5g going on 17g Tank

[syncro]

Thanks guys. Small screws hold the pond liner against the plywood then the edge is sealed with a bead of clear silicone.

[DCDN]

Any updates?

[syncro]

A new 25g tank is on order from Concept Aquatics. It turn out a 20L fits perfectly in the bottom of the cabinet so I'll rip out the pond liner and just silicone in the 20L as a sump. Picked up this guy (or girl I can't tell)...

[syncro]

Otherwise the tank is looking a little ugly. Brown sand and hair algae. Any recommendations? Current animals include:

3 tiny nassarius snails
3 dwarf blue legged herbit crabs
1 stomatella snail
3 tiny asterina stars
1 procelain anemone crab

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by syncro

Otherwise the tank is looking a little ugly. Brown sand and hair algae. Any recommendations? Current animals include:

3 tiny nassarius snails
3 dwarf blue legged herbit crabs
1 stomatella snail
3 tiny asterina stars
1 procelain anemone crab

most likely due to being a new tank and the hair algae is caused by excess nutrients.

tell us a bit about your system like:

water parameters mainly nitrates and phosphates??
light schedule?
food or additives?
ro water?
water changes?
reactors?


when new tanks are set up its really not uncommon to see some brown algae usually it will dissapear in time now long hair algae is another story you need to cut down on its source of food being lights and nutrients.since you have no corals no? cut your lights for a while your crabs and snails wont mind and get your phosphates and nitrates as close to zero as possible.consider buying a small phosphate reactor or building one its quite easy and if your nitrates arent super high and you have some patience just cut back on any food being added to the tank and do some large water changes that should bring them down.it wont happen over night but will dissappear in time.

[noirsphynx]

Loving this system already! The rock work is awesome!

[fishytime]

Probably too late now but, you can sex crabs ( like porcelains) by looking at the shape of the "plate" on the bottom side of the crab..... Females will have a rounded plate and males will have a triangular shaped plate

[syncro]

Thanks for the detailed reply DCDN. The brown algae has lasted 5 weeks. It started just after the cycle finished (week 3) and has gotten progessively worse. Today is week 8. Hair algae started about 3 weeks ago not too bad but slowly getting bigger. How do you tell if you are feeding enough? My fear is the only way to tell is when animals start dying. I've had one stomatella snail die but I think he went through the powerhead. The nassarius snails appear to be growing.

Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2-8.4
Salinity: 31
Temp: 24.3 *C
I haven't tested anything else.

Lights: 12h per day, 10am - 10pm
Food: pinch of cyptopleeze, few mL of phytoplankton every other day
Additives: a few mL of MicroBacter maybe once every two weeks
Water: RO/DI water change roughly 30% every two weeks
No reactors, just a little sponge filter and carbon.

Coral
Green star polyp
Blue cloves
Red plating montipora

Invertibrates
3 tiny nassarius snails
3 dwarf blue legged herbit crabs
1 stomatella snail
3 tiny asterina stars
1 porcelain anemone crab

Fish
none

Should I reduce the photoperiod to say 8hr/day and lower the light so the montipora gets more intensity? I'll also get a phosphate test kit.

[syncro]

Originally Posted by noirsphynx

Loving this system already! The rock work is awesome!

Thanks norisphynx. I'm finding the rockwork difficult to keep looking the way I envisioned because frags come on other rock always in the wrong shape. I was thinking of trying to cut off bits of the green star poly and blue clove and get it to cover the existing rocks.