Still unsure about my parameters. Tank should be cycled, but not doing well. Any help?

the_chef_pierre

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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 :)
 

andrewey

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Sorry about all the loss in your tank! There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll try and start with the simple stuff first and expand out from there.

1) What are you using to test your calcium and or how frequently are you performing your water changes? Your calcium value seems a bit odd (and at the very least, worth double checking) for a relatively new tank with routine water changes.
2) Have you done any tests to confirm you are dealing with dinos?
3) Are you set on using the vibrant? If you are dosing vibrant, it has the potential to lower your already low nitrate levels, which if you did have dinos, might make the issue worse.
4) Have you added a lid or net to your tank to prevent further carpet surfing episodes?
5) Have you been able to get your hair algae under control or is it still rampant? If it's still there and plentiful, your nitrate and phosphate levels might not be accurate.

Above all else, I would focus on determing if you are dealing with dinos. The rest sound like either bad luck or a combination of the new tank uglies and the maturation process of the tank.
 
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the_chef_pierre

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Sorry about all the loss in your tank! There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll try and start with the simple stuff first and expand out from there.

1) What are you using to test your calcium and or how frequently are you performing your water changes? Your calcium value seems a bit odd (and at the very least, worth double checking) for a relatively new tank with routine water changes.
2) Have you done any tests to confirm you are dealing with dinos?
3) Are you set on using the vibrant? If you are dosing vibrant, it has the potential to lower your already low nitrate levels, which if you did have dinos, might make the issue worse.
4) Have you added a lid or net to your tank to prevent further carpet surfing episodes?
5) Have you been able to get your hair algae under control or is it still rampant? If it's still there and plentiful, your nitrate and phosphate levels might not be accurate.

Above all else, I would focus on determing if you are dealing with dinos. The rest sound like either bad luck or a combination of the new tank uglies and the maturation process of the tank.

Thank you so much for your feedback. I'll try to answer each point.

1) My calcium levels tend to sit around 300-340, but the calcium solution I'm using for testing is one that I was given by a family member who got out of reefing and has expired, which might be why its reading so low. I try to change around 15% of the water weekly, but lately this has become every 10-15 days approximately.

2) The only dino test I did was by filter it out through paper towel and seeing if it came back together after filtering, and it did. That's why I believed I had dino. I did purchase a cheap microscope from a second hand shop here but have yet to test the water microscopically as it seems to have gone away (maybe due to the vibrant i've been adding with each water change). Also, my lfs told me they believe it likely wasnt dino as my fish would have likely died too, along with my star astrae (which was one of my first snails I added and steal eats voraciously).

3) I'm not totally crazy set on vibrant, and have been using it for the last month and dont even know if its doing anything. I was told my UWC though that I could dose it simultaneously with the Refine product to help raise nitrate levels. I did this for a while to keep my nitrate at around 10, but kind of stopped doing it since I couldnt really tell if it helped with anything or not.

4) Totally forgot to mention that my tank has a mesh lid over top, which had me stumped as to how the fish escaped. But when I look closely at it, there are small gaps in the corners where the lid meets the glass, so the fish probably just launched itself up and out of the tank from the corner i'm thinking.

5) My hair algae was CRAZY rampant originally, which thick layers carpetting the sand the pulled off fairly easily and 3 inch strands all over the rocks that moved with the flow caused by my circulators. It actually looked like hair. Overally, i'd say its slowly going away when I try my best to pull it out, but it does come back pretty fast. I have the fluval marine 3.0 lights and have set the white light at a lower level to try and prevent the algae from growing like crazy, but its still a bit of a battle.

Thanks again, and yeah, it definitely seems like i've had bad luck ever since the beginning lol. But I'm trying my best to stay determined and hope to work it all out rather than start over or give up at this point.
 

andrewey

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Thank you so much for your feedback. I'll try to answer each point.

1) My calcium levels tend to sit around 300-340, but the calcium solution I'm using for testing is one that I was given by a family member who got out of reefing and has expired, which might be why its reading so low. I try to change around 15% of the water weekly, but lately this has become every 10-15 days approximately.

That's fine. Calcium probably isn't critical to measure right now. With the regular water changes, I suspect this value is erroneous. So long as you aren't dosing based on this value, you need not worry about it- if you were to start dosing calcium products, I would either get a new test kit or take a sample to your LFS to double check your measurement.

2) The only dino test I did was by filter it out through paper towel and seeing if it came back together after filtering, and it did. That's why I believed I had dino. I did purchase a cheap microscope from a second hand shop here but have yet to test the water microscopically as it seems to have gone away (maybe due to the vibrant i've been adding with each water change). Also, my lfs told me they believe it likely wasnt dino as my fish would have likely died too, along with my star astrae (which was one of my first snails I added and steal eats voraciously).

