Greetings, all. I've been reading the forums, watching YouTube videos especially the BRS research related ones, for a number of months and finally took the plunge and set up a new Fluval 13.5 tank on July 15th, 2022. The plan is to just keep minimal fish, and soft corals. As background, I used to have a FOWLR 10gal about 25 years ago that I kept successfully for a number of years, but I believe much of the success then was due to being able to source good real ocean direct live rock, and the bio diversity that came with it. This time around I'm having some issues.
My current tank, the Fluval 13.5, is set up with the following mods. Chamber 1 is set up with an inTank media basket. At the top is filter floss. The lower two chambers are empty for now. Chamber 2 has 2 pieces of rock that were part of a CaribSea LifeRock 10lb rock kit (the remainder of the rock is in the tank itself). Chamber 2 also has a pouch full of MarinePure Biofilter Media Gems. Chamber 3 has a Cobalt Aquatics 75W heater, and the return pump. I did upgrade the stock return pump to a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.0 for greater water flow, and changed out the return to a VCA random flow generator. The substrate is CaribSea Special Grade reef sand.
My Red Sea test kit is showing 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5ppm nitrate, 8.0 pH. My Nyos phosphate test kit is showing 0 phosphate. I have an temp strip as well as a digital thermometer, and they both go between 78F-79F over the course of the day. Salinity is checked with a Hana salinity meter, and verified with my LFS, and is at 1.026. I get the salt water, pre mixed from my LFS, and they use RO water for it. Until last weekend I had been doing weekly 50% water changes because my nitrates were high (over 20ppm), but now that they've come down to 5, I plan to reduce water changes to 20% a week. I top off manually with RO water, trying to keep the salinity steady. Lights are on for 10 hours daily, using the stock lights. The filter floss is replaced 2x/week.
The tank was initially cycled using ammonia and Microbacter XL. Once it had cycled, I added a DaVinci Clownfish pair initially. Then later I added a banded coral shrimp. They get fed 1x/day, alternating between pellets, flake food, and frozen Mysis shrimp. I've been slowly adding the CUC, and it currently stands at 2 Nassarius snails (1 med, 1 small), 3 Astrea snails (small), 3 Trochus snails (medium), 1 Cerith snail (medium), 3 Bumblebee snails (small). I also added Galaxy Copepods from Algae Barn one month into setup, in mid August into chamber 2 of the filtration where the 2 rocks and biofilter gems are located, and since then have started seeing them appear on the walls of the tank itself. To feed the copepods, I daily add about 5ml of phytoplankton into the same chamber. The only other thing added to the tank was a a bottle of Arc Reef Pink Fusion Coralline Algae also around mid August, in hopes of getting more color over time that I remember having on the rock of my old FOWLR tank.
The problem I've been having is that I can't seem to get past the "ugly" stage, and even had a bout of dinos that I can't seem to fully shake. I'd like to get past this before I try adding any corals. This stage began in mid August too, and I'm unsure if it's related to the two aforementioned additions at that time. Initially, before even diatoms, I started getting dinos. They were the typical brown, with trapped bubbles, and long filaments rising up in areas. They would disappear overnight, moving into the water column, and appear again over the course of the day when lights came on. I tried to resolve it by completely blocking off all light for 5 days, and dosing 1ml/10gal ratio of Hydrogen Peroxide 2x/day, and 5ml of Microbacter 7 1x/day. After 5 days the dinos did appear to disappear, but diatoms soon appeared.
From what I remember of my old tank, and also what I've read and watched recently, the diatoms should have disappeared within a week or two, but I'm now on week 3 and they're still there. Also, it doesn't appeared the dinos went away fully because on the rock I'll get a very thin layer of what look like dinos, and little bubbles of air trapped. This is appears only on parts of the rocks that get the most light. In the attached photo you can see these as little white dots near on the topmost rock. Also, I had brownish looking film algae on the glass but that appears to be turning more green now. I clean the front, and right side, glass panels, but I leave the back and left side glass untouched, and this is visible in the photo too. The substrate is also covered in diatoms. I'm continuing to daily dose 1ml/10gal ratio of hydrogen peroxide 2x/day, and then at a different time I add 5ml of Microbacter 7 & 5ml of phytos, in hopes of getting past this ugly stage.
At this point, I'd welcome suggestions for what I might be overlooking, or doing wrong? There are two things that immediately jump out at me as potential problems - first, the 0 phosphate. That might be contributing to the dinos hanging around, and if so should I look into dosing phosphate, or just increasing feeding? I'd also prefer a higher pH, and I imagine that will happen when I change out the lights and get an open mesh lid, as that will allow greater oxygen exchange? However, that's not quite in the budget just yet. Should I do anything else for now, or just be more patient (it's only been 2 months since the tank was set up) and this will clear up in a few weeks if my other parameters remain unchanged?
