Cannister for 24G nano tank?

[jeremywe]

Hi Everyone,

A very good day to you. This is almost my virgin post in this forum. I'm a real newbie and I've just got my 24G nano (with a hood) started about a month ago. Wanted to give up when my tank was full of nuisance algae with nitrate at 80ppm, temp at 31c, and everything else haywire, but when i found this forums, thats when i abandon my "stock" filters and equipments and seeked out the right stuffs (e.g. snails, media to reduce NO3s and Phos, chillers, AZ-NO3, PurpleUp, etc).

I've got a 1000L/Hr Ehiem canister lying around and was thinking if i could use it to provide additional filtration for my tank. Could anyone share the pros and cons of this setup?

My other concern is what should go into the canister? I'm planning to draw water from the middle compartment of the overflow compartment behind the tank into the canister and then feed it back into the same middle overflow compartment.

Here are some information on my existing setup.

Livestock

- About 10 fishes including 2 clowns, a mandarin, 1 "box" fish, 1 porcelain crab, 1 turbo, 1 slug, 1 shrimp, 1 (cant remember the name, front yellow, rear half purple fish), i blue tank.

- 3 corals, 1 anemone, 1 star prop (spelling?), 1 mushroom.

Pumps and chillers

1 x 1200L/hr pulling water at the last overflow compartment behind my tank, drawing water into my 1/10HP chiller and then it gets fed from the chiller straight back into the tank.

1 x hydro K1 1500L/Hr wavemaker

1 x undergravel filter powered by a 600L/Hr pump (mainly for circulation, not my idea though)

Current filtration (overflow with 3 compartments)

1st Compartment: wool and sponge filter

2nd Compartment: Bottom is Ceramic Bio Rings, Sea Chem Phosguard and denitratedifier, and the top is BioHome plus.

3rd Compartment: Boyu Skimmer (need help here too), and the 1200L/Hr pump

Water params:

PH: 8.1

Nitrite: 10ppm

Nitrate: 20ppm

Phos: 0.5ppm

Ammonia: safe < 0.1ppm (using indicator only)

Temp: 26-27c.

Usually about 10-20% water change is planned per week or 2 weeks depending on current water param.

My objectives are to keep nitrate and phosphate at the lowest (should i also strive for anything else? I'm really new at this.) and keep the water clear and clean (duh). Intending to keep fishes and corals, maybe a clam too.

So, to sum up:

1) What should go into my canister?

2) How should i connect it to my existing setup?

3) I'm planning to let the canister run on a bucket of water (~10L) with a market prawn to allow bacteria to form in it, something like cycling a tank before connecting up to my 24G nano. Does that work? Or will I just be wasting my time and be better off connecting it straight to my tank?

4) Looking at my current setup, are there any other stuffs that i should be doing? Thinking of putting some Cheato into my 1st compartment, but looking for a way to get some light in there.

Side track 5) With regards to my Boyu skimmer, it doesnt seem to be foaming at the top... All i see are some bubbles that form and disappears after a few seconds, replaced by new bubbles. I've played around with the air and water adjustments but just cant seem to get foam to form at the top. Needless to say, no kopi O was brewed.

Also, any other advice and tips are very much appreciated.

Thanks very much in advance, i'm getting hooked and eager to learn!

[Fuzzy]

Livestock

- About 10 fishes including 2 clowns, a mandarin, 1 "box" fish, 1 porcelain crab, 1 turbo, 1 slug, 1 shrimp, 1 (cant remember the name, front yellow, rear half purple fish), i blue tank.

- 3 corals, 1 anemone, 1 star prop (spelling?), 1 mushroom.

Pumps and chillers

1 x 1200L/hr pulling water at the last overflow compartment behind my tank, drawing water into my 1/10HP chiller and then it gets fed from the chiller straight back into the tank.

1 x hydro K1 1500L/Hr wavemaker

1 x undergravel filter powered by a 600L/Hr pump (mainly for circulation, not my idea though)

Current filtration (overflow with 3 compartments)

1st Compartment: wool and sponge filter

2nd Compartment: Bottom is Ceramic Bio Rings, Sea Chem Phosguard and denitratedifier, and the top is BioHome plus.

