Help with my nano tank

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I took this during the daytime cycle of lights.(Monday)
I have been trying to identify what leather coral I have. Thanks Biff.
What should my calcium level be? How often should I give stromtium, iodine and other trace elements?
Should I be feeding the healhly looking coral? If so what should I use, keeping in mind that the nitrates are not at 0?
How many hours of daylight?
Thanks to all. :)
 
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I usually try to keep the calcium somewhere between 400 and 450.As for the trace elements,iodine,and strontium,I personally dont think you need to dose em.
Never dose anything you dont have a test kit for.
And theres no need to "feed" you leather.It'll get all it needs to thrive from the lights and DOCs in the water.
 
Your leathers don't need calcium, and as long as you are doing water changes once in a while, you shouldn't have to dose anything else to keep the leathers happy. They don't eat food either, they are totally photosynthetic and get all they need from the light. You should be running your lights anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day.
 
Thank you all for the great advise.
Do you advise on a skimmer and an upgraded pump for my nano?
Future plans for my nano will be reef tank with 1-2 fish only.
 
Those little skimmers that fit in the back,really aint worth the cardboard their packed in.But I guess it would be better than nothing.
And yeah,I would up-grade the pump.The stock pumps dont really produce that much flow.
 
You never answered the question:

Do you have an RO/DI unit for making water?

Thats the #1 piece of equipment you need for that tank.

I'd do 3g water changes every other day until the nitrates were gone and the tests read 0. Probably take you 2 weeks of changing water every other day, but it'll be worth it.
 
Rcpilot said:
You never answered the question:

Do you have an RO/DI unit for making water?

Thats the #1 piece of equipment you need for that tank.

I'd do 3g water changes every other day until the nitrates were gone and the tests read 0. Probably take you 2 weeks of changing water every other day, but it'll be worth it.
Click to expand...
I purchase RO/DI water from my LFS
 
Last night I upgrated the pump to a maxi-jet 1200, I also added a protein skimmer. Today I notice more little feelers around the healthly coral. :) I consider that improvement. I do see little bumps on a small section of the rear coral, looks like the feelers may be trying to emerge from it. :)
 
like Biff said, those are leather corals
More specifically cabbage leather corals
The one that doesnt look so good will be fine
I had one that came on a chunk of live rock, it was actually torn in half, about the size of a quarter, and sat in a bucket of cold salt water in the garage for like two months before i put the rocks in my tank
anyway, that was last year and it is the size of teacup saucer now
 
Hello everyone,
Today I had the phosphates checked, They are real high. I have added some phosphate remover to the back of the tank. Nitrites 0, calcium 350, Nitrates 25, salinity 1.023, forgot the # of phosphates. I made a 2 1/2 gallon water change and vaccumed of the sand. Thanks to all for your help :)
 
Rather than putting phosphate remover (i.e. more chemicals) in the tank, you could have also used something like chaeto either directly in the tank (messy) or perferably in a high flow chamber of your skimmer...that would actually feed off the phosphates and lower that number naturally. The nitrates on the other hand, hopefully vacuuming the sand helped, but others on this site, rather strongly, suggest against it. They would probably say: "Stick to frequent water changes to bring your nitrates down".

In all honesty, you did exactly what I have done to fix my tank; just giving you the alternatives I have found.
 
KidJ57 said:
Rather than putting phosphate remover (i.e. more chemicals) in the tank, you could have also used something like chaeto either directly in the tank (messy) or perferably in a high flow chamber of your skimmer...that would actually feed off the phosphates and lower that number naturally. The nitrates on the other hand, hopefully vacuuming the sand helped, but others on this site, rather strongly, suggest against it. They would probably say: "Stick to frequent water changes to bring your nitrates down".

In all honesty, you did exactly what I have done to fix my tank; just giving you the alternatives I have found.
Click to expand...
Is chaeto the green ball of stuff that looks like spaghetti? If so I added that to my tank last week.
 
UPDATE: I have been checking my nitrates daily for the past 3 days and results have been 0. I will be taking a sample to my LFS this week to verify my results. The leather coral that is in the back of the tank is showing improvment, I can see the little filters beginning to extend from around the edges. I will be posting new pic this week after my sample water testing is done. Thank you to everyone for all the great advise. I am looking forward to adding fish to tank within the week. How many fish can be added to 12 gallon nano with skimmer and upgrated pump? I was thinking 2-3 at the most. Thank you again
 

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