Transported and reset 60g drilled tank, now what?

[Reefedup]

I just bought and moved an established 60 gallon tank and 20+- gal sump. The tank had about 30lbs of LR, 30lbs of crushed coral, the sump is completely full with about 40lbs of LR rubble in every chamber. It has a mag 7 pump, a powerhead, and an extra powerhead (not in the tank yet.) I'm using my 24" t5's until my led light comes in. During the move I kept about 40gal of the tank water and rushed to reset the tank, it took me about 4hrs from takedown til reset. To make things fast and do little harm as possible I reset it just as it was at the PO's house. So far it's been 4 days and everything but a snail has survived and appears healthy.

The tank came with the following. And please excuse my newbie ignorance.
4 small chromis
1 tang
1 sand sifting star
10-12 blue and red leg hermit crabs
5 snails

Tank dimensions are 48lx18wx16h
Sump is 30x12x16

So far my issue is high nitrate and algae after only 4 days. I'm definitely not over feeding so I'm wondering why nitrate would spike so soon? Could It be from stirring the LR with moving and releasing all the detriment. All I have for filter is filter pad and carbon pad before the rock sump.

Many more ?'s to come

 

[Reefedup]

I should also mention future plans. I'd like to eventually have a mandarin goby, a few other fish ytbd, and some lps coral. I'd like to have a stable, simple filtration system to support once a month WC. I'd rather not set up my coralife skimmer as it randomly overflowed. I don't feel that the sump is currently up to its potential, I'd like to move some of that rubble to the DT. I'm guessing that'll require more flow to avoid dead spots? I'm also waiting til I know what to do with the sump. I'd like it to house copods and such for mandarin food. I'm thinking refugium or algae scrubber. I should be getting my orbit marine lighting later today. I realize it's not the best, but I think it'll work great for what I'm doing and the fact that my tank is shallow, lps should be fine. I hope it's also strong enough to support the coralline algae that's currently growing. I'm also hoping to get a RO filter.

Any advice or pics of well established setups will be greatly appreciated. Please only share advice if you've had long term success. I don't want to change the system every few months. I went down that road 5 years ago.

 

[tjgr34]

First, the Orbit is a very solid light and will definitely be sufficient to sustain coralline growth in your tank. I think it will probably be fine for low light LPS, too, but it might be worth sticking to softies until the tank gets settled.

Second, is it possible that the nitrates were already high before you took ownership of the tank? Even if not, transporting it almost certainly stirred up a bunch of detritus that had been trapped in various crevices. I think that water changes are the most certain way to bring nitrates down, but you need to be sure that your source water is nitrate-free or you may be shooting yourself in the foot. An algae scrubber would also help. For the Algae that's already in the tank- think of pulling it out of the tank as an old-school nitrate removal method!

Finally, mandarins are a bunch of work. Good luck with everything! I'll be tagging along.

Edit: I'm not a hermit crab fan and would try to get rid of them in favor of snails!

 

[Reefedup]

So I got a chance to hook up the orbit LEDs and I gotta say so far I love them. Haven't had time to play with the adjustments yet, but I like the shimmer effect, and everything in the tank pops. It's like having a high def tank. As far as keeping softies I think you're right, that's probably as far as I'll take it.Any thoughts on moving the LR rubble to the DT, it's full of life and I think it'll be good for the future mandarin. It's mostly golf ball size or smaller. Then it will clear up a chamber for the refugium and heater.

 

[tjgr34]

The only drawback from moving the rubble to the DT is aesthetic. If the look doesn't bother you, then I'd say you should do it.

 

[Reefedup]

My main rockscaping is centered in the tank so I'll place a rubble field of sorts behind it. I'll also carefull place some in the large cavelike voids to create more hiding spaces, hopefully not dead space. I'll try to post some pics soon, probably with lights out. The camera only seems to pick up on the blue from the LEDs.

It's funny that you mentioned about the snails, I just got home from work and looks like I'm about to lose another one. Are they ph sensitive? That was the only test reading I was concerned with at 7.8. But I also noticed dozens of baby snails scattered around. Don't really know what to think about that.

 

[Reefedup]

I lost a snail and a chromis this morning, the crabs had the fish picked clean by the time I got up this afternoon. I added an auto feeder today, it's hard to feed them regularly on my shift. Hoping the loss wasn't from under feeding, I tested the water again just incase.

Ph 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 15
What else should I be testing for at this point?

 

[Reefedup]

Thought i'd try some pics.

 

[tjgr34]

My experience with snails, and most other sessile inverts, is that they're more sensitive to rapid parameter changes than are other organisms. 7.8 is low for pH, but I don't know if it's enough to kill snails by itself. What's your salinity at?

You could get a six line wrasse to help keep the baby snails in check. The only problems I've ever had with them is that their shells will sometimes get stuck in impellers and pump bodies. You know when that happens pretty immediately by the sound, and it's not too hard to fix.

 

[Reefedup]

The salinity is 1.024. The baby snails aren't a problem yet, I don't know how fast they grow and when to thin them out. I did however count at least 18 crabs today, probably thin them down soon. They have been keeping things clean though.

 

[Reef Junky150]

Once those snails get large enough the crabs will take care of them for you. Hermits are good for killing snails and taking their shells

 

[Reefedup]

I noticed that, I think that's what happened. I watched one today in a big snail shell it could barely keep its balance. Murder for excess, it came from Detroit that's the way of the game I guess.

I installed my attempt at a horizontal algae scrubber, hopefully it works out in the next few weeks. I was gonna do the waterfall but that would involve removing a lot more liverock from the sump. If it doesn't work out I'll make room for some macro algae.

 

[Reef Junky150]

I've been running my newly set up one for 3 weeks. No change yet but have heard a month or two pending circumstances. So keep in mind you may not see the changes your looking for in a few weeks. Be patient. Everyone I have talked to loves them so I am giving it a go. Will run for up to six months if no results going back to gfo and bio pellets.

 

[Reefedup]

I'm just hoping to see some growth in the next few weeks, hopefully I'm on the right track. I don't see a lot of horizontal skimmers. Is yours a diy? Any growth yet? Cfl or led lighting?

And thanks for the advice guys, it took me 5 years to try this again and a lot has changed.

 

[tjgr34]

Yeah, what's your scrubber look like?

 

[Reefedup]

My ats is an old pond filter box with roughed up mesh on the bottom fed by a small pump, a 20w cfl and plexi cover. I've cleaned it once and now I'm seeing a little gha growth. The pic is after about 3 days, I have more growth now. I'll give it a few more weeks, if nothing more grows I'll try a new light. If that fails I'll give the protein skimmer another try.