3rd Compartment: Boyu Skimmer (need help here too), and the 1200L/Hr pump

My objectives are to keep nitrate and phosphate at the lowest (should i also strive for anything else? I'm really new at this.) and keep the water clear and clean (duh). Intending to keep fishes and corals, maybe a clam too.

So, to sum up:

1) What should go into my canister?

2) How should i connect it to my existing setup?

3) I'm planning to let the canister run on a bucket of water (~10L) with a market prawn to allow bacteria to form in it, something like cycling a tank before connecting up to my 24G nano. Does that work? Or will I just be wasting my time and be better off connecting it straight to my tank?

4) Looking at my current setup, are there any other stuffs that i should be doing? Thinking of putting some Cheato into my 1st compartment, but looking for a way to get some light in there.

Side track 5) With regards to my Boyu skimmer, it doesnt seem to be foaming at the top... All i see are some bubbles that form and disappears after a few seconds, replaced by new bubbles. I've played around with the air and water adjustments but just cant seem to get foam to form at the top. Needless to say, no kopi O was brewed.

You're using the JBJ 24G Nanocube?

With your setup you probably don't need the additional canister for filtration it would help, but also increase power consumption and add a bit of heat to the water, if you decide to use it, fill it with either biohome and/or liverock ONLY, don't use any filter wool or bio rings/bio balls in the canister.

I would add the intake where compartment 2 is, and redirect the output back to either compartment 1 or 3. Or you might want to look into adding a Fludized Reactor (FR) to the output of the canister and fill it with a phosphate removal product like RowaPhos.

Other ways to avoid introduction of phosphates would be to use only pure distilled or deionized water for your water top ups. And avoid using treated tapwater or mineral water (likely to contain phosphates in varying amounts.)

As for Nitrate removal or reduction the easier way is to avoid overfeeding your fish and do regular water changes (20% every 3 - 4 weeks)

Avoid Bio Rings and Bio balls at all costs for Marine, over time because of trapped detritus they will become nitrate producers instead of hosting denitrifying bacteria. Your existing bio rings may be the cause of your nitrate levels, you should remove them immediately and replace them with Biohome or live rock.

You probably will be fine just connecting your canister to tank without cycling it first. Adding bacteria (e.g. Seachem Stability) will speed up the colonization.

I've never heard of anyone running an undergravel filter for marine, don't know if its a good idea. Are you using live sand, or bare bottom for your tank?

Your bioload is quite high for a 24G, How many Kilograms of live rock do you have in there? You might want to invest in a better skimmer, the Airstone driven type which I'm guessing the Boyu is, is not effective.

Also you want to watch your Mandarin very closely to make sure its eating. They are quite fragile and require an large mature system to survive in.

They are very hard to keep alive in captivity and usually slowly starve to death as they need live copepods, and very rarely eat frozen or prepared food.

Additionally you might want to give away or remove the Anemone they are hard to keep alive in nano tanks, and even in many larger mature tanks. If they die they will most likely bomb your tank and crash it or cause serious damage to its inhabitants.

Hope this helps

[Fuzzy]

Oh and what kind of lighting does your hood have? You need very strong lights to keep clams alive, at least T5 High Output tubes, and you have to situate the clams close to the lights so they can photosynthesize.

[jeremywe]

Hi Fuzzy,

Sincere thanks for your detailed reply.

The canister has built in a pump on the top, would heat be introduced as the water travels through this additional loop?

As for the stuff that goes in, is there any reasons why we would want to avoid filter wool? The ceramic bio rings and bio home seem to work in the same way, as far as i understand (looks the same on the surface too). Why do we cast out the rings?

Previously, when i did top ups and minor water change, i've been using tap water (and only "aged" overnight), until i started reading up over here, i made a trip to the supermarket to grab some distilled water (Alpheus). However, it seems to throw my PH abit off balance. Before changing 15% yesterday, PH was at 7.8, after it seems to be 8.3. Luckily my PH was on the lower side before water change.

I'm using sand for the bottom of my tank, i do not think its live though, i didnt set it up, was at work the day my brother did it, will check it out. What are the considerations here?

