My New 25gallon NANO BUILD

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by Westcoastindia

Nice scape, Mr. Octopus with glasses.
That would be a kick S nano.
Good luck, I'm sure you already have it.

Thank you. I'm getting there. Its now all about properly placing the coral so they all get light and water movement. I've already changed my wave pumps three times. lol

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by Westcoastindia

Nice scape, Mr. Octopus with glasses.
That would be a kick S nano.
Good luck, I'm sure you already have it.

Thank you Sir.

[REEF DOCG]

So folks its been almost a month now and my tank is still foggy. I've tried to do some small water changes and no luck. I have been keeping up with the temp, fresh charcol, and maintaining salinity. What am I missing?foggy tank.jpg

foggy tank2.jpg

algea window.jpg

skimmer.jpg

spong rack.jpg

I am almost frustrated and want to quit! Ive had salt water tanks before and never had these problems. The only differnce is I always used live rock before and tanks where bigger. I figured this time around I would go Nano so it wouldn't take up too much of my time but this has been worse so far.
Any suggestions?

[strummerfan]

Originally Posted by REEF DOCG

So folks its been almost a month now and my tank is still foggy. I've tried to do some small water changes and no luck. I have been keeping up with the temp, fresh charcol, and maintaining salinity. What am I missing?Attachment 349596

Attachment 349598

Attachment 349600

Attachment 349604

Attachment 349605

I am almost frustrated and want to quit! Ive had salt water tanks before and never had these problems. The only differnce is I always used live rock before and tanks where bigger. I figured this time around I would go Nano so it wouldn't take up too much of my time but this has been worse so far.
Any suggestions?

My first guess is some sort of bacterial bloom. Have you wiped down the tank walls? is there a film on them?

[Pnewt]

my tank cycled for about 4 weeks before i had anything living in it besides the live rock. what is your ammonia and nitrate and nitrite levels? i had cloudy water for about a week and then one day it was clear as could be. what kind of water changes are you doing?

[drakedeming]

Nice set up.

[ReefWreak]

Originally Posted by REEF DOCG

So folks its been almost a month now and my tank is still foggy. I've tried to do some small water changes and no luck. I have been keeping up with the temp, fresh charcol, and maintaining salinity. What am I missing?

Time. And a cycle. I honestly wouldn't worry about it. It can take a while for a tank to settle in. For what it's worth, you're also probably complicating it with that rope and mangrove.

If you think the bacteria is bad, wait till you get your end-of-cycle algae spurt.

Originally Posted by REEF DOCG

I am almost frustrated and want to quit! Ive had salt water tanks before and never had these problems. The only differnce is I always used live rock before and tanks where bigger. I figured this time around I would go Nano so it wouldn't take up too much of my time but this has been worse so far.
Any suggestions?

Are you monitoring your ammonia and nitrate levels? Do you know how far in the cycle (if at all) you are? Dry rock is fine as long as you seed it and/or just give it a lot of time. How did you do your cycle? I wouldn't be discouraged, I always expect the absolute worst in the first month or two, i.e. algae forests, dianoflagellates everywhere, cyano everywhere. If you're not getting those, then you're doing well.

Also, mangroves are cool for effect (which I think is why you have it there), but even in large numbers, they have almost no impact on nutrient reduction. They really are only good at magnesium reduction (which is not a good thing).

I don't mean to be rude or discouraging, and you have a really cool setup built, but because you're making a "different" kind of tank, you're going to get slightly "different" results than what you may have expected or what others have experienced. It's still early in the tank's life too, so with time things will change.

I would almost recommend cycling in the dark until you're at 0 ammonia and all nitrate, then turn the lights on and start water changes to keep nitrate below 20ppm. Once you see whisps of green algae growing, time for clean up crew and more water changes. Then you're on your way. And keep your calcium and alkalinity up to get those rocks purpled up (kalkwasser top offs are an easy way).

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by strummerfan

My first guess is some sort of bacterial bloom. Have you wiped down the tank walls? is there a film on them?

Yes there is a film on them, even on the wires of the pumps.

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by Pnewt

my tank cycled for about 4 weeks before i had anything living in it besides the live rock. what is your ammonia and nitrate and nitrite levels? i had cloudy water for about a week and then one day it was clear as could be. what kind of water changes are you doing?

So far I have been doing 5 gallons per week.

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

Time. And a cycle. I honestly wouldn't worry about it. It can take a while for a tank to settle in. For what it's worth, you're also probably complicating it with that rope and mangrove.

If you think the bacteria is bad, wait till you get your end-of-cycle algae spurt.



