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- Jan 22, 2020
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Hi everyone. So my nuvo 30 gal reef tank was originally setup in january, and by now I feel it should be ok, but it doesnt seem to be. Based on what happened, my tank ended up cycling after only 6 weeks or so. It has around 10 pounds of live rock in it along with 20 pounds of dry rock I believe. Originally I had included 2 turbo snail, a star astrae, a cerith and 2 nassarius. Somewhere along the line, electricity leaked into my tank (terrible experience), and kind of messed up my nassarius snails (which have since died and been removed). I also experienced some bad redish algae around that time, which I believe may have been dino but not really sure. Additionally, I somehow ended up getting bryopsis after only 6 weeks or so, but treated it with Reef Flux and havent had it come back yet thankfully.
Eventually I added in a tiger pistol shrimp along with a wheeler's prawn goby that had already been paired together. They instantly made their cave and lived happily until I had left my tank unattended for a weekend (with someone coming over to feed them). The goby seemed to have found that to be the perfect time to jump ship from my tank and ended up getting found by my cat who conveniently brought it back all dried up a few weeks later So now, its just the pistol shrimp by himself. He appears to be fine but doesnt come out from his cave much.
I experienced a large hair algae bloom around a month or two ago and have since been adding vibrant to the tank during my weekly water changes and manually removing whatever I can during that time, but it also seems to come back. Also, my 2 original turbos went from being super turbo to super slow and ended up dying (which may have been due to eating dino if that's what I have but I still dont know). I've since replaced them with another 2 turbos which appear to be doing fine. I also added in a small red soft coral frag which appears to be doing ok, but im hesitant to get more before knowing if my tank is ok.
I also noticed that I have a really large 6" or so bristle worm that was living in a rock and is now apparantly somewhere in the sand. He occasionally pokes his head out, and I've been wanting to remove him but havent gotten around to it yet.
Ideally, I'm hoping my tank is fine so that I can try and add a replacement goby and hopefully 2 clowns as well as some additional coral frags. I just don't want to start investing more money into it if my tank parameters are off or if it's not gone through its ugly stage and fully ready yet. For a while I was experiencing zero, or near zero, readings for my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate which led me to believe I had dino, but lately they have levelled off a bit. I did occasionally use UWC Refine solution to help raise the nitrate level when it was reading 0, but find I don't need to use it as much anymore.
Any advice on my parameters or what I should be doing, or what I am doing wrong. Also, I havent started doing calcium or alkalinity yet due to not having coral other than the frag, but I do have calcium and alkalinity that I could dose later if needed, and have also debated possibly doing Kalk through my auto top off water instead possibly. Thanks again for all the help. I'll post the readings I got after having completed my latest water change this week.
Temperature: 76.4 degrees F
Salinity: 1.026 d SG
PH: 7.9
Alkalinity: 4 meq/L
Total Ammonia: 3 ppm (mg/L)
Free Ammonia: 0.02 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrite: 0 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrate: 3 ppm (mg/L)
Calcium: 280 ppm
Magnesium: 1110 ppm (mg/L)
Phosphate: 0.03 ppm (mg/L)
Silicate: 0.5 ppm (mg/L)
Iodide: 0.0005 ppm (mg/L)
Thanks again for all the help everyone
Eventually I added in a tiger pistol shrimp along with a wheeler's prawn goby that had already been paired together. They instantly made their cave and lived happily until I had left my tank unattended for a weekend (with someone coming over to feed them). The goby seemed to have found that to be the perfect time to jump ship from my tank and ended up getting found by my cat who conveniently brought it back all dried up a few weeks later So now, its just the pistol shrimp by himself. He appears to be fine but doesnt come out from his cave much.
I experienced a large hair algae bloom around a month or two ago and have since been adding vibrant to the tank during my weekly water changes and manually removing whatever I can during that time, but it also seems to come back. Also, my 2 original turbos went from being super turbo to super slow and ended up dying (which may have been due to eating dino if that's what I have but I still dont know). I've since replaced them with another 2 turbos which appear to be doing fine. I also added in a small red soft coral frag which appears to be doing ok, but im hesitant to get more before knowing if my tank is ok.
I also noticed that I have a really large 6" or so bristle worm that was living in a rock and is now apparantly somewhere in the sand. He occasionally pokes his head out, and I've been wanting to remove him but havent gotten around to it yet.
Ideally, I'm hoping my tank is fine so that I can try and add a replacement goby and hopefully 2 clowns as well as some additional coral frags. I just don't want to start investing more money into it if my tank parameters are off or if it's not gone through its ugly stage and fully ready yet. For a while I was experiencing zero, or near zero, readings for my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate which led me to believe I had dino, but lately they have levelled off a bit. I did occasionally use UWC Refine solution to help raise the nitrate level when it was reading 0, but find I don't need to use it as much anymore.
Any advice on my parameters or what I should be doing, or what I am doing wrong. Also, I havent started doing calcium or alkalinity yet due to not having coral other than the frag, but I do have calcium and alkalinity that I could dose later if needed, and have also debated possibly doing Kalk through my auto top off water instead possibly. Thanks again for all the help. I'll post the readings I got after having completed my latest water change this week.
Temperature: 76.4 degrees F
Salinity: 1.026 d SG
PH: 7.9
Alkalinity: 4 meq/L
Total Ammonia: 3 ppm (mg/L)
Free Ammonia: 0.02 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrite: 0 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrate: 3 ppm (mg/L)
Calcium: 280 ppm
Magnesium: 1110 ppm (mg/L)
Phosphate: 0.03 ppm (mg/L)
Silicate: 0.5 ppm (mg/L)
Iodide: 0.0005 ppm (mg/L)
Thanks again for all the help everyone