I've got about 4kg of rocks in there. I'm not sure if they are live, however i bought them from the ponds of a fish farm in pasir ris. There seems to be a layer of purple coraline on some areas of the rocks too (been dosing purple up since 2 days ago). The skimmer has no external air or water pump, would this be considered airstone type? What other skimmers are recommended? I guess it would mean modification and additional equipments if i were to run the skimmer outside the tank?

The Mandarin has been in there for about a month now, one of the first few inhabitants. It seems to be occasionally picking stuffs off the rocks, how do i find out if he is eating? I'm also feeding the corals the 5-1 coral food made with rotifiers. Will this help in feeding the madarin?

As for the anemone, i've heard horror stories on this and i'm contemplating on removing it too, but its beautiful to appreciate the clown pair and the crab playing on it. Will this die gradually or within hours? Was thinking to monitor it closely and remove it when its nearly it's end. Any good way to tell if it's gonna up lorry? So far, as specific times of the day (late afternoon/evenings) the anemone would seem big and bloom, come midnight when we switch of the lights, it'll shrink to almost half its size.

It moved to be back of the tank once, but i shifted it front because it seemed like it got itself stuck in a reallllly tight spot within the rocks behind. When i placed it in front about 3 weeks ago, it slowly move to the nearest little cave in the rocks at the front of the tank and has been there ever since. It is still clearly visible from the front but i'm curious however, it means that it is actually vertical now, why does it like it this way? Most anemone i've seen are flat down on the surface.

Another query i have is that the snails seem to wipe so much algae off the tank that it poops all over the place since its introduction 4 days ago. Will it be alright to leave the poop to decompose, or it is advisable to suck whatever i can out using gravel cleaner? Just to further understand, if i leave them all to decompose, would it mean a spike in my Ammonia levels then Nitrite then Nitrate after 3-4 weeks? In other words, my beneficial bacterial in the tank aren't ready to handle that much decomposition and when it suddenly happens, i end up with lots of nitrate? I'm also using a stick in-tank ammonia level indicator, would this be a safe way of monitoring potential nitrite/nitrate spikes so i can take pre-emptive actions.

Many many thanks for the tips given. I apologies for the many questions asked as i would always like to understand why and how rather than simply taking in advices.

Cheers!

p.s.: heres a pic to my tank current (have added 2 x 10 cents coins of Jewel/flowpot since, given by a LFS). I've read that this is a difficult coral, and surprisingly, it bloomed and became 2x the size when i put them it. Also, i'm actually not sure if the rocks are 4kg, just a guesstimate.

You're using the JBJ 24G Nanocube?

With your setup you probably don't need the additional canister for filtration it would help, but also increase power consumption and add a bit of heat to the water, if you decide to use it, fill it with either biohome and/or liverock ONLY, don't use any filter wool or bio rings/bio balls in the canister.

I would add the intake where compartment 2 is, and redirect the output back to either compartment 1 or 3. Or you might want to look into adding a Fludized Reactor (FR) to the output of the canister and fill it with a phosphate removal product like RowaPhos.

Other ways to avoid introduction of phosphates would be to use only pure distilled or deionized water for your water top ups. And avoid using treated tapwater or mineral water (likely to contain phosphates in varying amounts.)

As for Nitrate removal or reduction the easier way is to avoid overfeeding your fish and do regular water changes (20% every 3 - 4 weeks)

Avoid Bio Rings and Bio balls at all costs for Marine, over time because of trapped detritus they will become nitrate producers instead of hosting denitrifying bacteria. Your existing bio rings may be the cause of your nitrate levels, you should remove them immediately and replace them with Biohome or live rock.

You probably will be fine just connecting your canister to tank without cycling it first. Adding bacteria (e.g. Seachem Stability) will speed up the colonization.

I've never heard of anyone running an undergravel filter for marine, don't know if its a good idea. Are you using live sand, or bare bottom for your tank?

Your bioload is quite high for a 24G, How many Kilograms of live rock do you have in there? You might want to invest in a better skimmer, the Airstone driven type which I'm guessing the Boyu is, is not effective.

Also you want to watch your Mandarin very closely to make sure its eating. They are quite fragile and require an large mature system to survive in.

