Murphy's cube - "if it can go wrong..."

C

caracarn

[I've posted lots of newbie questions in the past, and as I sit here at work fretting over the conditions in my nanocube at home, I have still more questions for all you experienced and knowledgable people!

1. Algae. Out of control :very angry: I'm going by Home Depot and picking up some 5 gallon buckets, mixed up 10 gallons of water last night, and it looks like I will be removing the rock from my cube, picking/brushing algae (and anything else I think is dying or will die) off of it in one bucket, dunking the rock in another bucket of salt water to hopefully remove some spores, and then dropping it in a third bucket to sit until I have run all the rock in the cube through this process, then siphoning the substrate/back of tank areas thoroughly, and put all the rock back in. Then I am going to keep the tank covered and the lights out except for 2 hours a night to hopefully keep some coralline alive while trying to wait out the bad stuff again for a month. (or at least until I get a phosban reactor and a protein skimmer)

I am really looking forward to this process.. NOT! Any feedback on these plans would be helpful.

Someone would not have to work very hard to talk me out of doing all this, but Taylor at EA told me that a Lawnmower Blenny would not do well in my cube, thought it would eventually starve to death, and recommended a cleaning process kind of like the one I describe above.

2. Aiptasia fears - I have seen a lot of what look like tiny jellyfish squirting around in the water the last couple of days, this morning it looked like about 20 had attached themselves to the glass of the cube and were turning into Anemone-type things.

I am experiencing a deep sense of dread about this.

I also spotted what looks like some small anemones for the first time on a rock last night, there were about 4-5 and they were pretty close together but not touching. They looked a little squat for aiptasia, but they had long tentacles... I am dreading an outbreak, up to this point I hadn't seen any at all (but that means next to nothing, I am beginning to conclude).

Are these jellyfish lookin things bad news or what?

Here's some more information:
This is a new 24g nano, set up for 3 weeks now.
I have 1 hermit I know is still alive, but he didn't look well last night or this morning, out of the 4 I bought a couple of weeks ago.
I have 3 snails that dig in under the sand during the lights on period, and come out at night. (can't remember their species, but they are common detrivores) all 3 seem to be alive and well 2 weeks out.
1 Trochus(sp?) snail out of 2 that I originally bought a couple of weeks ago, the other one was killed by a hermit, I think.
1 Margarita snail, alive and (seems) well.

I feed nothing to this tank at all.

All kinds of algae growing everywhere. I haven't seen any slime algae or what I recognize as cyano, It all seems to be hair and higher forms.

Please... Helllllllp MeeeeeeeEEeeeE! :)

*edit* I forgot to mention I have 0 Ammonia/trites/trates when I measure, even had 0 phosphates when tested at EA, but I suspect that trates and phosphate are present, and just being eaten as fast as they are produced by the algae.

Also, I am changing 10% of the water every 3 days with water from a RO/DI that I bought from Marc, and the cartridges have been in use for about a month*/edit*]



Edited By caracarn on 1112992974
 
[I got a very simple solution for you but it will take a little time and a little cash. The opportune (sp) time to do this is now since faith is doing a group buy at the moment! Get these things and the hair algea should be cleared up in a few weeks!

1 blue or scarlet leg hemit crab per gallon (i.e. 24 gal = 24 hermits) Also scarlets wont kill the snails.

1 astrea snail per gallon

1 peppermint shimp ( for the new aiptasia, they like em young...kinda like micheal jackson! )

Buy the lawnmower blenny.... a small one. Then when the hair algea is all gone... sell him on the forum. I've seen some here go for $10-$15.

I used to do nano's before the cube came out. The largest was a 18tall and i never ran a skimmer. Just ran carbon for 3 days every other week. and alternated water changes with carbon. One week a water change....next week carbon. I had really good luck with that but i kept a very small bio-load.

I feel for you if you start scrubbing those rocks. I will guaruntee (cajun) that if the method i just told you doesnt work i will let you come throw your rocks in my tank and my "friends" will have em clean in no time. I use the same ratio of cleaners in my 125. They are always hungry! Good luck!
Jason]



Edited By JasonBrewer on 1112999891
 
[Welcome to having a new tank!

