Hello all, my name is Jerad and I'm starting my first ever reef tank! I have a 20g IM nuvo fusion all-in-one that I actually started setting up back in January. I have added a Eheim Jager 100w TrueTemp heater, a Hydor Koralia circulation and wave pump with a flow rate of 425 gph, and a AI Prime HD light. I also removed the sock and replaced it with a rack on both sides of the tank for prefilter and felt pads as well as Chemi-Pure blue filter media to filter my water through.
When I finished cycling my tank and had it ready for life I decided to start with 2 clown fish, 2 hermit crabs, and 1 snail. Unfortunately, about a month after adding them I had a big outbreak of some nasty looking brown stuff (unfortunately I lost all the pictures of it) and both of my clowns and one crab died on me. I put my tank on a black out and did a couple water changes which got rid of the stuff in about a week. Just when I thought I was good to go the stuff came back A LOT worse about a week later. This time I put my tank on another black out and kept doing water changes but it took several months to finally get rid of it.
Now my tank is back in operation and I have my snail and a crab that managed to survive the war! I also added my first coral about 4 days ago. I have a ricordia, which so far seems to be happy, and a candy cane/ trumpet which seems to be a little upset with me about something.
I checked my water parameters and got the following results: pH = 8.2, nitrite = 0, nitrate = 20, ammonia = 0, and alkalinity = 2.5. Obviously my alkalinity is showing way too low so I either have a bad test or I need to keep doing weekly water changes to get up to a healthy level. I'm going to investigate that this weekend by testing the water I get from my lfs before I do a water change with it. If that also tests low I'm going to find a new test kit and try again to see if the results change. If not then I will probably try making my own water and see what happens.
Here are some pics of my tank and coral so far. Hopefully I'll figure out this alkalinity issue so I can keep working on getting it stocked.
When I finished cycling my tank and had it ready for life I decided to start with 2 clown fish, 2 hermit crabs, and 1 snail. Unfortunately, about a month after adding them I had a big outbreak of some nasty looking brown stuff (unfortunately I lost all the pictures of it) and both of my clowns and one crab died on me. I put my tank on a black out and did a couple water changes which got rid of the stuff in about a week. Just when I thought I was good to go the stuff came back A LOT worse about a week later. This time I put my tank on another black out and kept doing water changes but it took several months to finally get rid of it.
Now my tank is back in operation and I have my snail and a crab that managed to survive the war! I also added my first coral about 4 days ago. I have a ricordia, which so far seems to be happy, and a candy cane/ trumpet which seems to be a little upset with me about something.
I checked my water parameters and got the following results: pH = 8.2, nitrite = 0, nitrate = 20, ammonia = 0, and alkalinity = 2.5. Obviously my alkalinity is showing way too low so I either have a bad test or I need to keep doing weekly water changes to get up to a healthy level. I'm going to investigate that this weekend by testing the water I get from my lfs before I do a water change with it. If that also tests low I'm going to find a new test kit and try again to see if the results change. If not then I will probably try making my own water and see what happens.
Here are some pics of my tank and coral so far. Hopefully I'll figure out this alkalinity issue so I can keep working on getting it stocked.