They are very hard to keep alive in captivity and usually slowly starve to death as they need live copepods, and very rarely eat frozen or prepared food.

Additionally you might want to give away or remove the Anemone they are hard to keep alive in nano tanks, and even in many larger mature tanks. If they die they will most likely bomb your tank and crash it or cause serious damage to its inhabitants.

Hope this helps

[jeremywe]

Oh and what kind of lighting does your hood have? You need very strong lights to keep clams alive, at least T5 High Output tubes, and you have to situate the clams close to the lights so they can photosynthesize.

Tank is a BOYU MT-50.

I'm currently using the standard lighting that comes with it. Looks like florescence tubes (1 white and 1 blueish). 24W and 10000K are what i see written on the sides.

Lights are actually my next upcoming few topics for reading... I know nuts about them now, but the T5 does ring a bell as i've seen it written about here and there.

[Fuzzy]

No problem hope I can be of some help!

All Canisters / Pumps anything with a motor and moving parts will contribute some amount of heat to your water, but usually not a huge amount.

I suggested to avoid filter wool in the canister, as you already have mechanical filtration from the overflow, this way you shouldn't have to maintain your canister as often, because nothing to change inside.

The bio-rings will trap food and waste, which will add nitrates to your tank. Biohome or live rock will not do this as much and house more of the beneficial bacteria, that is why bio rings are not recommended for marine tanks they are ok for freshwater or planted tanks, because the plants will take up the nitrates. For marine tanks usually only water changes or expensive denitrators can do this

pH 8.3 is good! 7.8 is too low, the distilled water didn't increase your pH it is totally neutral, something is making your water acidic, possibly your antichlorine is sulphur based and lowering pH, if you give it a sniff you should smell it.

Live sand increases the amount of biological filtration you have in your tank, basically they serve the same purpose as having biohome in your overflow compartment. Dead sand will eventually become seeded with the beneficial bacteria from your live rock, it just takes longer. Looks like you got more than 4kg of live rock, good start!

Hmm if there is no air pump the skimmer is not an airstone type then, it is pump driven type, any manual on adjusting the amount of air intake? Consider the AquaC Remora, or the Tunze Nano 9002.

If you notice your mandarin starts to look skinny, or the stomach area seems a bit sunken, quickly give it away to a reefer with a mature tank, or an LFS which has tons of copepods in their tanks, that will be the only way to save the poor guy. I have never seen one that eats pellets, and very rarely hear of mandarins that will eat frozen food. The mandarin needs Copepods, it cannot eat rotifers. Such a pity they are so beautiful, but I don't want to have the death of one on my hands.

You shouldn't need to vacuum the gravel as long as you don't overfeed. If your biological filtration is all ok, and you don't add a lot of livestock at once or severely overfeed your fish, you should not experience any ammonia spike. Am guessing you're using the Seachem ammonia indicator? It works, but the problem is, by the time it changes colour, many of the tank inhabitants will probably already be dead, make sure you use water test kits as well, don't rely on the indicator.

Best way to monitor parameters is test kits. Try to test weekly.

Good brands of test kits you might want to try are Salifert or API (Tropic Marin if you're feeling more spendy).

I would suggest looking at the API REEF Master Test Kit to start with. It is quite accurate and easy to use.

Around a blue note for pH, Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite tests.

Hi Fuzzy,

Sincere thanks for your detailed reply.

The canister has built in a pump on the top, would heat be introduced as the water travels through this additional loop?

As for the stuff that goes in, is there any reasons why we would want to avoid filter wool? The ceramic bio rings and bio home seem to work in the same way, as far as i understand (looks the same on the surface too). Why do we cast out the rings?

Previously, when i did top ups and minor water change, i've been using tap water (and only "aged" overnight), until i started reading up over here, i made a trip to the supermarket to grab some distilled water (Alpheus). However, it seems to throw my PH abit off balance. Before changing 15% yesterday, PH was at 7.8, after it seems to be 8.3. Luckily my PH was on the lower side before water change.

I'm using sand for the bottom of my tank, i do not think its live though, i didnt set it up, was at work the day my brother did it, will check it out. What are the considerations here?

