Ask Nano Questions and Find Information (Nano Expert Albert Thiel)

[reefobsessed]

Hi Albert, I have a question regarding my 29 bio cube. I am using the middle compartment for a refugium. I have rubble rock and spagetti maco in it, but hair algae has taken it over. I remove it manually but am losing the spagetti in the process. I have no hair algae in the main part of the tank and my LFS said I will get the same result with the hair algae as I do with the spagetti algae. They both remove nitrates. I have been thinking of taking this out and using this space for a media basket with purigen and chemipure elite. I have no skimmer on the tank, I do 4gal water changes weekly. All my paramiters are good. Everything is doing great, so should I just leave it alone? I have to get your nano book!!! When I first go into saltwater 15 years ago I went by your advise in your earlier books. I bet when I get this book I won't have as many questions. Thanks for your help.

 

[Wkrout]

Hello I also have a 29 biocube ( modified ) and I run chemipure elite and purigen in my media rack and run tunze 9002 my question is am I doing harm by running the skimmer 24/7 ? And I am doing 1 1/2 gallon water change every other day not sure if that's over kill or not but that's why I ask if protein skimmer needed

 

[zoasaholic]

I guess depend on bioload.My 29 biocube i have 2 clown,1 fire fish and 1watchman and lots of corals,zoas,sps,chalices,lps.I just do a water change 5g every week.i have tunze 9002 skimmer.stop using it because it doesnt collect anything.i run 24/7 GFO reactor

 

[rroselavy]

I have a 20H that is establishing a cycle now. I have a shallow 3/4" fine aragonite (0.5-1.0mm) sand bed, but I am thinking about replacing it with courser 1.0mm-2.0mm aragonite so I can have higher flow to without as much sand movement. Would I be excluding most sand-sifting fish and inverts by using the courser sand?

Thanks!

 

[alberthiel]

Not a problem Albert, it's great to have you back and answering our questions but even greater to know you are doing well and getting better.

Welcome back.

Thanks ... for some reason I seem to not receive notifications when new messages are posted in my thread and can't figure out why ... so I must have missed quite a few ... but trying to figure it out.

Happy Holidays to all Members and their families

Albert

 

[alberthiel]

Guys I need help...
not sure whats going on. keeping up with my 2x a wk water changes in order to lower my Nitrates
but I tested my water today and I'm still not right.
Results:
SG - 1.026 (Dope)
ph - 8.3 (Perfect)
Ammonia- 0.25 (NO GOOD)
Nitrite - 0 ppm (NICE!!)
Nitrate - 20 maybe 40 ppm , hard to tell color was close (NO BUENO)

I cut my feeding to once a day. Gonna cut it to every other day now and see if it drops.
My skiimer is putting in work. I see it collecting, not as much as I would like but its working. I left it running while I did my water change and moved around the live sand and it almost filled the collection cup which lets me know my substrate is really dirty but I don't know what else to do besides what I'm doing.
Any other suggestions?[/QUOTE

Is your tank fully cycled or did something die off ...seems like if you have ammonia something happened ...

Are you overfeeding maybe ?

And yes your S.G, is a tad high .. what are you using to measure if if I may ask (plastic swing arm vial or refractometer and if the latter did you recently calibrate it) ?

Let me have some more details pls and I will try to help

Sorry for the late reply but for some reason I have not been receiving notifications from the forum so I missed quite a few messages.

Happy Holidays to you and your Family

Albert

 

[alberthiel]

Hi Albert, I have a question regarding my 29 bio cube. I am using the middle compartment for a refugium. I have rubble rock and spagetti maco in it, but hair algae has taken it over. I remove it manually but am losing the spagetti in the process. I have no hair algae in the main part of the tank and my LFS said I will get the same result with the hair algae as I do with the spagetti algae. They both remove nitrates. I have been thinking of taking this out and using this space for a media basket with purigen and chemipure elite. I have no skimmer on the tank, I do 4gal water changes weekly. All my paramiters are good. Everything is doing great, so should I just leave it alone? I have to get your nano book!!! When I first go into saltwater 15 years ago I went by your advise in your earlier books. I bet when I get this book I won't have as many questions. Thanks for your help.

Can you let me know what your parameters are as it seems that if you are getting hair algae you may have too high nutrient levels

And NO, hair algae will not do a good job or nearly as good a job as Chaetomorpha which is what I assume you have. Those are the ones that really help in cleaning the NO3 and PO4 down somewhat.

Hair algae remove some too but no where near as much.

Send me some info about your tank parameters and I may be able to help some more

And sorry for the late reply but I have not been getting notifications from the forum that I had messages for some reason .. trying to figure it out .. in fact I cannot even find the link to my thread on the main forum listing for some reason ... not sure what is going on but we are trying to figure it out

Happy Holidays to your and your Family

Albert

 

[alberthiel]

Hello I also have a 29 biocube ( modified ) and I run chemipure elite and purigen in my media rack and run tunze 9002 my question is am I doing harm by running the skimmer 24/7 ? And I am doing 1 1/2 gallon water change every other day not sure if that's over kill or not but that's why I ask if protein skimmer needed

That is fine .. one should run one's skimmer 24/7 and doing more frequent water changes is ok as long as the parameters of the water used are the same as in the tank for s.g., temp, Ca, Mg, pH and KH ... so if that is the case you are just fine.

