Nano skimming

[chaas]

Well I run an 8g biocube, and I've fought a battle or two with hair algae. It's not very much fun to do, and I'm looking for a better way to deal with it. My sand looks horrible some days.

Anywho, I was looking into adding a skimmer to aid in the filtration process. Of course with the 8g it's either gotta be miniscule in size or live on the back. I read an article about the Remora Nano skimmer. Anyone use it? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks for the input!

[reeftivo]

If weekly water changes are not cutting it then with a tank that small you're going to be limited on what you can get. Remora nano, Red Sea Prism, Taam Rio nano. These all have mixed reviews but I believe they may be the best of the "tiny" bunch for HOB's. If you have room inside the tank get the tunze nano.

[Khai]

Tunze nano skimmer works really well for me. It's small and has a magnet.

[JonP]

Check where the problem is coming from rather then spend money to aid keeping it down.

[reeftivo]

chaas,

Do you have any chemical/mechanical filtration you are using right now or are you just doing water changes?

if you are using filtration right now, what does it consist of?
(i.e. filter pads,mesh,carbon,bio balls,ceramic, etc.) This along with your feeding regimen and stocking levels will tell us whether or not you even need a skimmer. Even with the most diligent husbandry, those cubes still tend to accumulate detritus in the rear chambers that is not easily removed and even with good filtration could slowly build nitrates to feed an algae bloom.

[chaas]

I realize now, after about 6 months of work, nano reefs are much harder to maintain than large volume systems. My greatest regret is that I got the bc8 instead of the bc29. Money and landlady issues ...

I made a few changes from stock. Swapped out the bioballs for rubble and chaeto in the middle chamber. That cartridge insert got tossed after the initial cycle. I run carbon and rowaphos, and use some filter floss over the trickler thing in the middle chamber. Carbon changed out every two weeks. Change the filter floss once a week. The day before, I use a turkey baster to stir up any junk in the first chamber, so it can get collected on the floss. Water changes go about a half gallon every two or three days. I use nutrisea water for changes and a dedicated brita pitcher in the rare event a top off is needed. Upgraded the flow a bit with a minijet 606 and a hydor flo rotating deflector.

The only fish in there is a sixline wrasse. Clean up crew consists of one mexican turbo snail, two cerith snails, three nassarius snails, and one scarlet hermit crab. Corals include a couple zoanthid colonies, button polyps, three mushrooms and a clove polyp colony. I generally feed pellets, supplemented with a very small slice of seaweed or mysis.

I'm pretty sure it's not overstocked, and if anything I'm underfeeding. He gets fed once a day. He's usually done eating after about a minute and a half, and with the seaweed I leave it in there for about an hour.

My nitrate and phosphate measurements keep coming up as zero, but that doesn't mean a lot since algae's still growing. PH sits at a steady 8.3 +/- .05, 10dkh. 450 calcium, 1300 magnesium. It's been stable since the middle of june when the fish went in, although the numbers are a little different now than they were then.

Pretty sure that covers everything, but it's late so if there's anything I missed that's my excuse and I'll try to answer in the morning. Thanks for the advice!

[reeftivo]

What type of substrate are you using? If your using aragonite then I've read that phosphates can bind to that substrate and be used to fuel algae. I assume it is consumed continuously by the algae and gives a false 0 when checked with a test kit. Even with GFO I'd imagine that there would be enough being released to feed the algae without getting significant hits on a test kit. From what you've stated, your husbandry is very good so that's the only thing I can think of. Take a little of your substrate and put it in a cup with some new water and stir it up good then test and see if you get a hit on the phosphates.

Just a Thought.

Tivo

[chaas]

That's a good theory, I'll test it out later tonight.

The sand's origin is a bit of a mystery. Picked it up from the LFS under the banner of "live sand" back in march. The particles are large-ish when compared to table sugar. My understanding is that aragonite is about the same size as sugar.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but let's assume the sand is a phosphate generator. What's the best way to fix it?

[reeftivo]

gradually replenish it with some Oolitic. Ocean direct original from caribsea is nice and a small bag is more than enough for that tank. You still would have some of the old sand in there but may still help and it's cheaper than a skimmer. Just do it slow, a little each day so you don't release too much trapped junk into the system.

[chaas]

After pretty careful testing, I'm pretty sure unless the test kit is trashed, the substrate is not a phosphate bin.

I used a bit of a complex method, chasing another lead. Three test subjects, three clean beer cups: 1 of tank water, 1 of change water, 1 of change water with an inch of sand at the bottom. Test each, after stirring up the sand a bit in the third sample. Repeat tests at 1-hour interval for three tests. The results ended up at all three at the same phosphate level: 0. Strange.

