New tank syndrome? No2 spike!

[Lasse]

Please look at this. If you have CUC in the tank - please rise the lighting in order to make the algae grow. You will probably get a good algae growth in a matter of days. Because you do not have any corals - you can just turn down the light if you get to much green algae and let the CUC eat the left over. When its OK again - full light again. The urchin eats algae - the sea star mainly organic detritus and some meat - please see here.

If you can get one or two small living stones - I think it would help. And if it is some growing on them - food for your inverts

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

Lasse thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us.

I am going this morning to buy a few pieces of Indonesian live rock . Should I use dip-x to kill possible parasites? The main issue with dip-x is that I could kill also the good hitchhikers even tho they claim the product removes just the "bad ones".

I am gonna run full light from now on for 10 hours a day. Do you recommend white or blue lights or both for algae growth?

Then, when should I check the No2 again? Thanks

 

[Gabbone]

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[Gabbone]

New day new issue: for curiosity, I just checked my PO4 and the result is: 0,17ppm. How is that possible?

I tested a week ago and it was 0.08ppm.

 

[Lasse]

Should I use dip-x to kill possible parasites? The main issue with dip-x is that I could kill also the good hitchhikers even tho they claim the product removes just the "bad ones".

My general philosophy is very seldom (or never) use chemicals in order to kill anything - I just take the bad with the good. But it is not my aquarium - its yours

I am gonna run full light from now on for 10 hours a day. Do you recommend white or blue lights or both for algae growth?

Ramp it up and use the mix that you are going to use when you get corals. Both lights grow algae, the only difference is that with only blue light - your eyes trick you to not see the algae IMO

Wait some days but testing can be done when you feel for it - it will not disturb the biological process - only your mind

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

Thanks, Lasse!

I also tested again for No2 and I've got 0.23. Before the WC was 0.24

How's that possible? With 25 LT WC only decreased by 0.01!?

 

[Lasse]

I can´t explain this but it my general experiences after nearly 50 years as an aquarist that it is more or less impossible to dilute NO2 with WC. It looks like it just will be produced more after the WC

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

Ok, then I should not focus on No2 but just on No3 as you all mentioned?

 

[Gabbone]

@Lasse As you predict, algae are growing on the glass. I still can't see anything on the rocks. (pic below)

Should I clean this glass with the magnet or let this brownish/greenish algae grow on the glass?

Maybe can be food for CUC / starfish / sea urchin?

 

[Lasse]

Ok, then I should not focus on No2 but just on No3 as you all mentioned?

Follow NO2 - it should go down

Should I clean this glass with the magnet or let this brownish/greenish algae grow on the glass?

Maybe can be food for CUC / starfish / sea urchin?

Clean if you want - my experiences is that you need a lot of algae eating snails if they should manage glass cleaning. The thin film show that you have food for the CUC.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

Just tested No2 and it was the half

NO2: 0,23ppm yesterday vs 0,16ppm today
NO3: 16ppm yesterday vs 17,2ppm today

Any thoughts @Lasse ?

 

[Lasse]

Do you measure NO3 with Hanna High NO3 checker?

If you measure your NO3 levels every days for 5 more days can you get a picture haw much it is rising each day and calculate your WC after this. Its good that NO2 going down - normally it goes down fast when it start to go down.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

Yes, Hanna No3 high range.

I am gonna do that then and I'll let you know in 5 days!

Thanks a lot for all the tips and insight you gave me! Super helpful!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ok, then I should not focus on No2 but just on No3 as you all mentioned?

I would stop measuring nitrite ever, and nitrate is not killing your inverts at 20 ppm.

 

[brandon429]

the starfish in post #29 has a 99.999% chance of being dead within 3 months. not because of your parameters, but because it's starving slowly and that's not apparent currently. it'd have to be in a matured tank to have a small % chance of living past 3 mos. helping to rule out nitrite as a causative for anything of consequence in the tank.

testing for nitrite or nitrate cannot affect your animal health, that's important to know so that getting wrapped up in testing for 2 params that have a neutral impact in reefing won't take away your focus on what it takes to keep the animals alive. it's not in the testing of params, it's in the feeding + water changes + system cleaning when due so that it won't become wrecked with algae as new tanks do.

when the starfish dies just take it out, no need to dose anything or test for things.

 

[Lasse]

and nitrate is not killing your inverts at 20 ppm.