I've got about 4kg of rocks in there. I'm not sure if they are live, however i bought them from the ponds of a fish farm in pasir ris. There seems to be a layer of purple coraline on some areas of the rocks too (been dosing purple up since 2 days ago). The skimmer has no external air or water pump, would this be considered airstone type? What other skimmers are recommended? I guess it would mean modification and additional equipments if i were to run the skimmer outside the tank?

The Mandarin has been in there for about a month now, one of the first few inhabitants. It seems to be occasionally picking stuffs off the rocks, how do i find out if he is eating? I'm also feeding the corals the 5-1 coral food made with rotifiers. Will this help in feeding the madarin?

As for the anemone, i've heard horror stories on this and i'm contemplating on removing it too, but its beautiful to appreciate the clown pair and the crab playing on it. Will this die gradually or within hours? Was thinking to monitor it closely and remove it when its nearly it's end. Any good way to tell if it's gonna up lorry? So far, as specific times of the day (late afternoon/evenings) the anemone would seem big and bloom, come midnight when we switch of the lights, it'll shrink to almost half its size.

It moved to be back of the tank once, but i shifted it front because it seemed like it got itself stuck in a reallllly tight spot within the rocks behind. When i placed it in front about 3 weeks ago, it slowly move to the nearest little cave in the rocks at the front of the tank and has been there ever since. It is still clearly visible from the front but i'm curious however, it means that it is actually vertical now, why does it like it this way? Most anemone i've seen are flat down on the surface.

Another query i have is that the snails seem to wipe so much algae off the tank that it poops all over the place since its introduction 4 days ago. Will it be alright to leave the poop to decompose, or it is advisable to suck whatever i can out using gravel cleaner? Just to further understand, if i leave them all to decompose, would it mean a spike in my Ammonia levels then Nitrite then Nitrate after 3-4 weeks? In other words, my beneficial bacterial in the tank aren't ready to handle that much decomposition and when it suddenly happens, i end up with lots of nitrate? I'm also using a stick in-tank ammonia level indicator, would this be a safe way of monitoring potential nitrite/nitrate spikes so i can take pre-emptive actions.

Many many thanks for the tips given. I apologies for the many questions asked as i would always like to understand why and how rather than simply taking in advices.

Cheers!

p.s.: heres a pic to my tank current (have added 2 x 10 cents coins of Jewel/flowpot since, given by a LFS). I've read that this is a difficult coral, and surprisingly, it bloomed and became 2x the size when i put them it. Also, i'm actually not sure if the rocks are 4kg, just a guesstimate

[jeremywe]

Thanks for the reply once again Fuzzy..

Ok, i'll take your advice and place those bio homes in my canister then, but i dont think i'd be willing to spend that much $ to buy that much bio home to fill up my canister, i think it'll take about 2-3 kg worth of bio home. What else can i use as "space fillers"?

For PH, i aim to maintain at 8.2-8.4. When i checked before the water change, it was 7.8, but the day before the water change, it was about 8.0, not sure why it dropped. Anyway, i've done a search on the brand of DI water that i used, it seemed like some people who use that brand do experience PH increase also. Isnt DI supposed to be 7? Also, i didnt use any dechorinator. Was i supposed to? Since it was distilled, i assumed it was alright to use them straight out of the bottle immediately. Opps...

My Skimmer does have 2 adjustments on it. 1 controls the water level (pump), the other controls the air. I've played around with both, even opened the air one totally, and when i do that, the skimmer produces a "wook wook wook" sound, and you can see the water level moving up and down with each wook. However, i've read on the net that it the air should be lowered just to the point the growling wook wook sound stops. I've tried both, but still no Kopi O.

I would get a new and better skimmer, but the problem is that i'm not sure how to connect it to my system and where to put it since the current one fits just nice in the rear compartment.

Copepods... How do we get them? Is it difficult? Have read somewhere that a refugium or sump is needed. I might be embarking on a mini project to build a small one for my tank where i can place some macroalgae there or something to export the nutrients. Anyone has experience in this area for a small tank?

