George's 28G Nano Cube Build

[George9]

I have a flasher wrasse held at the lfs that I'm picking up this weekend got my qt tank set up and ready, not gonna battle ich again lol so I guess my next real addition to the tank will be March 1st

I have a question though, at the end of the week the sg goes up from about 1.025 to either 1.0255-1.026, then I do a pwc with a combo of 1.025 water and a little RODI top off to bring it to either right below or at 1.025. Is this a bad thing to have the salinity change like that? Or is it okay since it's still always between .025-6

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Is it just going up due to evaporation? Normally, with skimming, salt creep and RO top-off a small tank will see a slight lowering of the specific gravity between water changes. Unless you started the tank off filled with freshwater and sand, then added your salt, you shouldn't see this. If you aren't adding ant salt to your top-off water and you're measuring the specific gravity with the tank filled to the same water level it should be more consistent. That amount of change isn't harmful over that amount of time, but keeping it more stable is a worthy chore.

How long are you mixing the new saltwater before each change? Just to cover some bases.

 

[George9]

Is it just going up due to evaporation? Normally, with skimming, salt creep and RO top-off a small tank will see a slight lowering of the specific gravity between water changes. Unless you started the tank off filled with freshwater and sand, then added your salt, you shouldn't see this. If you aren't adding ant salt to your top-off water and you're measuring the specific gravity with the tank filled to the same water level it should be more consistent. That amount of change isn't harmful over that amount of time, but keeping it more stable is a worthy chore.

How long are you mixing the new saltwater before each change? Just to cover some bases.

Usually I would make the water friday night and let lit mix until Saturday and change the water. So, I wait about a day. It only takes like an hour for the salt to completely dissolve though, i still wait.

I usually try to keep it at 1.025 as best I can, but it always is 1.026 at the end of the week.

I have good news today too, my nitrates are ZERO! whoo hoo, dunno how I did it, but they are zero! I'm so excited about that, still .25 phosphates, but it could be worse.

I also learned that most of the algae in the tank are dinoflagellates, theres bubbles stuck to them and they wave around a little. Does anyone have experience with this type specifically?

 

[George9]

I have a little bit of a problem now....need some advice


Looks like The ammo spiked to .25 this weekend I don't know what to do, I was forced to use quick cure for the ich because ich attack didn't do anything but make it worse. There were no spots yesterday, but today I noticed that they're coming back. So, I tested my params and it looks like the quick cure is killing the bb, stressing the fish and making the ich come back. So, what do I do!! Remove the meds and risk letting the ich get bad?

Edit-I turned the skimmer back on and am running carbon now to remove the med ASAP. Added prime to detoxify the ammo and hopefully it will go down on its own

EDIT AGAIN: looks like the ammo tests have let me down. I tested twice, got .25 ppm. Then I tested twice and got 0. Going in for another test, but for now it looks like I'm all good with ammo.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I don't know of a single med that I would ever put into a reef tank. You can try garlic additives for food and the water as well as a cleaner shrimp. The shrimp cannot cure the fish but they will eat some of the parasites. Foods like NLS Thera A may be useful.

Honestly, only a quarantine tank is safe for treating reef fish. Copper will nail ich... as well as everything else in your tank so a separate tank is required. If that isn't an option then garlic and a shrimp may give your fish some chance. Maybe there's some products I'm not aware of that's safe but honestly, in a reef, the rock, corals, inverts and bacteria need to be cared for more than the fish. It isn't worth harming everything in the tank just to kill ich.

 

[George9]

I don't know of a single med that I would ever put into a reef tank. You can try garlic additives for food and the water as well as a cleaner shrimp. The shrimp cannot cure the fish but they will eat some of the parasites. Foods like NLS Thera A may be useful.

Honestly, only a quarantine tank is safe for treating reef fish. Copper will nail ich... as well as everything else in your tank so a separate tank is required. If that isn't an option then garlic and a shrimp may give your fish some chance. Maybe there's some products I'm not aware of that's safe but honestly, in a reef, the rock, corals, inverts and bacteria need to be cared for more than the fish. It isn't worth harming everything in the tank just to kill ich.