Are you monitoring your ammonia and nitrate levels? Do you know how far in the cycle (if at all) you are? Dry rock is fine as long as you seed it and/or just give it a lot of time. How did you do your cycle? I wouldn't be discouraged, I always expect the absolute worst in the first month or two, i.e. algae forests, dianoflagellates everywhere, cyano everywhere. If you're not getting those, then you're doing well.

Also, mangroves are cool for effect (which I think is why you have it there), but even in large numbers, they have almost no impact on nutrient reduction. They really are only good at magnesium reduction (which is not a good thing).

I don't mean to be rude or discouraging, and you have a really cool setup built, but because you're making a "different" kind of tank, you're going to get slightly "different" results than what you may have expected or what others have experienced. It's still early in the tank's life too, so with time things will change.

I would almost recommend cycling in the dark until you're at 0 ammonia and all nitrate, then turn the lights on and start water changes to keep nitrate below 20ppm. Once you see whisps of green algae growing, time for clean up crew and more water changes. Then you're on your way. And keep your calcium and alkalinity up to get those rocks purpled up (kalkwasser top offs are an easy way).

No NO, please you're not being rude.
I will definitely remove the mangroves. I did use Purple up but i don't see anything growing on the rocks. The bottle said to use a 1/2 teaspoon for 25 gallons it didn't seem much but with all I have going on I didn't want to create more problems.
Far in the cycle? All I can say is 30 days in, since setup.
I do have some clean up crew but they seem lazy they don't move around much. 10 bumble bee snails, 15 small hermit crabs, 1 big blue hermit crab, 1 big red Halloween hermit crab. those are the live ones.
the DEAD 1 skunk shrimp rip 1 emerald green crab (rip) 2 scarlet crabs (rip) 4 turbo snails (rip)
Adding Kalk? Do I add this directly to the tank Or add kalk in a bucket with the rocks only?
I have a test kit on order and will do some tests.
What are the most common test to be done in the beginning? I see these test kits only have certain ones in the box or independently. I ordered a red sea. is that a comparable one?
Thank you in advance for you input.

[REEF DOCG]

Please let me know what test kits you have had best experience with. I have to spend the money anyways on a test kit so I might as well know the good and bad. This way I can gear myself to a more accurate one. Thank you all again for your help.

[ReefWreak]

Salifert for test kits. All you need are ammonia, nitrate, alkalinity, calcium, and down the line magnesium, and maybe a hanna checker for low range phosphorous to check phosphates.

So your cycle is kicked off by default because of the things that have died. Are you monitoring ammonia and nitrate now?

Don't add purple up until you are confident in your cycle and your tank is rockin and rollin.

How did you measure your original salinity? Pick up an inexpensive refractometer (<$40 or so).

Kalk gets added to your fresh water top off down the road when you have calcium and alkalinity demand (and are measuring and observing it).

I had the impression before that this wasn't your first tank. If I am wrong, or if you could use a refresher, these threads might help get you back on the right foot.

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

Salifert for test kits. All you need are ammonia, nitrate, alkalinity, calcium, and down the line magnesium, and maybe a hanna checker for low range phosphorous to check phosphates.

So your cycle is kicked off by default because of the things that have died. Are you monitoring ammonia and nitrate now?

Don't add purple up until you are confident in your cycle and your tank is rockin and rollin.

How did you measure your original salinity? Pick up an inexpensive refractometer (<$40 or so).

Kalk gets added to your fresh water top off down the road when you have calcium and alkalinity demand (and are measuring and observing it).

I had the impression before that this wasn't your first tank. If I am wrong, or if you could use a refresher, these threads might help get you back on the right foot.

Yes I do have a refractometer, And I have had salt water tanks before but never used dry rock or this type of aqua-scaping (using putty) before. I started with live rock and had a sump with live macro algae. Also firt time using LED's I am old school and used MH, T5's. I love the look of LED's and the fact they don't put out heat but I wonder over-all if they are just as good as HD's and T5's.
I never ran into problems like this. Yes had very light cyno algae but cleaned it up and back to normal. a little hair algae and the same took care of the problem and back to normal.
I never had the glass feel slimy and with a film on them that is gooey. I clean it off and 5 minutes its back. this is crazy to me.
I probably could do a 100% water change and this would come back, this is how I am feeling about this right about now.

