10g low-budget diy nano reef

[Nevin]

Should have known any luck I'd have wouldn't be the good kind...

What's the best course of action? Is Joe's Juice pretty reliable? I'm not very heavily invested in this tank, so I could dump the sand, boil the rock and leave the tank dry for a month if that's the only sure way to do it.

Thanks,
Nevin

[hillbillyreefer]

I tried vinegar, not much success. Never tried Joe's Juice. I wanted a couple shrimp anyway so I bought peppermint shrimp. They didn't touch it for a couple weeks then one day they went ballistic on it and haven't seen an aiptasia since.

HTH
Brad

[tranvictor]

I found a syringe with boiling hot water works great. If you miss the aptasia itself, you can still shoot the boiling water into the hole that the anemone retracted into, it'll boil the sucker in its hidey hole.

[Nevin]

Thanks for the advice. I boiled the rock that 2 of them were sitting on, and squirted the remaining 1 with vinegar. It's still retracted several hours later, so I hope it worked.

Rather than starting from scratch, I'm thinking to just watch for new ones for a good long time before putting anything else in. Is this a safe option? I don't know what the life cycle of aiptasia is like and would hate to see it pop up later after I put in corals.

Thanks,
Nevin

[Nevin]

Nitrite .2 mg/L
Ammonia 1.2-2.4 mg/L

Brown diatoms on the sand and glass--pretty mild so far compared to the algae I've grown in my freshwater tanks.

Added 1 cup live sand from another source 2 days ago to seed mine. Added 8 lbs. live rock tonight for a total of 10--7 lb. of it was in a big square block that I got cheap and split in half. Might reduce some of it to rubble for the refugium.

I like the design of the tank so far--it's nice to have the fluctuations in water level limited to the sump area, though it might cause problems for a protein skimmer if it is sensitive to variation in water level. Does anyone know how much of a problem this is with the Rio nano skimmer? Evaporation seems high to me--about 1 litre per week.

Any advice more than welcome...

Regards,
Nevin

[Nevin]

Oh yeah,

Seems the aiptasia didn't appreciate the gourmet white wine vinegar I fed them as I haven't seen a sign of them since....

[Nevin]

nitrite 0-0.1 mg/L
ammonia 1.2 mg/L

More brown diatoms growing. 10% water change and threw in a bag of carbon today.

There's some interesting life on my new live rock. I'm a little suspicious of it after the aiptasia experience, but I think it's good. There are lots of things that look like long brown turds littering the rocks, with "flower" heads emerging from some--guessing featherdusters? Also some stripey tentacles emerging from a hole--brittle star?

This picture shows what I think might be featherdusters:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...g/DSC06949.jpg

That's all for now. Any advice appreciated as always!

Regards,
Nevin

[Nevin]

Got a Rio nano skimmer today. I can't run it out of the sump area as planned as it needs a stable, high water level. Too early to say how it will work--after a few hours, lots of bubbles in the tank and white foam starting to rise up the neck.

Should I scrape the brown diatoms off the glass or just leave it? There are lots of little "bugs" (pods?) feeding on it.

Whatever the two kinds of creatures are on my rock that I mentioned, I seem to have lots of both.

[Black Phantom]

The stripey tentacled thingy is probably Spagetti worms which are fine in your tank. Can't really tell from the picture what the others are.

[christyf5]

Looks to be a cross between a spaghetti worm and feather dusters (with tubes) its hard to tell, they blend in pretty well. Either way, both are good for the tank

IMO, I'd leave the stuff on the glass for the pods to eat, it will only help your pod population. Scrap it off when it becomes too annoying for you but leave it if you don't mind it.