10 Gallon Tank Help

[NanaReefer]

First of all stop stirring up your sand bed. I asked what substrate you used because I too have been battling a very similar issue in my 2 plus year old tank. I also used Live Sand.
At first it was like a rust colored dusting on the substrate & glass. I would gently stir the SB, hoping to displace what I thought were Diatoms.
As time passed things got worse. It started to turn into slimy stringy stuff. I'm thinking it's a non-toxic form of Dinoflagellates.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

all like rock is aragonite. its a stony coral. a skeleton. ten to a thousand year old or more depending on the source. I have some that has petrified staghorn in its. like petrified wood its crystallized. a fossil.
so all live rock is coral and aragonite sand in the bottom of your tank..

if you put that dried bone in salt water at a specific Ph there's a chemical reaction that dissolves the old bone. we know it usually as buffering. its ion discharge and elements are released into the water. some organisms like dinos like those and bloom. one is silicate the other is fluoride. those generally get skimmed and used up pretty quickly and the populations of organisms that feed on them disappear. gfo and carbon can be used to pull out excess of a lot of those apparently but make sure you watch the nutrients no and po and don't overstrip the food for the corals.

this is the same thing that happens in a calcium reactor but the ph is much lower so the bone dissolves much quicker as well as all the other elements present in the bone.

#scienceissilly

 

[alex&fish]

First of all stop stirring up your sand bed. I asked what substrate you used because I too have been battling a very similar issue in my 2 plus year old tank. I also used Live Sand.
At first it was like a rust colored dusting on the substrate & glass. I would gently stir the SB, hoping to displace what I thought were Diatoms.
As time passed things got worse. It started to turn into slimy stringy stuff. I'm thinking it's a non-toxic form of Dinoflagellates.

if you put that dried bone in salt water at a specific Ph there's a chemical reaction that dissolves the old bone. we know it usually as buffering. its ion discharge and elements are released into the water. some organisms like dinos like those and bloom. one is silicate the other is fluoride. those generally get skimmed and used up pretty quickly and the populations of organisms that feed on them disappear. gfo and carbon can be used to pull out excess of a lot of those apparently but make sure you watch the nutrients no and po and don't overstrip the food for the corals.

#scienceissilly

Thank you for the great info! Definitely learning a bunch. Here are some better pictures of the tank.

Thoughts? I am feeding during the pictures

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Thank you for the great info! Definitely learning a bunch. Here are some better pictures of the tank.

Thoughts? I am feeding during the pictures

first though. Patience.
hopefully that green on the rock is coralline getting ready to explode, I think thatll help.
Second you can run gfo and carbon to pull out silicates if you decide to keeping an eye on nutrients. If you have access to a microscope there's some folks on r2r that can help with an id. get a little variety of snails for cuc to see if they eat it up.
and are those snail shells empty ones for crabs? dead snails have a lot of nasties in them including the nasties that they are hired to clean up.

 

[alex&fish]

first though. Patience.
hopefully that green on the rock is coralline getting ready to explode, I think thatll help.
Second you can run gfo and carbon to pull out silicates if you decide to keeping an eye on nutrients. If you have access to a microscope there's some folks on r2r that can help with an id. get a little variety of snails for cuc to see if they eat it up.
and are those snail shells empty ones for crabs? dead snails have a lot of nasties in them including the nasties that they are hired to clean up.

Super happy to hear that is coralline, my last tank never had a chance of forming its own coralline, only maintained on rocks bought with it for short time (had way weaker light) so I am not used to how long it takes/steps in forming.

I do remove dead snails, but normally I give them a few days of being flipped over and placed on rocks to check to see if they start moving? Should I remove them quicker? I figured it would take a few days to break down before releasing chemicals?

 

[TheEngineer]

The sniff test will tell you if they're dead. Nothing quite like it.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Super happy to hear that is coralline, my last tank never had a chance of forming its own coralline, only maintained on rocks bought with it for short time (had way weaker light) so I am not used to how long it takes/steps in forming.

I do remove dead snails, but normally I give them a few days of being flipped over and placed on rocks to check to see if they start moving? Should I remove them quicker? I figured it would take a few days to break down before releasing chemicals?

no, it pretty quick. I get em out.

 

[alex&fish]

They didn't smell, one quickly reattached to wall when held near by other one didn't attach but did emerge slightly...

May be silly question but if I do go get larger clean up crew, with large variety of type of snails, what do I get? My LFS orders me anything but I don't really want to ask him to get me one of every type of snail he has, what if it's like 50!? Should I get 10? 5?

Any ones I should definitely avoid?


Another question, if the tank is cycling, many have now recommended I do not stir up the sand, does that mean not disrupting what is growing on the dragon breath algae? Should I remove the dragon breath? I got the algae as I figured it would be a competitor in removing bad excess nutrients....

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

They didn't smell, one quickly reattached to wall when held near by other one didn't attach but did emerge slightly...

May be silly question but if I do go get larger clean up crew, with large variety of type of snails, what do I get? My LFS orders me anything but I don't really want to ask him to get me one of every type of snail he has, what if it's like 50!? Should I get 10? 5?

Any ones I should definitely avoid?