[ReefWreak]

Originally Posted by REEF DOCG

Yes I do have a refractometer, And I have had salt water tanks before but never used dry rock or this type of aqua-scaping (using putty) before. I started with live rock and had a sump with live macro algae. Also firt time using LED's I am old school and used MH, T5's. I love the look of LED's and the fact they don't put out heat but I wonder over-all if they are just as good as HD's and T5's.
I never ran into problems like this. Yes had very light cyno algae but cleaned it up and back to normal. a little hair algae and the same took care of the problem and back to normal.
I never had the glass feel slimy and with a film on them that is gooey. I clean it off and 5 minutes its back. this is crazy to me.
I probably could do a 100% water change and this would come back, this is how I am feeling about this right about now.

It's debatable, but LEDs are definitely "mainstream" now and success can be had with them, it's just harder and requires more tweaking. I'm hoping that these new lights that Philips is putting out may take care of some of the difficulty people have had with LEDs so far in the hobby. It would be nice for there to be a "plug and play" LED option that almost immediately leads to success, like a 250w MH would be.

The slime may be bacterial blooms. Could be from critters that died and the bacteria are using up the ammonia and nitrates, could be from the putty? I know it ruins the head on a skimmer if you even use a tiny bit. If you use a lot, it may take a few weeks and a few big water changes to remove the surficants and other side-effects of using that much epoxy.

I still hold that because this is a "unique" build, you're going to have some "unique" problems that are probably best ironed out with time. As long as it's not overgrown with disgusting algae and you're not making it worse, then you're still doing pretty well, and if time is the only issue, so be it. Just expect the unexpected with this tank.

You could try adding a competing bacteria into the tank with something like Dr. Tims one and only or Brightwell Microbacter7 or something, but honestly I think it's more trouble than it is worth. I have seen bacteria blooms in early tanks, and whatever, at least it isn't bad algae. It just settles out with time and water changes.

[bitwise]

I had cloudy water like that for a couple of days when I threw in a small piece of fresh squid from the fish market. This was early on too, similar to your situation.

[bitwise]

I recommend Salifert test kits, like ReefWreak said. When I bought my first Salifert kits, after first using and throwing out about $200 worth of expired Elos kits, I was really happy about the shelf life. On some of the kits the shelf life is 2+ years, and they are relatively cheap!

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

It's debatable, but LEDs are definitely "mainstream" now and success can be had with them, it's just harder and requires more tweaking. I'm hoping that these new lights that Philips is putting out may take care of some of the difficulty people have had with LEDs so far in the hobby. It would be nice for there to be a "plug and play" LED option that almost immediately leads to success, like a 250w MH would be.

The slime may be bacterial blooms. Could be from critters that died and the bacteria are using up the ammonia and nitrates, could be from the putty? I know it ruins the head on a skimmer if you even use a tiny bit. If you use a lot, it may take a few weeks and a few big water changes to remove the surficants and other side-effects of using that much epoxy.

I still hold that because this is a "unique" build, you're going to have some "unique" problems that are probably best ironed out with time. As long as it's not overgrown with disgusting algae and you're not making it worse, then you're still doing pretty well, and if time is the only issue, so be it. Just expect the unexpected with this tank.

You could try adding a competing bacteria into the tank with something like Dr. Tims one and only or Brightwell Microbacter7 or something, but honestly I think it's more trouble than it is worth. I have seen bacteria blooms in early tanks, and whatever, at least it isn't bad algae. It just settles out with time and water changes.

I so totally agree on your first paragraph.

On the second and third Paragraph I truly believe it was the putty, epoxy, silicone and glue. As you said this was a unique build and this is the course it needs to take.

Paragraph 4, I will try some Microbacter 7 and I also ordered some Chemi-pure hopefully between the two of them I can get this under control.

I do want to thank you for your honesty and suggestions. Last night I did remove the mangroves and while I was back there(AIO baffle system)I clean what I could that had build up, removed the bag of bio-balls and the bag of ceramic rings, clean out my skimmer, removed the tumbler from one of the compartments and placed it in the front part of the actual tank with some carbon. This morning there was NO green slime on the glass. I was so happy. The water is still cloudy, but I feel it is going in the right direction.

I also reduced the amount of high light by 2 hours. So I have my blues come on a 7 am then my highs at noon (for now) and off at 11pm and blue (moonlight) off at midnight. Is that still too much light? Should I reduce more for the time being to cut down on this algae bloom?

[REEF DOCG]

I want to thank all for your help and suggestions.
Here is a quick update of what I've done since last night.
tumbler.jpg
I removed the tumbler from the back and placed it directly in the tank with some carbon
no slime.jpg
TYhis morning NO GREEN SLIME! happy! HAppY! HAPPY! Still cloudy but I hope that will go away soon as well.
return.jpg
In addition and I don't know if this did or will do anything but I figured to reroute the return line to the bottom so it would stir up whats on or settles to the ground up and circulate it out and through the filter floss media. Again this was just a thought, I don't know for sure if this will do anything. I could only imagine if it did everyone would have set up their returns in this manner.