Right now, i'm a bit crazy, i tend to do some test everyday, if not every other day. I use only API kits. Reason why i keep testing is because i've been adding additives into the tank recently, is that OK? I use Purple up, Stress-Zyme, AZ-NO3, marine buffer (when needed - to bring up the PH to 8.3), the 5 in 1 coral food once a week

Cheers!

No problem hope I can be of some help!

All Canisters / Pumps anything with a motor and moving parts will contribute some amount of heat to your water, but usually not a huge amount.

I suggested to avoid filter wool in the canister, as you already have mechanical filtration from the overflow, this way you shouldn't have to maintain your canister as often, because nothing to change inside.

The bio-rings will trap food and waste, which will add nitrates to your tank. Biohome or live rock will not do this as much and house more of the beneficial bacteria, that is why bio rings are not recommended for marine tanks they are ok for freshwater or planted tanks, because the plants will take up the nitrates. For marine tanks usually only water changes or expensive denitrators can do this

pH 8.3 is good! 7.8 is too low, the distilled water didn't increase your pH it is totally neutral, something is making your water acidic, possibly your antichlorine is sulphur based and lowering pH, if you give it a sniff you should smell it.

Live sand increases the amount of biological filtration you have in your tank, basically they serve the same purpose as having biohome in your overflow compartment. Dead sand will eventually become seeded with the beneficial bacteria from your live rock, it just takes longer. Looks like you got more than 4kg of live rock, good start!

Hmm if there is no air pump the skimmer is not an airstone type then, it is pump driven type, any manual on adjusting the amount of air intake? Consider the AquaC Remora, or the Tunze Nano 9002.

If you notice your mandarin starts to look skinny, or the stomach area seems a bit sunken, quickly give it away to a reefer with a mature tank, or an LFS which has tons of copepods in their tanks, that will be the only way to save the poor guy. I have never seen one that eats pellets, and very rarely hear of mandarins that will eat frozen food. The mandarin needs Copepods, it cannot eat rotifers. Such a pity they are so beautiful, but I don't want to have the death of one on my hands.

You shouldn't need to vacuum the gravel as long as you don't overfeed. If your biological filtration is all ok, and you don't add a lot of livestock at once or severely overfeed your fish, you should not experience any ammonia spike. Am guessing you're using the Seachem ammonia indicator? It works, but the problem is, by the time it changes colour, many of the tank inhabitants will probably already be dead, make sure you use water test kits as well, don't rely on the indicator.

Best way to monitor parameters is test kits. Try to test weekly.

Good brands of test kits you might want to try are Salifert or API (Tropic Marin if you're feeling more spendy).

I would suggest looking at the API REEF Master Test Kit to start with. It is quite accurate and easy to use.

Around a blue note for pH, Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite tests.

[Fuzzy]

You don't have to buy bio home to fill the whole canister (yeah its $$$$ )

Can just use pieces of live rock to fill out the rest of the space.

No need to use dechlorinator with distilled or DI water, thought you were topping up with treated tap water.

Distilled and DeIonized water is all at pH 7 (i.e. totally neutral) but if you are using it to top up, it should not change your pH much, because the evaporated water

would have raised tank pH above the ideal range already.

And if you mix marine salt with Distilled or DI water for water changes, it should bring it back up to 8.2 - 8.4.

I'm not familiar with your model of tank, so you'll have to take measurements and check the dimensions of skimmers online, maybe if you post some pics of the skimmer, tank and compartment in the equipment section of the forum one of the more experienced reefers might be able to help.

Regular testing is good, but you might want to avoid dosing too much additives for now, especially in nano tanks. Purple Up and Marine Buffer should be ok, you shouldn't need to keep dosing Stress Zyme and you might want to hold back on the AZ-NO3 especially until you get your skimmer working properly, and just change 20% of your water every week for now.

Copepod cultures I think can buy from LFS, but not sure who is carrying, the problem is you need a refugium for them to grow in, if you just put them all into the main tank the Mandarin will whack almost all within a few days in a tank this size which is good for the fish, but might not be good on the wallet, heh.

I would seriously suggest to consider selling off the mandarin or giving him up for adoption to someone who has a huge mature tank full of pods for it.

You could probably figure out a way to add a sump or refugium to your tank, but IMO its really not worth the effort, Save money and just stick with this tank as it is and build up confidence, then upgrade to a bigger tank with a sump later.

