Want to use ChemiClean and have some questions

[brandon429]

The assessment comes from living and breathing pico reefs since the first post about them on the internet. Lighting intensity is top cause, second is impure topoff water, in order of likelihood. Large tankers aren't used to handling pico reefs in ways specific to pico reefs, they're used to having to tinker with dosers meds params and tests and then hoping something works

Learning how to disassembly- clean your tank the right way is the single best trick for pico reef lifespan above all. It's also the safest way to handle issues in them

Post a pic of your setup

 

[testuser]

My best advice to you is slow down. There are always unintended and unexpected consequences to what we do to our tanks. The tank must find balance. Every time you "do" something, you make it find balance again.

I look forward to a tank picture, it is often very helpful for making suggestions.

Sounds good, I won't jump the gun and keep the treatment handy for in the future potentially (we will see if ever).

The best way I can describe it is that overnight while the light is out, I get random brown patches on the sand where there are some dead spots with the flow. Then, on all of the rocks and all over the sand, there are long, red, stringy things (I assumed cyano) by about midday. I'll take a picture in the afternoon so it's at full mast. Hopefully that detail helps in the meantime.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Funny story about my first and only chemi-clean run.

The only airstone I had was a unused limewood stone from an old Mame skimmer.

I plopped it in, dosed, and went to sleep. The next morning I saw something large floating in my tank with long dangling tentacles.

It was my serpent star. However it happened, he had filled with air like a balloon, floated to the top and was in a corner slowly spinning in the current that bounced from one corner to the next.

Unsure of what to do I plucked him out and gently expressed the air inside him and put him back.

He lived another year and a half.

The chemi-clean however, only worked momentarily. The root issue put cyano right back in my tank after a few days.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Sounds good, I won't jump the gun and keep the treatment handy for in the future potentially (we will see if ever).

The best way I can describe it is that overnight while the light is out, I get random brown patches on the sand where there are some dead spots with the flow. Then, on all of the rocks and all over the sand, there are long, red, stringy things (I assumed cyano) by about midday. I'll take a picture in the afternoon so it's at full mast. Hopefully that detail helps in the meantime.

This sounds suspiciously like either dinos or a combination of dinos and cyano.

 

[testuser]

The assessment comes from living and breathing pico reefs since the first post about them on the internet. Lighting intensity is top cause, second is impure topoff water, in order of likelihood. Large tankers aren't used to handling pico reefs in ways specific to pico reefs, they're used to having to tinker with dosers meds params and tests and then hoping something works

Learning how to disassembly- clean your tank the right way is the single best trick for pico reef lifespan above all. It's also the safest way to handle issues in them

Post a pic of your setup

What wattage and duration throughout the day would you recommend for lighting? I use a NICREW 30w with a fixed gooseneck above the water. I set the blue lighting to 50% and the white light to 20%. The light runs from 8am to 7pm. What parameters would you suggest for my light setup in general (cyano or not)?

 

[brandon429]

Post a pic of your setup it’s helpful to see what we are working with

 

[Akreefnewguy]

What would your suggestion be for cyano upsetting the corals? It's agitating my micromussa a good bit. Anything I can do there other than wait it out, try and solve the nutrient imbalance, and hope?

Cyano won't harm your live stock unless it suffocate it , basting it will keep it fine. Also chemiclean will work great if you fallow all directions and if you can't generate enough 02 with your pump buy a small air pump and stone it will be worth the purchase to complete it properly. With that said. I just ran chemiclean 2 weeks ago on my 10 gal, it took 5 full days . I followed directions and actually did a 50% water change. 3 days after the rest was gone. I've sense done a 20% change and cleaned filters both times. I still get chemiclean bubbles at the top of the tank. So do be prepared yo do multiple water changes over a few weeks to fully clean it out.

 

[Akreefnewguy]

Ah and I'm sure you no chemiclean is just a quick bandaid, you have a nutrition problem. I've switched from flake food to mysis , much more controllable, a few week ill no if it worked.

 

[testuser]

Post a pic of your setup it’s helpful to see what we are working with

Sure, here you both go (@jabberwock).

This is a picture at night, the calm before the storm. If there's anything glaring, please let me know. I'll take a picture when the cyano carpeting is unfurled by the afternoon tomorrow.