I think you are likely on the right track with your paper towel test. Obviously the microscope will be the gold standard and will give you more information about species, but I would proceed with your original assumption. I would not be listening to the advice for your LFS in this case- I would hazard that most people with dinos do not have loss of fish, so this advice is a bit perplexing. The loss of your inverts might support the theory of dinos, but with such a small sample size, I wouldn't use it one way or another as not every snail survives or dies during a dino infestation (and dependent on the toxicity of the dino species).

3) I'm not totally crazy set on vibrant, and have been using it for the last month and dont even know if its doing anything. I was told my UWC though that I could dose it simultaneously with the Refine product to help raise nitrate levels. I did this for a while to keep my nitrate at around 10, but kind of stopped doing it since I couldnt really tell if it helped with anything or not.

Some people use vibrant in tandem with nitrate dosing sucsessfully as you've been told. That being said, if I were in your shoes, I would hold off on dosing vibrant. In the order of operations, I would confirm and begin treatment on the dinos and using a product like vibrant, while doable, only serves to complicate the siuation initially. I would be removing as many variables as possible and trying to aim for stability. Besides, the hair algae can be treated in a variety of ways, so the vibrant is strictly optional at this point. If I were in your shoes, I'd tackle one issue at a time and once you had more stability, you could decide to use vibrant again, if it were needed.

4) Totally forgot to mention that my tank has a mesh lid over top, which had me stumped as to how the fish escaped. But when I look closely at it, there are small gaps in the corners where the lid meets the glass, so the fish probably just launched itself up and out of the tank from the corner i'm thinking.

As you've seen, they will sneak through the smallest of gaps! You might have to modify the lid a bit to cover or reduce the size of these gaps.

5) My hair algae was CRAZY rampant originally, which thick layers carpetting the sand the pulled off fairly easily and 3 inch strands all over the rocks that moved with the flow caused by my circulators. It actually looked like hair. Overally, i'd say its slowly going away when I try my best to pull it out, but it does come back pretty fast. I have the fluval marine 3.0 lights and have set the white light at a lower level to try and prevent the algae from growing like crazy, but its still a bit of a battle.

Have you seen the BRS videos on dealing with hair algae? They might help put things into context and are worth the watch for many reefers in my opinion.

Thanks again, and yeah, it definitely seems like i've had bad luck ever since the beginning lol. But I'm trying my best to stay determined and hope to work it all out rather than start over or give up at this point.

I wouldn't be discouraged. Some of this is bad luck. Some of these events are issues with new tanks and others, new reefers. I wouldn't give up- if you are diligent and take the right steps, you can likely have the tank you wanted when you started :) It's important to recognize that while there is a limited amount of luck in this hobby (e.g. were you unlucky enough to introduce a bobbit worm), long term successful reefs don't rely on luck as much as consistent habits that help their tank. Were you to start over, there is nothing to prevent you from dealing with hair algae or dinos on your next setup. Instead, were you to get things under control from here (with some aid of time as it's a new setup ;)), you would have mastered many of the skills needed to not only treat, but prevent some of these issues in the future! If you envision your current tank as a training ground to hone your skills of consistency and stability, you will not only help your tank now, but all your tanks and inhabitants for years to come!
(my comments are written under each of your statements in the quoted text).
 

Super Fly

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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 :)
Wow, sorry to hear tank went through all that so early. Kudos for your tenacity.
Curious, was this a new tank or used?
 

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Well lets start here first.
What saltmix are you using, and are the mix paramiters matching your test kits for Alk, Ca, and Mag? Have you tested the freshly mixed water before you add it to the tank?
Are you using RO/DI water or tap water?

I am not looking to create anothr nano tank debate here but
New reefers and small nano tanks, well this is the hardest path to go.

In my experience Vibrant and red slime cyano came hand in hand.
I stopped using Vibrant and I removed all white light and ran all blues along with limiting the light hours to 6-8 per day helped me greatly in the battle. If you have that ability. What lights do you have?

Is it possible to add a sump to the tank to increase your water volume?

When you have added livestock, did you discard the water in the bag from the LFS? This is a must.
 

K7BMG

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Green hair algae does not grow well under blue light.
If you add a sump and can do a refugium in it the gha will wind up down there and act as an algae scrubber.

Also what are were you feeding, and how much?
 
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the_chef_pierre

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Wow, sorry to hear tank went through all that so early. Kudos for your tenacity.
Curious, was this a new tank or used?

The tank was used for freshwater fish, but I was told that it has been meant for saltwater use as it is the AIO type tank with a rear sump. Cleaned everything with vinegar prior to use though. I was told by my lfs though that the live rock I purchased from another store at a cheap price looks like it is likely very old live rock (possibly why I got the bryo and large worm)
 
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the_chef_pierre

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Wow, sorry to hear tank went through all that so early. Kudos for your tenacity.
Curious, was this a new tank or used?

