NEED EXPERT ADVICE!!!! whats wrong with my nano cube?

[juniorjose]

hey guys.

i posted a question similar to this one and chiefsurfer was able to help alot with my nitrates problem. thanks. i did a water change last week when my nitrates were 160ppm. i have a 12 gallon nano with four chambers on the back with a sponge on one, one is empty, the other has bioballs (which chiefsurfer told me to remove), and the other is the return. i still havent had time to go to the lfs to get some rock rubble to replace the bioballs. im also getting some cheato. MY STARFISH IS NOT TOO WELL!!!!!! i have been observing my tank for about three days now and the fish seem happy and swimming, but my red knob starfish is not as active as it used to be. usually when i feed the tank she lifts up her five arm to sense food, but now i dont see her doing this anymore =(, IS SHE DYING?

hers that thread:http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1782422

here are my parameters as of today:
Ammonia: 0ppm
PH: 7.8
Nitrite: 0-0.25ppm
Nitrate: 80-160ppm

o yea one more thing. about two weeks ago i was having a problem with my ph. it was about the same as it is now, 7.8. i bought marine buffer from seacheam and added two scoops and the ph went to 8.3. Now the ph is down again. what im i doing wrong?

THIS TANK IS DOING TOO WELL, IS IT????????????????

[juniorjose]

o i forgot to mention tht today when i checked my parameters and saw how bad they were i did about 3 gallon water change. =)

[Chiefsurfer]

Well, from my experience, Inverts(like shrimp, starfish, snails, etc.) are MUCH more affected by Nitrates. Try and do as many water changes, 12-24 hrs apart, as possible to get your nitrates down to 20 or so. As your starfish is affected, this will be entirely necessary if you wish to keep the starfish I think.

[dviper150]

I am no expert but how old is the tank? How much liverock do you have in there? I went through the same thing with my 150 gallon a month ago. I still get random ups and downs but not too much that the fish are harmed by it. Nano tanks are harder to maintain then larger aquariums but if you set it up the right way from the start, it should go by easy. I only put in the buffer when I do a water change.

Also, I read on your thread that you put in half a cube in? is this everyday? I put in half a cube in my 150 along with an algae sheet and i have 5-6 good sized fish in there. I would cut back on the feeding a little especially since you don't have much in the tank.

[juniorjose]

lol...i just knew u would be back man...hahahah...

i will. i have no idea why my parameters are going up and down all the time. it seems like i just started it, but its been up for a year and a half now. tommorow what percentage or gallons of water change should i do?

also later on in the week ill will follow ur adivice and put some rock in there, seed it, then start removing the bioballs.

DVIPER150; my tank is a year and a half old. i have about maybe 5 pounds of rock in there, mostly base rock. i did the same thing u did and today when i did my water change i put in 2 scoops of marine buffer with it.

[dviper150]

Add more liverock. I would say at least 10 lbs. I use bioballs with my setup with no problems but if you wish to do a reef in that nano, ditch the bioballs and put in some rubble rock instead.

[juniorjose]

would the live rock i add to the tank have to be cured or uncured rock? and yes the rubble instead of the bioballs is what chiefsurfer suggested also

[dviper150]

I would add cured because it will help establish a better biological filtration faster. Do you feed half a cube everyday?

[Chiefsurfer]

cured rock. For all intents and purposes, the rock you add can be base rock if all you want is more space for bacteria.

In a 12, I would reccomend roughly 2-3 gallons or so, about ever 24 hours. The more you do on the first change or two should affect it more than the following changes.

[dviper150]

Double post...oops

[Engine8ff]

With a 12 gallon I would have atleast 12 pounds of rock, I see that you are going to seed the base rock, I would pick up 4 pounds or so of good cured live rock to do that. Do you have a sand bed, if so how much? I had a 8 gallon nano with 12 pounds of rock and about 1" of sand and never had a problem. It sounds like you just need to get your rock mature!

As far as buffers and your ph, there is nothing wrong with a ph of 7.8 alot of tanks run at that for years and have great success. If your ph drops below that then maybe add a little buffer to get it back up to 7.8 but other that that I wouldnt add anything to the tank until you can get the nitrates under control. I live by if I cant test for it I dont want it in my tanks and there is alot of stuff in buffers that can lead to other problems.

When doing water changes to control chemistry keep in mind if you have a nitrate at 50ppm and you do a 50% water change you only drop that to 25ppm, so if your tank is producing nitrates then you will be back to 50ppm within a couple days. So to keep your livestock alive I would be doing 50% water changes daily or atleast everyother day.
Below is some reading you may want to do or not, it helped me out alot when dealing with the smaller tanks.

Low ph: causes and cures
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.php
Water chemistry
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
What is seawater
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

Good luck

[dviper150]

i agree with engine8ff. however, what I did instead of repeated water changes, I used prime to keep my nitrites down until the biological filter kicked in and started to keep it down on its own. Using prime doesn't solve the problem but it helps buy you time so that bacteria can build up and eventually help with the filtration and keep your parameters steady.