Thanks for the reply once again Fuzzy..

Ok, i'll take your advice and place those bio homes in my canister then, but i dont think i'd be willing to spend that much $ to buy that much bio home to fill up my canister, i think it'll take about 2-3 kg worth of bio home. What else can i use as "space fillers"?

For PH, i aim to maintain at 8.2-8.4. When i checked before the water change, it was 7.8, but the day before the water change, it was about 8.0, not sure why it dropped. Anyway, i've done a search on the brand of DI water that i used, it seemed like some people who use that brand do experience PH increase also. Isnt DI supposed to be 7? Also, i didnt use any dechorinator. Was i supposed to? Since it was distilled, i assumed it was alright to use them straight out of the bottle immediately. Opps...

My Skimmer does have 2 adjustments on it. 1 controls the water level (pump), the other controls the air. I've played around with both, even opened the air one totally, and when i do that, the skimmer produces a "wook wook wook" sound, and you can see the water level moving up and down with each wook. However, i've read on the net that it the air should be lowered just to the point the growling wook wook sound stops. I've tried both, but still no Kopi O.

I would get a new and better skimmer, but the problem is that i'm not sure how to connect it to my system and where to put it since the current one fits just nice in the rear compartment.

Copepods... How do we get them? Is it difficult? Have read somewhere that a refugium or sump is needed. I might be embarking on a mini project to build a small one for my tank where i can place some macroalgae there or something to export the nutrients. Anyone has experience in this area for a small tank?

Right now, i'm a bit crazy, i tend to do some test everyday, if not every other day. I use only API kits. Reason why i keep testing is because i've been adding additives into the tank recently, is that OK? I use Purple up, Stress-Zyme, AZ-NO3, marine buffer (when needed - to bring up the PH to 8.3), the 5 in 1 coral food once a week

Cheers!

[jeremywe]

Thanks Fuzzy,

My skimmer finally worked and foamed, after a month +. The foam is white (maybe a little, just a little greenish) and not greenish or brownish, but there is foam forming on the top of the inverted conical cylinder of the skimmer. So thats good news anyhow.

Its funny why my nitrate is always at 20 even though i change about 10-15% of water every week.

As for the food for my Mandarin, when i switched off all my pumps, i noticed tiny little white specks of what seemed like dirt moving around. When they move it looks like they move and stop, move and stop in quick repetitions. Those are pods right? Food for the mandarin, i hope.

Oh yea, my anemone just split into 2 smaller pieces. Good news i hope.

You don't have to buy bio home to fill the whole canister (yeah its $$$$ )

Can just use pieces of live rock to fill out the rest of the space.

No need to use dechlorinator with distilled or DI water, thought you were topping up with treated tap water.

Distilled and DeIonized water is all at pH 7 (i.e. totally neutral) but if you are using it to top up, it should not change your pH much, because the evaporated water

would have raised tank pH above the ideal range already.

And if you mix marine salt with Distilled or DI water for water changes, it should bring it back up to 8.2 - 8.4.

I'm not familiar with your model of tank, so you'll have to take measurements and check the dimensions of skimmers online, maybe if you post some pics of the skimmer, tank and compartment in the equipment section of the forum one of the more experienced reefers might be able to help.

Regular testing is good, but you might want to avoid dosing too much additives for now, especially in nano tanks. Purple Up and Marine Buffer should be ok, you shouldn't need to keep dosing Stress Zyme and you might want to hold back on the AZ-NO3 especially until you get your skimmer working properly, and just change 20% of your water every week for now.

Copepod cultures I think can buy from LFS, but not sure who is carrying, the problem is you need a refugium for them to grow in, if you just put them all into the main tank the Mandarin will whack almost all within a few days in a tank this size which is good for the fish, but might not be good on the wallet, heh.

I would seriously suggest to consider selling off the mandarin or giving him up for adoption to someone who has a huge mature tank full of pods for it.

You could probably figure out a way to add a sump or refugium to your tank, but IMO its really not worth the effort, Save money and just stick with this tank as it is and build up confidence, then upgrade to a bigger tank with a sump later.