That´s true but in this case OP wanted to have help to keep his/hers NO3 levels around 15 ppm - the advisees was meant to calculate the right rate and volume of WC. By the way - NO2 concentration of around 0.2 mg/L measured with Hanna NO2 ULR checker indicate IMO some disturbances in the bacterial life of the aquarium - may no acute toxic for fish but it indicate something wrong in the processes. Normal NO2 concentrations in reef aquariums seems to be somewhere between 0 and 0.05 ppm.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

@Lasse Hi Lasse, I just wanted to show you that with the lights fully on, I am having this algae on my tank glass (see pic below).

Should I stop feeding my 18 inverts and let them eat the algae or should I clean the algae and feeding them?

 

[brandon429]

option B, feed them and manage algae independently by manual cleaning.

I recommend reading up on various tank invasion challenge threads searchable here, try and find the unifying initial choice that all invaded tank owners do (allow the invasion to build, vs clean it out yesterday)

it's not that the haze is unwarranted for a new brightly lit tank or particularly dangerous, it's that removing it by practice right now establishes a habit that may save you from dinos very very very soon. the #1 thing that links all, every single dinos thread challenge running, is initial passivity by the tank owner. they'll sit right there for eight months doing nothing but microscope slide posts as their entire tank is overtaken. if you learn now to simply never physically allow an invasion of your reef, it can't be invaded. its that simple.

now you may end up manually cleaning everyday/not fun/if your water source isn't pure, or if that lighting is entirely too bright for a brand new reef but that has nothing to do with owning a wrecked-looking reef. anyone who owns a wrecked reef has chosen to simply go hands off, and their pics show it.


you'd manually clean until you're either good enough or lucky enough to not have it, but never allow your tank to go downhill. that's doing opposite of all invasion challenges on the entire site. trained passivity is what causes those.

one of the benefits of not owning nor running a nitrite test kit for your entire reefing career is that you can replace that time spent with reading up in the disease forum, so that all your fish don't die by June from skipping preps.

your fish and animal risk is 0% regarding what any nitrite status is

it's going to be based on nutritional health of the system/currently ramping up/and your fish disease protocol selected, which is currently none.

*if you experience fish losses in the coming months, it's not a parameter you can test for causing it*

the starfish will just starve out slowly but any fish-specific losses will be disease related, prepare for that by reading fallow and quarantine threads from Jays disease forum here.

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

skipping those isn't an option, even though it seems it can be for the first few months.

interesting side note: of all help threads posted on page one of that forum link, how many of them are from new tanks under 8 months old? that tells you alot about disease emergence predictability.

to date their tank, click on their avatars and select find all posts, usually their first post is a description including the age of the reef tank in question.

at the end of the day, what you're wanting is a healthy tank and strong animal preservation. that won't be achieved by dealing with cycling parameters anymore here, that's an important detail for you to know--where to aim your concerns and efforts. that link above and how you react to expected invasions is what will make your new reef tank run the best

 

[Gabbone]

Thank you a lot Brandon! Actually, I like doing aquarium maintenance.

I simply wanted to wait for the algae to form so I didn't clean the glass for a few days. Before, I was running the tank with the minimum light intensity to avoid algae bloom and the tank was look "too clean". So my main concern was that the animals did not have much to eat.

Regarding the starfish, she is actually seems very healthy. Growing and grazing alla day. I occasionally pick the starfish, put in a small container and target feeding with mussels/clams pieces. She eats a lot and then I put it back in the tank.

 

[Lasse]

Clean the glass - CUC will feed on the algae even when it hits the gravel. I would - if it was my aquarium - not feed the CUC with external food with maybe exception of the starfish. I once had a lot of hermits in a small aquarium and I feed them with freshwater cat fish algae wafers or tabs - like the ones below.

It is difficult to have them to sink sometimes - just soak them in water before feeding. Test with small amounts. Have an eye on the algae growth on your stones and gravel - if it become to much algae (your CUC does not consume as much as produced) - go down with the light. The difficult in this balance is not to feed them external so much that they do not eat the internal produced food but as the same time keeping the CUC from starving to death. Because you do not have any corals or anemones you can manage the internal production with help of the light intensity.

To feed the starfish - I have often feed cold water starfish with small shrimp (or adult artemia) with help of a tweezer and done it when the starfish attach to the window.

I take the food piece with the tweezer and gently place the food between the glass and the starfish´s mouth.

Sincerely Lasse