[Engine8ff]

Second the prime. There is alot of people that use it with success. Foregot about that one.

[juniorjose]

dVIPER150: cured rock it is. no i dont add half a cube everyday. i feed half a cube with two pieces of prawn and add selcon and vita-chem to it every other day. my fish ae so healthy though that sometimes i dont even feed them for three days when i go over my sisters house. but they do get hungry when i come back

chiefsurfer: thanks for the info. tommorow ill do maybe three to get it out of there fast. thats all i have left anyway in my 5 gallon bucket i store it in. when i do go to the lfs to get more water this week ill aslo get the cured rock and base to be cheaper, and some cheato. sounds good?

Engine 8: im not quite sure about how much sand is in there. but its live sand and theres is about an inch in there. maybe 5-10 pounds of sand? as for the ph of the tank should i just leave it alone?..i have another tank a 30 gallon and the ph in there is 8.4, do u think this is beacuse the nano is closed and the 30 is not? thanks for the readings!!!!

whats prime?

[Engine8ff]

Does your nano have the little door in the front? If it does you may want to open that up for a couple hours a day so your tank can get some fresh air. A closed top tank does run a little lower on the ph do to carbon dioxide build up, thats why you have that fishy smell when you first open it up to clean, ect. Your open top tank is able to get rid of it naturally, btw you will find your open top drop in ph if you have alot of company over or your house stays closed up for a couple days. Winter months are the worse time of the year for tanks due to carbon dioxide staying in the house.

Prime is a additive you can get at your LFS and follow directions.

[juniorjose]

thanks for the elaboration on that man. never new exactly how ph worked. im reading the links u put on there right now. thanks.

a couple of questions poped in my had.

do u guys think i should get PRIME?

also when i get the new rocks in my tank and reaquascape, dont u think my fish will fight? they are already used to the aquascape in there right now and each one has there own hide out.

[Chiefsurfer]

^+1 What happens, ESPECIALLY if you have baseboard heat and there is NO air exchange, is when the house is closed up all day, you use up all the oxygen. Not ALL of it, but a lot of it. We are fairly comfortable with higher co2 vs o2 conditions in our houses, so we don't really notice it. However, having a tank with lower o2, and higher co2 levels will definitely have a lower ph. This is one of the 2 primary reasons for having chaeto. Without it, you will have SOME algae and photosynthetic animals in your DT that use co2(like any plant) and release o2(also like any plant) and therefore keeping your ph up. At night, when your normal lights are off, without running macroalgae on an opposite cycle, you can have fluctuations in PH. This can easily be tested by testing in the morning, right before your lights go on, and then again at night right before they go off. You will probably notice a difference.

[dviper150]

you should definitely get a bottle of prime. it helps keep the nitrates and nitrites down but this isn't a permanent measure. I have used this with great results. Saved a few fish in my tank.

[Engine8ff]

Your fish will be fine. They will find a new home and will more that likely be looking for it while you aquascape the new rock. Prime is a good thing if you dont want to do continous water changes.

[juniorjose]

thanks for the clerification chiefsurfer. ill definatly keep my tank more opened.

i dont think i want prime because i dont want to add any artificial stuff in my tank. i think the cheato should do it no? and also the rock rubble

[juniorjose]

dviper amazing car dude!!!!!!!!!! do u really have one?

ok guys today i went to the lfs and got 2 pounds of live rock for the nano. i put it in my 29 gallon first to get some more bacterias that are in the 29 from the other rocks, diversity. how much should i leave it there for? i plan on getting base rock later on to add in there.

i also got more water and did about a 4 or 3 gallon water change today. im getting very tired and fairly annoyed about getting water from the lfs. but it is NSW, but better then artificial right? im very mad that my nitrates are still high after ive been doing water changes everyday and still dont see much result, its like the nitrates got sucked up by the rock and releases a large amount all the time. even my lfs said its really high. the starfish is still alive though =). thanks for the help guys. ill post a pic when i redo the tank. or is a pic really neccessary?

[juniorjose]

i didnt get cheato by the way. since i can only put a small amount on the back my lfs sai not to get it because a little ball wont suck all that nitrate up that fast. he said just keep doing water changes. it might take a while. he was very helpful.

[Chiefsurfer]

Yes, while the bacteria that use ammonia and nitrites "fairly" quickly, the bacteria that transform nitrate to released nitrogen gas take a MUCH longer time. Most smaller systems can't keep up with production even moderately stocked.

How long have the nitrates been very high like this? If its only a short time, the rocks should not have absorbed too much, but long-term that is possible.

Just keep up the WC's. If you keep having issues with smaller WC's, then give some larger ones a shot, at least to try and control it for a bit, then when it's more manageable, try cutting the WC's down a bit. Also, when doing larger WC's, definitely be careful that the chemistry of the water being replaced is exactly the same as what was taken out, as a lot of WC's with even slight differences can stress your fish.