to maintain 28-30 and night time is with room aircon 25-26.

Thank you so much.

[mitchell.liang.9]

Maybe you can consider having a skimmer and also polylab bio sphere..i use to struggle with 10-20 ppm nitrate...but after putting the bio sphere infront of my skinmer last week my nitrate gone down to 5ppm. A number i used to not be able to achieve... . As for now dont give up and continue with daily water changes and also get your biofilter set up! Soon enough things will get better