City's 15 gallon Column NANO reef build

[Katrina71]

I'm so sorry. Do you think the UV killed off some bacteria that had been consuming your nitrates? Just a thought.

 

[Dj City]

I'm so sorry. Do you think the UV killed off some bacteria that had been consuming your nitrates? Just a thought.

Thank you.

I don't think the uv killed bacteria. I am putting my thinking cap on to try to figure out what may have happened.

It happened with the addition of the acans so I will start there.

 

[Dj City]

Im trying to remember if I read somewhere that acans don't do well in a nano with a softie.

I have a softie in the tank so I wonder if I had a little chemical warfare.

Its something for me to look into.

 

[Dj City]

Wow, that was like overnight!

Yeah. It was overnight.

The old saying...
Nothing good happens fast in this hobby but bad things can happen very fast.

 

[Dj City]

The 1st of 3 major water changes and deep cleaning is now complete.
I changed about 75% of water. I also drained the saltwater holding tank to deep clean.
I cleaned pumps as well as turned ALL of the sand.
I also drained the HOB fuge to clean it out too.

Detritus is very very low now.

I will do all this again next week.

 

[Dj City]

This tank is weird.
Dinos seemed to go away but then seemed to come back.

Not they seem to be going away again.

I don't know what the variable is for this. If I did, I could let other know how to beat the beast we know as dinos!

For now, I just hope the trend of dinos going away continues.

 

[Dj City]

Further news...

I still have 2 of my Acans. I've had 3 or 4 die.
One of the remaining is doing ok while the other is just alive but not thriving.

Everything else is doing relatively good.
Red monti is taking off!

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Whats new, City?

 

[Dj City]

Whats new, City?

Hey Kevin...

The nano had been on autopilot while I rebuilt my 110 gallon.

I believe I have dinos beat. No idea how I did it but I have not seen them in quie some time.

Now that I have the larger reef back on track, I will be digging into the nano again.

I've had a small outbreak of gha. 3 day lights off dialed the algae way back.

I also have to start dosing the nano. It's going through cal and alk like crazy.

 

[Dj City]

 

[Dj City]

I added a Foxface to the tank yesterday.
I have algae on the circulation pump and i'm hoping he can help it to NOT spread.

Pics to come.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

What's new, City?

 

[Dj City]

It's been quite a while since I updated this build.
I will do better from here on out.

I've been down and out for the past year. I have been recovering from a broken leg. Broke it in a motorcycle accident.
I'm up and walking again but im still recovering.

The Nano has gone through a few things over the past year. Not being able to walk had led to neglect. I lost a lot of coral.
Sections of red monticap survived and I am trying to grow it back to beauty.

I've added several corals in the past 3 weeks and they all seem to be doing well so far.

I was having an algae outbreak. I got a small sailfin tang to be a grazer temporarily till I had my 180g all set up and ready. I figured I could keep him in the 15g for several months.
About the same time, I had to change up my filtration. I no longer have room for the spare tank so automatic water changes had to stop. Then the pump for the HOB quit. I put an old canister filter on the tank that should have been much more than enough but... the o-ring went bad and it leaked.
I purchased a fluval 407 canister filter for the tank. This filter is a beast!
I added a bunch of bottle bacteria to the filter and had a bacterial bloom the next day.
This is when I really started to notice something was wrong with the fish.
They were acting pretty lethargic so i added an air pump with air stones. It seemed to help but...

Well, the sailfin ate the algae. Then I noticed what looked like ick on him. Ick should not have been a problem in this tank as it is healthy and the fish have built up a tolerance to ick.
I noticed my royal gramma hiding much more during the day. Then I saw him hanging out places in the tank he never goes to like the bottom front of the tank.

The sailfin died. 2 days later, I noticed the royal gramma died.
Then I notice my clowns swimming funny.
Turns out the sailfin did not have ick. It had brook and/or velvet.
I lost the last two clowns.
All this happened within two weeks.

The tank now has coral on the sandbed pretty much waiting for the 180g to be ready.
It also has 1 cleaner shrimp and the golden coral Banded shrimp is still doing well.

Pics to come once lights come on.

 

[Dj City]

Early morning wake up...

 

[Dj City]

Still no fish and it will be fish less for a while.
One coral is not doing too well but I don't know why?
It started to bleach.
Pics tomorrow.

 

[Dj City]

Problems just keep coming.

Tank temps reached 86 degrees.
I need to figure out how to cool this tank down. I can't take the top off because the light is housed in the top.
I don't see how I can implement a fan (yet).

Corals are taking a hit. Red Monticaps bleaching.
Blue Monticap bleached out (rip)

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Dj City]

I came up with an idea...

Hope it works.

 

[TheWB]

Do you know what happened? Heater fail on?

 

[Dj City]

Do you know what happened? Heater fail on?

Just warm in the room that tank is in I guess.
The AI Prime shuts off several times a day due to heat.

 

[Dj City]

The fan is working great!
Now let's see if these corals get their color back.