Keep up the water changes as they will help especially with no skimmer. The cleaning method you describe will work short term but don't be suprised if it comes back! The Phosban and just general tank maturity will go a long way towards helping!

Many times in new tanks you will get small jellyfish. Here is a picture from Dr. Rons site
RStaurocladia.jpg
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They will go away in short order!

If they are aiptasia better to deal with now then later. I would suggest either a peppermint shrimp or two or manual irradication with kalk paste or Joes Juice!]



Edited By kwl1763 on 1112999608
 
[Thanks for that picture, Keith, those are exactly what I was seeing on the glass this morning along with the teeny jellyfish, glad they are not something to worry about.

I said it would be easy to talk me out of my rock-picking plan, so I may just go get some more snails and hermits, the hermits I have (had? they might all be dead when I get home, and I have no idea why) seemed to want to pick at coralline algae as well. They were labeled "scarlet sand sifting hermits" at EA, and picking at what little purple I have that isn't covered with green makes me unhappy :(

They seemed to do fine for the first few days/week, then one by one over the course of a week or so they stopped eating and moving for about 24 hours, then eventually they crawled out of their shells and found some cranny in the rocks to die in.

I am sad/confused by this because I test ammonia/nitrites/nitrates pretty much every night even though I suspect I shouldn't really need to at this point, and everything comes up 0's every time, if I get samples in to the LFS in a timely manner, they come up with the same results.

And my snails seem fine.

Any ideas on what could be causing the hermit deaths?]
 
[What's your salinity at? How are you testing your salinity?

The masive algae bloom is not uncommon for a new tank after it has cycled. Personally, I wouldn't mess around with taking out all of the rock. Cutting back on the lighting wouldn't be a bad idea though.

For the aptasia, Joe's Juice works great.]
 
[My SG should be reading right at 1.025, maybe 1.024.

My hydrometer tends to read .005 low when compared to refractometer readings at the store, but I've gone in and had it tested twice in the last week on their refractometer, both times 1.025.

I'm not finding my last crab now, suspect it has died as well :(]
 
[
Then I am going to keep the tank covered and the lights out except for 2 hours a night to hopefully keep some coralline alive... said:
And the hair algae =/

It sounds like you are right about phosphates being used up right away. You mentioned some livestock that had died off. did you recover the corpses, or did they decay in the rockwork? Dead snails and crabs can do a lot to a small system if not removed.

Its a new tank, so be pateint. Most new tanks go through some rough times at the start with regards to algae, though most commonly cyno or brown diatom.

If I understood correctly your doing almost 50% water changes every 3 days. Have you tested the TDS of the RO/DI water? Have you tested fresh mixed salt water for phosphates, nitrates, ammonia? (unlikely but stranger things have happened).

I would skip the lawnmower in a 24g tank. Consider a bi-color blenny instead. Though I think its still to early for fish.

Do you run sponges, or filters anywhere? I'm not familiar with the nano cube setup other then looks. Be sure your cleaning these well of all detritus regularly, if its purpose doesn't include biological filtration, be sure to give it a good wash in the sink, then let it sit an hour before resuing it, or dunk it in a bowl of water with dechlor in it.

If I'm not mistaken the cubes are a bit low on circulation? Be sure your rock work isn't to compacted together, or it will create dead spots in the rock and harbor nutrients. Use a turkey baster to extract water from these parts to test. Unlikely to result different but hey, I think we're all pretty much guessing (Educated guesses!)

I cleansed my tank of unwanted algae (I kept some on purpose) by leaving the lights off for 72 hours, followd by an immediate large water change. This was for cyno though, which dies off much faster then macro/hair algaes. Worth a shot. You can scrub rocks once a week, as long as the source of the algae is still present its going to keep coming back.]
Click to expand...
 
[Kieth,

Are those Hydoid Medusa's? I seem to remember those back when I was keeping Seahorse. Bad news for ponies. The get in the gills and kill them.