I went ahead and did another round of testing, using fresh water samples of the same type.

EDIT: This round of testing was done for nitrates. Forgot to include that minor detail.........

This time my findings were a little different. Seems my change water has a little less than 10ppm, which is odd since both the sand and tank water reading stayed at 0. It was fairly consistent throughout the testing process. Again, strange.

To this point I've been using nutrisea water for changes, which is supposedly 'living' water. A little too live (or dead maybe) for me if it's adding nitrates every water change. Tomorrow I'm going to reopen the subject of a RODI system with the landlady.

In the meantime, I'm confused about the phosphates. Does this mean my 0ppm reading is still a false reading? I thought hair algae used phosphates for growth, but the existence of nitrates is somewhat alarming given the source. I'm wondering if I should drop a pack of Purigen or something into the change water as a stopgap.

Comments, advice, a swift smack to the back of the head?

[mr9iron]

Have you considered putting a phosphate reactor inline with the return pump? As far as skimmers go you could take a look at the Warner Marine HOB, EuroReef Nano Skimmer, Sapphire Skimmer or the Deltec MCE300 or MCE600.

[Nanoized]

I have the same problems with GHA in my BC14

My setup/husbandry
Liverock: Miyaki 12lbs
Depth of Sandbed: .75" Caribsea Select Reef Sand
Salinity level: 1.025
ALK level: 11 dkh Nitrate: <1 :-) Calcium level: 420
IceCap Spotlight Pendant,Iwasaki PAR36 70w 20K Bulb,IceCap 70w Electronic MH Ballast
Chamber 1--heater
Chamber 2--chaeto, ChemiPure Elite, External 3x1w ZLED 6500k light(reverse light cycle)
Chamber 3--temp probe, pH probe, maxi 900, PhosBan

R/O water D-D H2Ocean Salt,
20% weekly water changes,

other equipment Reefkeeper2, HydorFlo, Koralia Nano

My Plan

I also was thinking of a HOB skimmer
warner marine H1 .........if these guys actually ever come out with it
deltec mce-300............ overkill?
CPR areoforce .. new skimmer..video looks good

Then adding agaeX (Fauna Marin) to my system to eradicate all GHA everywhere.
The skimmer would aid in removing the dead remnants from the water column and then aid in keeping up the water quality.
Replace slowly my sandbed.
Then covering all my LR with coral so the GHA has no place to grow :-)

I'll keep you posted if the battle was won.
If you don't hear from me the battle was lost and I'm hiding in shame.

[mr9iron]

The Deltec may be overkill but it wouldn't really hurt anything. Also, have you considered putting a Vortech in the tank for superior flow? I really want one for my nano when I set it back up.

[F.D.B]

I like the saphire skimmers seem to do well plus nice flow might help keep some of that suspended. Check this site http://www.sapphireaquatics.com/ Kyle might have one that small or could probably whip one up.

[chaas]

There's the whole daily blow stuff out of the nooks and crannies with my baster thing. Adding a Koralia nano or something similar might help on that front. I thought the hydor flo rotating deflector and the mj606 would produce more than enough flow in an 8g tank. The pump is rated for 156 gph, with a little power lost on the head. Give it between 15-20x turnover per hour.

The issue I have with that is my flow would increase but the cleanliness of my tank may not. I'd almost rather pay the extra money for a skimmer.

[Agu]

"...and a dedicated brita pitcher in the rare event a top off is needed."

I suspect that's the source of your problems. Drinking water purifiers don't supply the quality of water necessary for a reef tank. I suggest you buy distilled water for top off if your water demand doesn't justify an RO/DI system.

[faulkincanyon]

I used the taam rio nano skimmer with good results for a small tank and a small price

[chaas]

Agu, I have a half gallon pitcher. If I had to guess, I'd say I've used about a gallon from it since march. As it's a hooded system, there's very little evaporation and as a result very few top-offs. I toss the water from the pitcher every month if there's any left, just because it's been sitting relatively stagnant and we get an incredible number of mosquitos in my area.

Anyway, I sort of thought the brita pitcher would work better than distilled. Something about there being absolutely nothing but h2o in distilled making it less stable than filtered tap water drove that decision, though for the life of me I can't remember the exact argument. It's certainly worth trying if it means less nuisance algae.

So that I know for the future, even if I'm using a volume of 2 gallons a year for top off water, can that still have such a great effect on my system?

[Madratter]

Given how little you use the Brita it probably isn't the issue. That said, the Brita pitcher has no DI component. The PUR pitchers do have a DI component. I have my doubts either would remove Nitrate or Phosphates. The PUR pitcher will remove some copper.