 

[jabberwock]

Sure, here you both go (@jabberwock).

This is a picture at night, the calm before the storm. If there's anything glaring, please let me know. I'll take a picture when the cyano carpeting is unfurled by the afternoon tomorrow.

Yeah, I just think it is early in your journey. Looking forward to the next pic.

 

[brandon429]

Heck that's not bad no action needed currently. Lighting is too long, shorten to nine hours total and reduce whites pretty much all the way leaving only blues, or at most 1% whites. That's how a new tank should look, reducing lights will help

Only use distilled water or verified ro/di for prep and topoff water

The rocks are starting to get algae as a base and if you'll just continue on with less light it'll likely not progress into needing a deep clean for the time being. You could also raise the light to reduce its focal strength

 

[testuser]

Heck that's not bad no action needed currently. Lighting is too long, shorten to nine hours total and reduce whites pretty much all the way leaving only blues, or at most 1% whites. That's how a new tank should look, reducing lights will help

Only use distilled water or verified ro/di for prep and topoff water

The rocks are starting to get algae as a base and if you'll just continue on with less light it'll likely not progress into needing a deep clean for the time being. You could also raise the light to reduce its focal strength

Oh just you wait until tomorrow afternoon

That sounds like a good checklist. Like with anything, I'll gradually lower the light over the next couple of days and shorten the duration of the lighting as well.

For water, I make my own RODI, and I test to ensure 0 TDS.

Yeah, I feel like that started with the algae on the rocks within the past couple of weeks and was concerned. And that sounds good. I'll see if the gooseneck is fixed and if it can be raised any higher or not.

Thank you, and I'll post the other pic tomorrow!

 

[Seansea]

Not dure about pico tanks but i use chemiclean all the time. Knocks cyano right out. Corals seem a little jacked for a couole days but when your done they look better than before.

I would star a little fuge for this thing of some type. Give algaeba preferable place to grow than your tank. Unless you do regular water changes maybe that will do it. Never kept a tank this small.

 

[billyocean]

It's hard to tell from the pics but are those diatoms or dinos and not cyan

 

[Akreefnewguy]

It's hard to tell from the pics but are those diatoms or dinos and not cyan

I was thinking the same looks like dino

 

[billyocean]

The whole "it gets worse during the day" has me thinking dinos but not sure.

 

[revhtree]

Always had good results from Chemi-Clean!

 

[testuser]

Heck that's not bad no action needed currently. Lighting is too long, shorten to nine hours total and reduce whites pretty much all the way leaving only blues, or at most 1% whites. That's how a new tank should look, reducing lights will help

Only use distilled water or verified ro/di for prep and topoff water

The rocks are starting to get algae as a base and if you'll just continue on with less light it'll likely not progress into needing a deep clean for the time being. You could also raise the light to reduce its focal strength

As promised, here are a few pictures with the actinic lighting off so it can be seen better. Also, a lot of snail poop, but I clean that up as much as I can each day. Yes, I know some of my coral is sad, that's another issue with my phosphates that I'm trying to correct (and could be related to this, too).

It looks a bit different with the actinic lighting off, and since it's not a video you don't see it swaying, but this was only with the lights on for 3 hours.

 

[brandon429]

Altering phosphates up or down isn't ideal. It'll cause dinos and or green hair algae tradeoff invasions

The way you feed the tank should change and include less intervals the corals are fed and the food is left to fully rot in the tank, and more times that corals are spot fed a day before a big water change, then the systemic phosphates won't even need testing as the feed + water change closer intervals streamlines things and makes corals grow better and doesn't cause tradeoff invasion issues.

Study this

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[testuser]

Altering phosphates up or down isn't ideal. It'll cause dinos and or green hair algae tradeoff invasions

The way you feed the tank should change and include less intervals the corals are fed and the food is left to fully rot in the tank, and more times that corals are spot fed a day before a big water change, then the systemic phosphates won't even need testing as the feed + water change closer intervals streamlines things and makes corals grow better and doesn't cause tradeoff invasion issues.

Study this

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

So you're saying to feed daily with LPS pellets (in this case at least, that's what I have, and Reef Roids) and to let them decay for any amount unconsumed as opposed to dosing?