Newbie with a Nano

[Jessie]

Just really want to say thanks to all of you who responded to me - I appreciate it and have definitely taken every piece of info and worked with it (you don't know what you don't know) - so yeah, a huge thanks!

I have more flow now - 2x 240gph Hydor Koralias. I have one placed mid-tank side flowing behind my rocks and the other opp. side top flowing across the front. If I add everything up I have about 780gph movement in a 30g tank.

I did a 20% water change (which didn't go smoothly but will get better). Removed sponges but haven't replaced them with anything yet - this Fluval came with 2 carbon bags and media that looks like cylinders with a hole in the middle. I'm going tonight to pick up some small frags to replace the sponges and cylinders tonight.

I'm about to order a skimmer, just have to take some measurements to make sure it will fit - Hydor SlimSkim (not the nano, the larger version). My tank is in my living room so it was really important to me that things are quiet but functional; I checked out some reviews and they really sold me on this unit. Tank is getting crowded with equipment, if all goes well then I may put together a 15g sump, but considering I just poured money into the canister set up, I'll keep this setup for a bit.

I've been testing and logging my parameters daily, as well as checking temp. and salinity. I'm on Day 6 and my parameters haven't moved a point since starting, sitting at ph: 7.9, Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite: 0 Salinity: 1.024 & temp. 80. Getting brown algae now I think, covering sand and some rock.

I'm going to look into an RO/DI system soon, apparently we have pretty good water quality in Edmonton (so says a Chemist I know) so I'm just using tap + prime + time (letting it sit for 24 hours before use) at the moment.

Other than that, I'm over the worms thing, they're fine - it's not like I have the loch ness monster in there. Also, big surprise, a blue and black striped brittle star fish came out of hiding last night so thought that was pretty cool.

[Dearth]

Not sure if you have heard of this site before but it is basically the almost bible for most of us in the SW hobby

Www.liveaquaria.com

It is a very useful tool and probably one of the better resources for fish/coral/critters

[Jessie]

Hey all, just wanted to post a quick update I guess. My tank is now home to 10 snails (5 cerith & 5 margarita), 1 blue tuxedo urchin, 1 Fire shrimp, and 2 ocellaris clownfish, and about 50lbs of green hair algae
It's all a learning experience, I pulled out as much algae as I could, mowed the grass with scissors and caught the rest through fish nets and a filter sock. I have phos guard in my fluval canister and am dosing with API Algaefix every 72 hours - also (and probably the most rookiest of mistakes...) I finally turned the lights off completely. Was running program 2 on my Maxspect LED lights (includes moonlight) and was therefore feeding the algae 24/7. Anyway, I'm hoping the ugly stuff will be gone soon so I can add a coral (frogspawn or hammer).

[Dearth]

A warning about urchins they love to stick anything and everything to their body and can be somewhat destructive I have a tuxedo in my tank and I love watching it but I am always rescueing snails and crabs and my smaller coral from its spines