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!
My current tank, the Fluval 13.5, is set up with the following mods. Chamber 1 is set up with an inTank media basket. At the top is filter floss. The lower two chambers are empty for now. Chamber 2 has 2 pieces of rock that were part of a CaribSea LifeRock 10lb rock kit (the remainder of the rock is in the tank itself). Chamber 2 also has a pouch full of MarinePure Biofilter Media Gems. Chamber 3 has a Cobalt Aquatics 75W heater, and the return pump. I did upgrade the stock return pump to a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.0 for greater water flow, and changed out the return to a VCA random flow generator. The substrate is CaribSea Special Grade reef sand.
My Red Sea test kit is showing 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5ppm nitrate, 8.0 pH. My Nyos phosphate test kit is showing 0 phosphate. I have an temp strip as well as a digital thermometer, and they both go between 78F-79F over the course of the day. Salinity is checked with a Hana salinity meter, and verified with my LFS, and is at 1.026. I get the salt water, pre mixed from my LFS, and they use RO water for it. Until last weekend I had been doing weekly 50% water changes because my nitrates were high (over 20ppm), but now that they've come down to 5, I plan to reduce water changes to 20% a week. I top off manually with RO water, trying to keep the salinity steady. Lights are on for 10 hours daily, using the stock lights. The filter floss is replaced 2x/week.
The tank was initially cycled using ammonia and Microbacter XL. Once it had cycled, I added a DaVinci Clownfish pair initially. Then later I added a banded coral shrimp. They get fed 1x/day, alternating between pellets, flake food, and frozen Mysis shrimp. I've been slowly adding the CUC, and it currently stands at 2 Nassarius snails (1 med, 1 small), 3 Astrea snails (small), 3 Trochus snails (medium), 1 Cerith snail (medium), 3 Bumblebee snails (small). I also added Galaxy Copepods from Algae Barn one month into setup, in mid August into chamber 2 of the filtration where the 2 rocks and biofilter gems are located, and since then have started seeing them appear on the walls of the tank itself. To feed the copepods, I daily add about 5ml of phytoplankton into the same chamber. The only other thing added to the tank was a a bottle of Arc Reef Pink Fusion Coralline Algae also around mid August, in hopes of getting more color over time that I remember having on the rock of my old FOWLR tank.
The problem I've been having is that I can't seem to get past the "ugly" stage, and even had a bout of dinos that I can't seem to fully shake. I'd like to get past this before I try adding any corals. This stage began in mid August too, and I'm unsure if it's related to the two aforementioned additions at that time. Initially, before even diatoms, I started getting dinos. They were the typical brown, with trapped bubbles, and long filaments rising up in areas. They would disappear overnight, moving into the water column, and appear again over the course of the day when lights came on. I tried to resolve it by completely blocking off all light for 5 days, and dosing 1ml/10gal ratio of Hydrogen Peroxide 2x/day, and 5ml of Microbacter 7 1x/day. After 5 days the dinos did appear to disappear, but diatoms soon appeared.
From what I remember of my old tank, and also what I've read and watched recently, the diatoms should have disappeared within a week or two, but I'm now on week 3 and they're still there. Also, it doesn't appeared the dinos went away fully because on the rock I'll get a very thin layer of what look like dinos, and little bubbles of air trapped. This is appears only on parts of the rocks that get the most light. In the attached photo you can see these as little white dots near on the topmost rock. Also, I had brownish looking film algae on the glass but that appears to be turning more green now. I clean the front, and right side, glass panels, but I leave the back and left side glass untouched, and this is visible in the photo too. The substrate is also covered in diatoms. I'm continuing to daily dose 1ml/10gal ratio of hydrogen peroxide 2x/day, and then at a different time I add 5ml of Microbacter 7 & 5ml of phytos, in hopes of getting past this ugly stage.
At this point, I'd welcome suggestions for what I might be overlooking, or doing wrong? There are two things that immediately jump out at me as potential problems - first, the 0 phosphate. That might be contributing to the dinos hanging around, and if so should I look into dosing phosphate, or just increasing feeding? I'd also prefer a higher pH, and I imagine that will happen when I change out the lights and get an open mesh lid, as that will allow greater oxygen exchange? However, that's not quite in the budget just yet. Should I do anything else for now, or just be more patient (it's only been 2 months since the tank was set up) and this will clear up in a few weeks if my other parameters remain unchanged?
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!