The tank was used for freshwater fish, but I was told that it has been meant for saltwater use as it is the AIO type tank with a rear sump. Cleaned everything with vinegar prior to use though. I was told by my lfs though that the live rock I purchased from another store at a cheap price looks like it is likely very old live rock (possibly why I got the bryo and large worm)
 
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the_chef_pierre

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Well lets start here first.
What saltmix are you using, and are the mix paramiters matching your test kits for Alk, Ca, and Mag? Have you tested the freshly mixed water before you add it to the tank?
Are you using RO/DI water or tap water?

I am not looking to create anothr nano tank debate here but
New reefers and small nano tanks, well this is the hardest path to go.

In my experience Vibrant and red slime cyano came hand in hand.
I stopped using Vibrant and I removed all white light and ran all blues along with limiting the light hours to 6-8 per day helped me greatly in the battle. If you have that ability. What lights do you have?

Is it possible to add a sump to the tank to increase your water volume?

When you have added livestock, did you discard the water in the bag from the LFS? This is a must.

I always discard the water and added them after using a drip acclimation method. I've only ever used RODI water from my RODI filter that registers between 1-3 ppm so it should be good. As for salt, I'm using the fritz reef pro mix in the blue box. My tank has a sump in the rear as it's an AIO style. As for the light, I have the fluval marine 3.0 and tend to run my blues at almost 100% and whites at around 20-30%. It has been set to slowly come on in the morning and decreases intensity at night, but maybe I will look at reducing the hours it's on as maybe it's on for too long.
 
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the_chef_pierre

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Green hair algae does not grow well under blue light.
If you add a sump and can do a refugium in it the gha will wind up down there and act as an algae scrubber.

Also what are were you feeding, and how much?

I have a refugium setup in my rear chamber of my AIO (forgot to mention that originally). I believe the chaeto has been dying off though as it's not growing as rapidly, likely from me using vibrant
 

K7BMG

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I always discard the water and added them after using a drip acclimation method. I've only ever used RODI water from my RODI filter that registers between 1-3 ppm so it should be good. As for salt, I'm using the fritz reef pro mix in the blue box. My tank has a sump in the rear as it's an AIO style. As for the light, I have the fluval marine 3.0 and tend to run my blues at almost 100% and whites at around 20-30%. It has been set to slowly come on in the morning and decreases intensity at night, but maybe I will look at reducing the hours it's on as maybe it's on for too long.

Well have you measured the freshly mixed water and checked it to the box parameters?
This will tell you if your test kits are off.
I have never used Fritz myself but understand its good salt.
That said you could have a bad box.

I just looked up the parameters on the salt.
Parameters: Salinity 35 ppt (1.0264 sg) Calcium 400-450 ppm Magnesium 1350-1450 ppm Alkalinity 8.0 - 9.0 dKH Strontium 9 ppm Potassium 400 ppm.

If you test your freshly made saltwater you should be in this range.
If not then there's a problem with the water, salt, or test kit reagents.

The other thing you say is your RODI is at 1-3ppm.
Something is wrong there, the product water should be 0.
Where is your TDS probe(s) located? The only one that really counts is the product.
I would check and or calibrate the TDS probe and meter.
You may need new RO filter and DI resins.
Just wondering if your on city water or a well.
Also there is what they call TDS creep, this is when the RODI unit is not properly flushed before you start COLLECTING the water.

I would shut off the whites and reduce the overall time to 6-8 hours max as I have stated previously.

With a Nano you have to get your parameters spot on and keep them there.
This is your number one task. With such a little volume of water things like 1-3ppm RODI will create huge problems for you all the time.
 

Super Fly

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The tank was used for freshwater fish, but I was told that it has been meant for saltwater use as it is the AIO type tank with a rear sump. Cleaned everything with vinegar prior to use though. I was told by my lfs though that the live rock I purchased from another store at a cheap price looks like it is likely very old live rock (possibly why I got the bryo and large worm)
IMO this may have been your source of tank issues, any used equipment should be disinfected w bleach to kill any potential bad bacteria/algae. Vinegar does/did not kill everything. I would have bleached the old live rock also just to be sure unless I absolutely know and trust from who/where it came from. Also, I agree w @K7BMG re the RODI should be 0 TDS, anything above 1 will create issues.
 
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the_chef_pierre

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I managed to finally get a budget microscope and take some pictures. Sorry about the quality. Are the bluish shapes I'm seeing dino? Also I notice a thin strand thing that I circled that was moving. Any idea what that is?

20200803_221344.jpg 20200803_220737.jpg 20200803_221830.jpg
 

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