Annadvn

I've been looking into setting up a salt water tank for a couple of months now, and have been researching quite a bit.

I came across this today on craigslist

http://stlouis.craigslist.org/for/849608070.html

Would this make a good first tank? Its only 5 mins down the road for me which is why i'm interested, well that and i quite like the idea of the nano tank.

I'm up for good and bad comments.

Thanks in advance for helping

Anna

nemo addict

dead link

NanoAddict

its a dead link, but with my advice I would say to get a 20 gallon tank, fill it with your dechlorinated water,add the salt, let it sit for a day, add some live sand and live rock and maybe some hermits, wait a week or two, and add some hardy fish like damsels or chromis

pinkfloydpuffer

What was the tank?

Tumbleweed

The best advise I can give you is to get the largest tank you can for the space and the money you have. The larger water volume will make adjusting the parameters of the system easier to handle. Nano tanks are great, but with the smaller water volume, your salinity level and water temperature will have greater fluctuations and will need closer monitoring. There is an old saying that that goes the solution is dilution. Simply meaning the larger the water volume that you have the more forgiving to mistakes it will be.

Annadvn

Sorry, the bloke took the link down cause i bought it.

Its a 24g nano cube with homemade 15g sump. Contains live rock and sand, huge piece of colt coral, loads of red, blue and green mushrooms (they are multiplying like crazy) several ricorda (sp?) mushrooms and a huge chunk of rock covered with yellow polyps.

Also has 7 blue legged hermit crabs, 1 watchman goby, a canary wrasse (he doesnt eat the corals) and a tiger serpent star. i have since added 2 nassarus snails and a turbo snail. I also added a cleaner shrimp but the star fish ate him

Everything is going well except i seem to have a outbreak of cyano bacteria (red slime coating the rocks and sand etc..) i remove as much as i can daily but cant get it to go away, any advice?

water parameters are: pH 8.4, SG 1.024, temp 84-86F (dont have heater just the lights) ammonia 0, nitrite 0.05ppm, nitrate 0 (using old test dont thik this is accurate same with nitrite), phos 0.1ppm, calcium 440ppm, alkalinity 1.7-2.8 - on lower end, kh 143.2ppm, copper 0.

Last 10% water change done last weekend.

Does everything sound good for now? (EDIT- i had to get it, it was only $300 for everything including food etc..)

Anna

will be building a refrigum shortly, just saving the money.

Hypnox

I've found that the best cure for cyanobacteria is more water movement on the rocks it is infecting. That way it can't even get a hold.

Tumbleweed

Most of the parameters are ok but I would get your temperature down. You want to try and keep the water temp between 78-81F.
The best ways I know about getting rid of Cyano is a chemical called Chemi-Clean.
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewIt...ry~FIMERM.html
Another way to get rid of cyano is like Hypnox said to increase water flow in the tank, but also to cut back on the photo period in the tank. Keep your light usage to a minimum. Try turning off your lights entirely for 3 days and then after that do a 20% water change. Don't worry about the coral or the mushrooms they will be fine.

NanoAddict

post some pictures too!

i personally had no trouble at all with water parameters in my 10 gallon salt tank