Another question, if the tank is cycling, many have now recommended I do not stir up the sand, does that mean not disrupting what is growing on the dragon breath algae? Should I remove the dragon breath? I got the algae as I figured it would be a competitor in removing bad excess nutrients....

uggg. clean the sand IMO. shallow sand clean dsb dont imo ime see the debates.https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-does-everyone-vaccum-there-sand-bed.271627/
id shake the heck outta that dragons breath. it wont get enough light with the funk on it.


i would go diverese but not too many as they do out compete. very few crabs.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/choosing-cleanup-crew-critters.258695/

 

[Rick.45cal]

when you shake the dragon's breath do it in a bucket of tank water, don't do it in the tank. That way your remove as much of them as you can, instead of just spreading them around. Then replace the water in the tank with some fresh saltwater.

Since no one has asked, I will. What are you using for top off water/ waterchange water? Are you making your own 0 TDS (total dissolved solids) deionized water? Are you buying your water from somewhere else? If so where and what is it. The fuel those guys are growing on might be coming from your source water.

 

[alex&fish]

when you shake the dragon's breath do it in a bucket of tank water, don't do it in the tank. That way your remove as much of them as you can, instead of just spreading them around. Then replace the water in the tank with some fresh saltwater.

Since no one has asked, I will. What are you using for top off water/ waterchange water? Are you making your own 0 TDS (total dissolved solids) deionized water? Are you buying your water from somewhere else? If so where and what is it. The fuel those guys are growing on might be coming from your source water.

Didn't think of shaking off the dragon breath outside the tank, I had been trying to do it in my net and then cleaning the net afterwards (which was challenging). Definitely a great suggestion. Thanks!

For water changes I do my weekly gallon changes (or when doing larger changes such as 50 or 70% changes) I get the water from my LFS, they have a large RO thing that they use to create their salt water. Between my weekly gallon changes I do a liter or 2 L change with salt water made by myself with DI water bought and Aqua Vitro brand salinity.


I have been chatting with the local fish store guy, he is just recommending high volume water changes, periodic light out times. He also says I could go for something more strong and overkill to try and get ride of the gunk, like with a UV sterilizer, but aren't those just to clear up green cloudy water, no kill gunk growing off sand/rock/walls?

 

[Rick.45cal]

Tough call, without producing the source water yourself you are kind of at the mercy as to whether they have changed their filters/membranes, and their deionization beds with as they are supposed to. I'm not saying blame your LFS, what I am saying is that you just really don't know, and there may not be a polite way to ask. If it were me, I would invest in a TDS meter and a silicate test kit and start checking my DI water. Just to be sure.

Major advantage to owning your own RO/DI unit is knowing it's maintanence history and it's performance limits.

If your make up water is 0 TDS and silicate free then they are getting fuel from something else. Are there any additives that you are using currently?

 

[alex&fish]

Tough call, without producing the source water yourself you are kind of at the mercy as to whether they have changed their filters/membranes, and their demonization beds with as they are supposed to. I'm not saying blame your LFS, what I am saying is that you just really don't know, and there may not be a polite way to ask. If it were me, I would invest in a TDS meter and a silicate test kit and start checking my DI water. Just to be sure.

Major advantage to owning your own RO/DI unit is knowing it's maintanence history and it's performance limits.

If your make up water is 0 TDS and silicate free then they are getting fuel from something else. Are there any additives that you are using currently?

Besides feeding, water changes I have only added Seachem Stability and Seachem Pristine to the tank, both after 70% or 50% respectively water changes. No other additives as parameters have read zero or WNLs, besides yesterday having 0.25 of ammonia so have not added much in fear of adjusting those. The Stability and Pristine were only added with the theory that something in my system needed to change with my gunk problem in regards to proportion or amount of different bacteria and such so after recent large water changes these were added depending on size of water chagnge as mentioned above.

 

[Rick.45cal]

I doubt those are adding anything that would be causing them. There's nothing wrong with adding a bacteria source, or even several different ones, but do remember that some of those bacteria often times can turn into brown snotty looking slimy stuff themselves as their population increases. So you do have to be careful not to overdo them either.

I think likely it is just being a new tank and the biology of the tank needs to find an equilibrium between all the ugly gunk that you don't like looking at, and all the beneficial bacteria and good stuff you do like looking at.

Maybe diversifying your clean up crew and adding a few new members will help a bit too.

There is no substitute for time in this hobby! Shortcuts nearly always result in heartache!

 

[alex&fish]

First of all stop stirring up your sand bed. I asked what substrate you used because I too have been battling a very similar issue in my 2 plus year old tank. I also used Live Sand.
At first it was like a rust colored dusting on the substrate & glass. I would gently stir the SB, hoping to displace what I thought were Diatoms.
As time passed things got worse. It started to turn into slimy stringy stuff. I'm thinking it's a non-toxic form of Dinoflagellates.

If it is similar to what you have how have you combated it? I see for you it is primarily focused on your sand bed but mine seems to enjoy attaching to my kenya tree and dragon breath algae making it close up and be unsightly and completely covered respectively.

Your corals appear to be doing well and not minding the presence of the Dinoflagellates???


So I decided to move my dragon breath in front of my power head to blow off the gunk (see picture), has helped some, less growth occurred today (this picture was taken right before white went out) normally there would have been 2+ inch long strands coming off every where.

My kenya tree though suffered today. It is the white pink blob about one inch to the left of the bottom most portion of the dragon breath in the picture. Normally it opens up decently in the morning (or a bit after a cleaning) and then shrinks down in the evening after gunk strands have built up around it. Today I never saw it expanded out, possibly from less light or dragon breath moving around it but I never saw it actually touch?