New BTA's have been hiding for 2 weeks

[catcaniac]

I got my rbta about 3 weeks ago. I am running leds and turned the blues down to about 30% and the whites down to about 20% for the first week. The anemone came out right away and has been out ever since. Week 2, I slowly began upping the lighting back to regular settings and all seems good.

[Insane_Realmz]

Originally Posted by JustAClownFish

I don't really feed heavily. I feed 2x times a day (mysis shrimp, brine, sometimes dry food). I turn off the pumps and add a little bit at a time with a syringe. if they eat everything within a couple seconds I'll add more. Usually they eat all of it. I started feeding BRS Reef Flakes to get better coloration which worked for the mushroom (turned a nice light blue with some turquoise in it and before it was just pale). My skimmer is pulling out a lot of yellow gunk. I keep emptying it at least once a day. You need to know that I don't have a sump. It's a really odd tank from the Phillippines. It's covered in bamboo and the stand doesn't have enough space for a sump. Instead, I run a canister filter with filter pads and a little bit of carbon and I have the skimmer in the tank. The skimmer is slightly undersized (35g, my tank is 40g). I have at least 50 lbs of rock and a lot of aragonite. There should be plenty of surface for bacteria. I haven't seen my nassarius snails in a long time. Maybe they died and are now decomposing?! I'll stop feeding for a week and do a couple water changes.

Any update on this? I used to use canister filters. They're super efficient, but in my experience, tend to be nitrate factories. This could explain your high nitrate levels. Do you have a bio ball chamber in your canister filter? If you do, preserve it best you can when you service the filter. Otherwise, clean the filter bi-weekly if you can. Your aerobic bacteria will survive will thank you.

[Jokekash]

Originally Posted by catcaniac

I got my rbta about 3 weeks ago. I am running leds and turned the blues down to about 30% and the whites down to about 20% for the first week. The anemone came out right away and has been out ever since. Week 2, I slowly began upping the lighting back to regular settings and all seems good.

Catcaniac, what light are you using?

[JustAClownFish]

Originally Posted by Insane_Realmz

Any update on this? I used to use canister filters. They're super efficient, but in my experience, tend to be nitrate factories. This could explain your high nitrate levels. Do you have a bio ball chamber in your canister filter? If you do, preserve it best you can when you service the filter. Otherwise, clean the filter bi-weekly if you can. Your aerobic bacteria will survive will thank you.

It's not the canister filter. There is never any food in the filter when I clean it (I clean it every week). I got the nitrates to drop to 2-5ppm but when I started feeding the corals again with BRS Reef Flakes and KZ Coral Vitalizer it went up to 20 - 50ppm again. That tells me that my nutrient export is inefficient meaning I do not have a very strong bacteria population. I started vodka dosing now to counter this. This is the only way to control nutrients with a sumpless setup. I thought about getting a bigger skimmer but there aren't that many I can use. My aquarium is covered in bamboo and has a wooden rim. I cannot use any hang-on equipment. I'd need to build something so I can hang the skimmer inside the aquarium. I also switched to T5 lighting and that was one of the best decisions I've made so far. The anemone is doing way better and it moved to a spot where I can see it. It seems like it hates medium-high flow as it moved when I changed the flow pattern. It got blown around quite a bit and I think that made it move.