HELP! Slow growth in nano 14gal tank

F

futuregeek

Hello everyone,

My finance and I have had this 14gal nano setup for around six months with 12-14lbs or so of Florida live rock and some other from elsewhere. The tank was setup six months before in Fort Worth and looked this great before it was moved to Lewisville. I still think it could look much better.

What can we do to get the corals to look better and what other cost-effective solutions can we use to improve this tank? (Members I want to hear from you!)

This tank is a 14gal with dual compact lighting. The lighting is 40w (2x20w) 50/50 Coralife power compacts. There is a Fission Nano skimmer in addition to an Aqeuon power filter (elements in both are cleaned or replaced weekly). The salinity is kept around 1.021. The water is changed or added every week. Typical partial water change is one quarter every other week. The fish are fed usually daily (both of them), sometimes twice but I do not feed anything else. I also clean the tank glass every water change.

Any idea what the exact names of the corals are. Someone said the greenish is a candy cane. There are also some odd hairy looking brooms or something occassionally coming out of the rock and an odd, white spores continue to appear throughout the bottom of the live rock. What are these? I have also seen an extremely long bristleworm at times protruding from under the large rock or inside the smaller on the bottom left. I am also concerned about the feather duster. It doesn't look as great as it did months ago. It also seems it may have a tear on its stalk and I have seen the crabs messing with the worm.

What are your recommendations. Please ask for a water sample and I will reply. Thanks everyone!
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Most bristle worms arent anything to worry about, they will just eat whatever left of food and ditritus they happen to find.

With out pictures of the broom looking things or white spores, I couldnt tell you what they are.

From the pictures it looks like you have a candy cane coral and some clove polyps.

I have found that the nice looking corals that you want to grow fast dont, and the stuff you dont want grows fast. I would bump the salinity to 1.024, and please post your waters parameters. Ammonia ,nitrates, nitrites, Ph, and your elemental/mineral levels.
 
Thanks for the replies people!

One of these lamps is from October of last year and the other is a replacement from March of this year. The water flow comes from the Aqueon power filter which is 125 gph and the Fission Nano protein skimmer is 84gph. The white worms are in the second picture, on the underside arch of the live rock. The broom-like anenome is in the third picture, about one inch below the purple soft coral and is orange or light red.

My LFS that specializes in marine gave me great information this afternoon so I am going to take that advice and move forward. The water parameters are:

*** 08/13/10 1930 hrs : Temp 80F, Salinity 1.023, Calcium 420 ppm, KH 8dKH, Phospates are less than 0.25 ppm and Nitrates are 10 ppm or less. ***

I say less because the phosphates could be 0 (the API Master Reef Kit which I use has the same visual color for both 0 and 0.25 on the chart)(The Nitrates are also the same color for 5 and 10 but not 0, which is yellow and the sample was orange).

The worms may be tube worms of some type according to the LFS (Rift to Reef in Highland Village, TX). They stated that the newly added shrimp may have removed these as well as the Aiptasia (the odd broom-like creature). They also said the coral is not Trumpet but Candy Cane and that the other is a type of xenia soft coral. I also read that I should get a powerhead and consider adding iodine. It is also recommended that I feed the coral (they said small pieces of krill but how?)

I did take some action today. I bought an AquaClear 20 127gph powerhead with the filter attachment. I was going to use it to replace the power filter and I added about 3ml of AmQuel Plus for the nitrates.I also bought new Instant Ocean salt instead of the generic Petco salt. What does everyone think?
 
I think they got you started in the right direction. Flow needs to be 15 to 20 times the tank volume IMO. PC bulbs need to be changed out every 6 to 8 months.
 
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