Yup, I ended up ruining my scape and moving both fish to qt tonight. I'm doing a blackout(stupid dinos) on the dt in the meantime. It's gonna be fish less until April that's okay lol

I was gonna do hypo, but then started considering copper, so I'm not sure completely. I should decide soon.

The clown is happy as can be in his new home, the gramma, well, he's VERY stressed and is laying in the corner (but alive) hopefully by morning he will come around and get used to things a bit.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Ouch. Good luck. I hope everybody makes it through.

 

[George9]

Ouch. Good luck. I hope everybody makes it through.

Thanks Yup, everyones doing well so far.
You think leaving the tank empty til the first week of april will be enough to kill the ich in the dt?

 

[CorallineAlgae]

It's a good precaution but I don't know off hand bow long it takes to starve off ich. I doubt I'd wait longer than that. Sounds like a solid plan but others may know more. There seems to be conflicting info about it.

 

[George9]

It's a good precaution but I don't know off hand bow long it takes to starve off ich. I doubt I'd wait longer than that. Sounds like a solid plan but others may know more. There seems to be conflicting info about it.

Thanks, did some more research, looks like mid April instead of early April.

Here's an updates fts. The rocks don't look as "new" lol some are kinda greenish from algae but I see a bunch of little coralline algae popping up haven't decided if I wanna rescape the rocks or not. The black out really helped a lot, although I still see some Dino's :/
Today:



One month ago:



Also thinking about some more rock, I feel like this is a perfect time since there's nothing in the tank. I was thinking like 10 lbs more of some actual live rock

 

[George9]

The clown has been doing great in hypo, the gramma is a little iffy. I'm worried about him, he lays in the corner sometimes upside down or on his side. I changed a bunch of water today, I hope he's going to be fine

I read online of other people's experiences with royal grammas in hypo and it doesn't look too good

 

[bud29]

How are things going? Haven't had a recent update...

 

[George9]

Everything's been going smoothly! The fish are doing good in hypo and I think I beat most of the algae so far. Ive been getting a lot of new coraline growth on the rocks too! So, yeah, that's about it!

Oh and all my inverts survived the quick cure. They're coming back out now

 

[bud29]

Everything's been going smoothly! The fish are doing good in hypo and I think I beat most of the algae so far. Ive been getting a lot of new coraline growth on the rocks too! So, yeah, that's about it!

Oh and all my inverts survived the quick cure. They're coming back out now

Awesome! Glad to hear everything is going well

 

[George9]

Tanks looking a lot better! Here's another before at after pic.
Before:




After



I'm also seeing tons of white dots on the back wall. Almost looks like white coraline growing. They start tiny and grow bigger and bigger. Kinda spiraly. I read somewhere that it could be some type of worm? Not sure

 

[Crystal A]

Ya they are worms just can't remember how to spell it. Spionid worms ha google search done. Tank is coming along nicely. I was looking at the pics thinking man I remember when I first started and the tank looked so new. It's cool watching them take shape over time.

 

[George9]

Ya they are worms just can't remember how to spell it. Spionid worms ha google search done. Tank is coming along nicely. I was looking at the pics thinking man I remember when I first started and the tank looked so new. It's cool watching them take shape over time.

Lol thanks, I'll look into them!

Yeah, it's been cool watching the tank progress. Definitely cooler than freshwater haha

A year from now I'll be looking back on these pics too! I know Your tank is freaking caked in coraline, it looks amazing, can't wait to see that in mine

 

[George9]

I've been thinking, do you think I have enough rock? I think it's about 22 lbs of rock right now.



I'm on the fence about if I should get 10 lbs more of lr or not..

 

[Crystal A]

One thing I never thought of when I got my rock was that most coral comes on rocks. Ya gotta leave a little bit of room to add over time. I think you are good now with the key structural pieces and you can fill in with attached rock work.

 

[Beengirl]

One thing I never thought of when I got my rock was that most coral comes on rocks. Ya gotta leave a little bit of room to add over time. I think you are good now with the key structural pieces and you can fill in with attached rock work.

+1 on this!! There have been a couple of corals that I kinda wanted, but they came on large pieces of rock, and I don't have room for more large rock. And I don't want to rearrange my whole rocks scape to add that rock. So I didn't get them. Disappointing. My next tank I'm gonna keep that in mind.