No all those water changes are not overkill although once a week is probably enough ... Is your skimmer producing good solid foam ? If so there is matter in the water to be removed and it is doing so.

Sorry for the later reply ... I seem not to get notifications from the forum about new messages for some reason and cannot figure out why ..

Happy Holidays to you and your Family

Albert

 

[alberthiel]

I have a 20H that is establishing a cycle now. I have a shallow 3/4" fine aragonite (0.5-1.0mm) sand bed, but I am thinking about replacing it with courser 1.0mm-2.0mm aragonite so I can have higher flow to without as much sand movement. Would I be excluding most sand-sifting fish and inverts by using the courser sand?

Thanks!

Yes what you now have is IMO better and I would leave it and not change it ... plus too coarse is not always good for some inverts with soft bottoms such as Plate corals, and also for some fish that may injure themselves if they scrape against it.

Coarser is better though if you have fish that dig burrows and need the substrate to be a little coarser.

Hoper this helps

Happy Holidays to you rand your Family

Albert

 

[revhtree]

Great info.

 

[ReeferMan420]

In my old nano I used to use filter pads and chemi pure elite. Never had a problem with high nurtrient levels.

 

[jmccoy62003]

I have a question? I'm setting up a 18x18x18 cube. I was thinking of going with LEDs but due to the high price for the top of the line LEDs and reading some reviews critical of them I think I have been scaired away. I'm think of going with the tried and true metal halide. I'm thinking a 150w de bulb. I've tried to search this forum about it but have not had much luck. Just want to get your opinion on the mh. Thanks for your time.

 

[Freya33]

Hi Albert,

I am hoping you help me stabilize things... I have a 4 gallon nano with one clown and some corals. My question is I will get an alkalinity spike while everything else is in range. I was only adding two drops of C balance and a drp of trace elements a week to make sure my corals are happy. Though this spike worries me as it already killed one clown (before we realized what was going on we never had an alkalinity issue in other tanks). My pH was at 7.9 when i tested little low yes... What can I do to help stop this and any insight into a cause?? I have stopped putting in the C balance for the time being until is back down after my water change. I know nanos are the hardest to keep especially the size I have! but I am going to get this!

 

[alberthiel]

For some reason I have no longer been receiving notifications of new posts ... not sure what happened as I did not change anything ...

Sorry If I have not replied to a number of messages .... i will try to catch up in the days to come but we are having a snow storm in ATL followed by freezing rain and we will probably loose power so I many not be able to get access to the net ...

Albert

 

[alberthiel]

David :

Can you have a look at my account and figure out why I am not longer receiving notifications of messages .. I tried to figure it out but I cannot seem to find what I need to do or change .... Thanks

Albert

 

[Corals]

What type of light would u suggest for a rimless 10 gallon? Thanks

 

[revhtree]

Try this Albert and make sure you are subscribed to the forum and the threads you wish:

 

[Race58]

My Nano Cube is a 28 Gallon CF that I converted to LED with a Rapid LED kit. I also have the larger media basket from InTank and have a made that into a small version of a refugium. The tank is an established reef with 6 nano size fish and is over 3yrs old. I have a skimmer that I recently got I want to make use of but it's just a little too big to fit in one of the chambers. It's a Hydor SlimSkin Nano,, This one:

I'm toying with the idea of removing one of the chamber walls so it will fit nicely but I'm not sure how that will effect the sump flow.

If I remove the chamber wall that is between the left 2 chambers looking from the front the skimmer will fit nicely front to back.
I'm wondering how that would effect the sump operation and if anybody has removed one before? The back side seem to be attached with silicone while the front side may be molded into the sump wall.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Ed

 

[timah04]

I have a 12g nanocube which I have taken the original filter out completely, installed a marineland c-160 canister, and a Seaclone 100 protein skimmer to. I am currently waiting for the replacement hood, ballast combo to be delivered (Thursday) to upgrade lighting to the DX version. Tank has cycled for a few months with about 15 lbs live rock, and 2-3 inches of live sand. Yesterday, I took a 5lb piece of rock out and added about 10.5 lbs of rock and added 15 red tip hermits and a cleaner shrimp, of which I believe has spiked another cycle . Watching parameters closely, everything seems great with the exception of the ammonia and nitrite spiking this morning from ammonia being at 0.25 to now being at 0.5 and nitrite from 0.0 to 5.0 my nitrates have fluctuated however from 80 down to 5 which altogether seems crazy to me. I have done 3 waterchanges this week, all varying between 10-30% I'm hoping the spike is just due to 're-aquascaping the tank and the additional bioload added yesterday, but just wanting to make sure this is a normal rise/fall pattern in a nano

 

[alberthiel]

Try this Albert and make sure you are subscribed to the forum and the threads you wish:

David I sent you a PM as I am not able to figure out what is going on .. it says I am subscribed to the threads, yet I do not get any notifications ..

Please be so kind to check my PM ... thanks

Albert