Michika's 28g long nano-esque tank!

[michika]

Dear tank,

Please stop being such a death trap of disasters.


No love,

Me


This mornings drama:
- another clam dead
- the pump is making funny noises.
- it is retaining the radioactive green color everywhere.
- I can't do anything about the pump or the green color (I removed the clam corpse) until I finish my stupid term paper. URG!

So...if I had to...where in the city would I get a replacement Reeflo Snapper pump on such short notice?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Oi. No idea here....sorry I'm not much help Do you need anyone to keep anything else so nothing more dies?...until you get it all figured out?

I have a Little Giant 3-MDQX-SC inline pump sitting in my closet if you need something in a pinch.

[michika]

I'm thinking I may want someone to take my remaining two clams now. They seem to be unaffected still, but I don't want to chance it any longer. They are big clams, ~6" each. Maybe my fish too?

I just don't know anymore. Thoughts?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Catherine, I'm not sure I would personally risk it. Obviously if a clam just died, then there's something still going on. What kinds of clams are these?

[michika]

The remaining clams are a gigas, and a dersa. The one that died was a smaller dersa, about 3" in length.

I agree something is still going on. I'm thinking its a cycle like Tony originally suggested, and have been treating it as such. Ideas on what I should do? I've been doing daily 7g water changes, keeping all my media fresh (nitrate, phosphate, ammonia sponges, hypersorb, and carbon). This is so frustrating. What else could I be doing?

Between my paper and this tank drama, it is not a good day!

[kwirky]

it costs $$ but you could convert to zeovit? I had amazing nitrate reduction within 3 days of starting the system. Now 2 weeks later it's undetectable nitrates in the new tank. U need a skimmer though. It costs about $160 to start up on a tank your size if you build your own reactor (which isn't too hard). $80 if you don't dose K+ (potassium).

Not guaranteed it'll help your situation as fast as you need it to though; it's quite the committment to a "new" style of aquarium keeping if it's only to take care of an immediate emergency...

[michika]

Zeo isn't for me. I researched it back when I started planning out this tank, and the financial commitment is too much. My tank used to be self sufficient, paying for everything I needed through frag & equipment sales. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am eagerly watching your build though to see how it all plays out. Lets say I would go the zeo route and suck up the cost, how do you think it would help my current issue? I know you mentioned lower nitrates.I don't have any nitrates now, I just keep the sponge in there in case there really is a cycle going on. Anything else you think it would help with?

I definitely would consider putting out the cash for zeo provided that I know it will work. The downside is that I'm not sure if I want to be on a long term program like. I could always wean my tank off of it right?