Anyway, tap water if it isn't well water often has phosphates added to help prevent pipe corrosion. Again, probably not a huge issue given how little tap water you say you use.

[hebygb]

My hunch is that this could be a compendium of several issues:

Top off and WC water source (Needs to be RO/DI)

Too much stirring of sand in an effort to keep clean is actually releasing more bacteria than the live rock can handle.

This is a young tank. Although it sounds like you are troubleshooting and using the correct "fixes" the source of the problem has not been revealed... False negatives could be ruling out the root cause.

We still dont know how this tank is stocked.

Have you considered a small sump, this will increase your water volume and allow more options for mechanical filtration and skimming.

[chaas]

It may very well be the top off water, I'm not ruling that out just yet even though it's a small volume.

As far as the water change source goes, I use nutri sea water - http://www.nutriseawater.com/ - because I don't have an RODI unit. My guess is it started life as RODI in a vat, and the company added salt and some cultures to it, then stuck it in a bottle. I keep mine in a 5g bucket swirling around with a little powerhead. At this time a RODI unit is out of the question. Other than city tap water, this is my only option.

A small sand vac is on order. It's a shallow bed by necessity. More sand would clog up the bottom intake into the rear chamber, and that could cause more problems than it'd solve. I'm hoping vacuuming the sand bed every couple weeks will help keep the surface clean and the sub-surface disturbance to a minimum.

Those false negatives are extremely aggravating. I know they're not zero because things that shouldn't be growing are growing better than the things that should be growing. It's turning into more of a chore than a hobby, and that's not why I started this tank.

Thought I mentioned the stock in a previous post. Three mushrooms, three zoa colonies (one of which is button polyps), and a clove polyp colony. Two cerith, three super nassarius, and one mexican turbo snail. One sixline wrasse. I think the sixline made a meal of the one hermit crab in there, as I have an empty shell and no sign of a corpse or molt.

A sump is on my wish list, though I'm pretty sure we'll not be seeing one any time soon. This is another idea that was met with a glare and a head shake. For now I've ordered a koralia nano to increase the flow and maybe move more of the junk out of the system and onto the filter floss. Like I said earlier, I also got a sand vac, which should also help. We'll see if things improve in a week or two.

[Blue corner]

"I realize now, after about 6 months of work, nano reefs are much harder to maintain than large volume systems. My greatest regret is that I got the bc8 instead of the bc29. Money and landlady issues ... "
For me it was a place issue, but I enjoy my small tank. Small Tank have the advantage to easy manage of WC. Don't give up with this tank, when your problem will be solved you will enjoy too.

You mentioned that "nitrate and phosphate measurements keep coming up as zero", you should try to change your test kit. It's happen to me before, I was reading all time zero and when I changed my kit test I read incredible amount, the brand used or too old kit, or maybe both for my case, I don't know.

Concerning the Top off and WC, you may testing it (with good kit) to be sure it was not the source of the problem.

I have a lot of bristle worms on my cleaning crew and they are very efficient, they eat almost everything the rest of food, cyano, micro algae and even Hair algae if they find it, they don't brother any coral, I saw them even cleaning algae on the zoa. they are very good and I will always put it in my tank.

Keep searching for the source of your problem, it's the best solution.

[chaas]

Had an adventure today. I said I was going to leave the CUC alone for a while as I was worried about balance. Well, I'm also a known liar. Added to the mix are 4 astrea and a nerite snail, 4 hermits and 2 peppermint shrimps (noticed aiptasia, among other things). As it stands, my clean up crew consists of 3 nassarius, 2 cerith, 1 mexican turbo, 4 astrea, 1 nerite, 4 hermits and 2 peppermint shrimp. I feel like I might be going overkill now, but I'll sleep tonight. Maybe.

Gave the hermits and snails a half hour acclimation, then put them in the tank. The shrimp got a longer acclimation. When I put them in, the Wrasse started harassing them, so the tank will be lights-out until about this time tomorrow. I'm alright with that because I've been meaning to change the light cycle anyway. Hopefully this will keep the Wrasse from killing anything. Noticed he was swooping around at the hermits too before I killed the lights. The mystery of what killed my original cleaner shrimp has now been solved. My Wrasse is a jerk-face.

Also learned two other things. There's another little purple mushroom growing next to my large bluish-purple mushroom. Neat. The other thing is I'm terrible at identifying nuisance growths. Turns out the reddish brownish greenish crud on my sand is cyano. So we'll be very happy when the sand vac arrives. However the green hairy crap on my rocks is definitely gha.

When the pump and vac get here I'll update again.

[chaas]

Brought the peppermint shrimp back today. It wasn't working out.