[ReefWreak]

I prefer my back section to be lower flow so crap settles there, then I can siphon it out with water changes. If you'd rather have it flowing around, that's fine as long as it does get picked up by the filter floss eventually. I don't run filter floss, so I'm fine with it just settling.

I'm glad the tank is clearing up! Still more road to go, but it's the right direction.

If you leave the carbon up front for too long, you'll probably get algae fouling it up, FYI.

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

I prefer my back section to be lower flow so crap settles there, then I can siphon it out with water changes. If you'd rather have it flowing around, that's fine as long as it does get picked up by the filter floss eventually. I don't run filter floss, so I'm fine with it just settling.

I'm glad the tank is clearing up! Still more road to go, but it's the right direction.

If you leave the carbon up front for too long, you'll probably get algae fouling it up, FYI.

I didn't know that about carbon. good to know. I only put it up front to speed up the process. I had double the amount in the back and I felt like it did nothing. With half the amount up front It worked better. But I will put it in the back here soon as it starts to clear up.
Yes I do siphon from the back as well, in one compartment as the others are too crammed. But once in a while I will just brake down everything and clean out all compartments.
Once again thanks for your input. IMO you saved this tank BC i was giving up on it.

[dt204]

Ya, I'd also be testing your levels to confirm you are cycled. That was quite a large CUC to begin with for such a small tank, so early. With not much for them to eat yet. Could have been partially responsible for the deaths.
I'd be worried that the deaths of the inverts could have caused mini cycles, and thrown off your original cycle or slowed it down significantly.
Confirm cycle is complete. That's number one. Maybe even remove some CUC to a buddy or LFS until your algae bloom starts.
I agree that the cloudy water is just an initial thing. Should go away with time and maintenance.
Nice tank btw! 😃

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[dt204]

And don't give up on your tank yet! Things can get tough, but nothing good happens fast. Take some time, things will come around! Keep reading. I personally found the BRS 52 weeks of reefing videos very informative. Good luck!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[REEF DOCG]

Originally Posted by dt204

Ya, I'd also be testing your levels to confirm you are cycled. That was quite a large CUC to begin with for such a small tank, so early. With not much for them to eat yet. Could have been partially responsible for the deaths.
I'd be worried that the deaths of the inverts could have caused mini cycles, and thrown off your original cycle or slowed it down significantly.
Confirm cycle is complete. That's number one. Maybe even remove some CUC to a buddy or LFS until your algae bloom starts.
I agree that the cloudy water is just an initial thing. Should go away with time and maintenance.
Nice tank btw! 😃

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

I also believe that it was the cause of their death.
Thank you for reading and your thoughts.

[REEF DOCG]

Well My fellow reefers, I have tried and tried and spent more money then if I had started over. I watched many videos of how this purigen and Chemi pure worked on tanks that where cloudy. The videos showed the 3 to 5 day progression and how it cleared up every day.
well here is my progression after 24 hours my tank is worse then ever.
24 chemi pure.jpg

24 purigen.jpg

I think I will be breaking this tank down. I really want to thank all of you for encouraging me to hang in, but I think sometimes you just got know when to let go and cut yourself short. It will cost me more in trying to continue to fix the problem that I don't even know I have then to start fresh. This time I will go with Live rock As I did in the past.
And I need to find a nano sump. back to old school..

[ReefWreak]

Originally Posted by REEF DOCG

I think I will be breaking this tank down. I really want to thank all of you for encouraging me to hang in, but I think sometimes you just got know when to let go and cut yourself short. It will cost me more in trying to continue to fix the problem that I don't even know I have then to start fresh. This time I will go with Live rock As I did in the past.
And I need to find a nano sump. back to old school..

Sorry to hear that. Still the best thing I can recommend, is probably turn the lights off, keep the tank running, let the algae die out, and just do a lot of water changes.

If you decide to do dry rock with a bunch of additional materials again that are non-standard, it might be useful to cure them in a garbage can or trough or something, in RO water or salt water, just to let the epoxy and other stuff really cure and get removed out with water changes or carbon, before you're really starting it up into a tank.

Hopefully for your rebuild you can get some nice LR that is similar to the shape you designed (maybe even send a pic to some LR vendors and see if they can send you exactly something that looks like that) fully cured and ready to go?

Good luck, sorry you had a tough time, I wish you the best on your next tank!