I would think that they would not be good for fish either.

Think I have a picture around here somewhere.]
 
[I think they are hydroid medusae, the critters I thought might be Aiptasia are looking more like hydroids.

As a little status update, I tried siphoning the algae off the rocks today. Did not work so well. But I did end up changing about 70% of the water, and it looked like a lot of the algae was beginning to die off afterwards. That made me smile.

Now the lights are out, and they are going to stay out for a while I think. Water test at the shop tomorrow and probably a buncha snails, woo!

Oh and I did think the cube was a little low on circulation after it was running for a week or so I added a maxijet 400, flow seems pretty decent throughout now.]
 
[They are bad news in a seahorse tank and I imagine in a fish breeding system but do no harm to juvi to adult fish. Generally thewy all but disappear by the time your adding fish anyway. The usually don't last more than about 3 months.

Other hydroids do stick around and can be bad news for your corals!]
 
[Another update, lights are still out, almost 72 hours now. I got 10 more snails last Sunday, will probably be adding 10 more this weekend.

Also, I had suspected earlier that I was down to 1 or possibly 0 hermits last Friday, as late as last night around midnight I saw 2 still alive. This morning I found a corpse of one of them and scooped it out, the other is still alive, but not very mobile.
Not noticing elevated ammonia levels, hopefully I got him out quick enough.

No snail casualties yet, and I am seeing a very small dent in the algae growth.]
 
[I am officially giving up on my estimation of hermits in my tank, I see 2 in there again tonight, meaning that the only ones who have died are the ones whose corpses I have removed, if they were actually corpses and not molted.

There are many nooks and crannies in which they can hide from me for days at a time apparently, so I am giving up on guessing their conditions even if I think I am removing a corpse.

But this is a good thing, I haven't built the crab abbatoir I was beginning to think I had after all! :)]
 
[I was going to say that what you tend to believe are corpses could very well be molts. I never pull those out. Something will pick at them, eat them or they will dissolve on their own. After all, they are calcium-based.]
 
[Are you using Oceanic salt by any chance? If so, that could be a big culprit.]



Edited By wakefreak33 on 1113449330
 
[Unfortunately not knowing any better I started with Oceanic salt, that's what they gave me at the shop. I've been using Instant Ocean for every water change since, so it should mostly if not entirely be out of the system now.

Lights have been out since Sunday, it seems to have halted the nuisance algae growth, and the snails seem to be slowly eating it away, I really need about 10 more snails and possibly a few more hermits and I imagine it will be gone in a month or so.

This week's shopping will definitely include:

10 snails - Trochus most likely, I have come to decide that the Trochus that did die earlier just fell over in a bad spot and wasn't able to right himself (as opposed to a crab killing him), the other Trochus I have seems to eat a lot more than the Margarita snails I have.

B-Ionic & Calcium and dKh test kits - I want to kick my Coralline into overdrive growth, any suggestions in this regard would be helpful (the algae I have doesn't seem to grow on most of my purple spots that much).

A Refractometer - I'm beyond tired of guessing what my actual SG is, and I know it hasn't been that stable, to the detriment of the stuff in my tank. I never really knew how bad hydrometers were until I got this one.

Misc water change gear - 5 gallon buckets from the hardware store are easier to use for mixing than the 5 gallon jugs with the lids on them. a Maxi-Jet 400 will do the stirring for me, and I need another heater to get the water to temp.

Other stuff I want to get but may wait until next week/month are a Phosban reactor and an AquaC Remora skimmer, I have looked far and wide to see if anyone has used one of these on a 24g JBJ nanocube (it will mean some cutting on the lid) but haven't found anyone who says they have (or pics).

Sorry if these posts seem kind of goofy, but in addition to asking questions (and hopefully getting answers) I'm hoping my experiences and unforseen setbacks/stuff I didn't know I would need to have along the way will help other noObs like me.]
 
[If you want to see mods that people have made to nano cubes, I would recommend that you do a search on RC's nano forum.]
 
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