BB Nano...

[fidojoe]

My nano is goin' nekked!

Yesterday, I was cleanin', and I noticed that there were ginormously(making up dramatic exaggerating words) huge piles of detrius behind the rocks (only 2) in my 2.5g nano. I figured the reason for this was the fact that my AC150 filter was not creating enough water movement on its lowest setting, and it blew sand all over when it went beyond that. Sooo, I tore it down, and cleaned, and moved everything to the big tank for a couple days, cause the water had nasty levels in the nano, even with the daily water changes, and the huge clump of cheato. While I have it down, I figured I'd paint the back as well. Anyways, it will go back up tomorrow or sunday without the sand. Any words of advice?

Thanks

[regal_wu_tang]

Given the constraints of a 2.5 - (but I've seen plenty of beautiful successes) I think you're better off going nekkid.

With luck, the bottom will encrust with corraline anyway.

I'd argue that there is no direct benefit to keeping a sandbed in such a small volume of water aside from asthetics.

Good luck with going bare.

[Curtswearing]

Welcome to Reef Sanctuary Regal!!!

[Dingo]

The only thing that a substrate will do in such a small tank is look good (which has quite a bit of merit in my book). In a 2.5, It shouldn't be tough to maintain water quality, I mean, a drinking glass is a 10% water change. I suppose if you have a fish in something that small you could run into trouble because of all that food.

Are you doing your weekly water changes? You're not, are you? You nutty reefer you. Thats my advice. NEVER skip your weekly water changes.

[fidojoe]

Problem is, I was doing DAILY water changes before I tore it down, and water quality was terrible. I set it back up, and I like the look, but my zoos all died the next day after being put back in, and all I did was take the sb out, and paint the back (outside of course), so I pulled the rock with my dead zoos and one mushroom and put it in my 50 for now. Water params are all OK, and I re acclimated right, and the rock that they are attached to plus the other small one have been in there since I put it up in march, so everything is fully cured. So basically its empty for now, it just has the sw in it, with the filter running.

[fidojoe]

BTW, I only lost about 10 brown zoos that were guinnea pigs (testers) anyways, I didn't like em, they came with some others that I bought.

The water issue I was having were nitrates were at 45ppm, and occasionally I would see some ammonia.

My zoos and one mushroom only opened about 4 hrs after the w/c, and wouldn't open the next morning.

[Dingo]

Well, if you have a ton of crap in the substrate, it can do that to you. I've had runaway tanks too. I would advise that you check your topoff water for nitrates before you put it in. Impure water is a common sourse of nitrate and phosphate.

[fidojoe]

RO water from a water & ice store, TDS of 5. I have tested at one point, but never picked up anything. My Salt for this tank is and always has been Oceanic. Right now, the stuff is still in the 50g and doing very well, the zoos are even recovering.

[Curtswearing]

You're probably going to need to siphon the detritus off of the base weekly. It will accumulate on the bare bottom and deteriorate unless you have some sort of mechanical filtration. If you have a power filter on it, you could probably fire a turkey baster at the stuff and blow it into the water column.

[fidojoe]

The only fitration I had was an aquaclear 150 on low. If I put it on high, the sand blew everywhere. I reset the tank a few days ago as a BB, but things went bad real fast, and back down it went till I can figure something else out.

[regal_wu_tang]

Ran a 20 gallon Berlin style when it was in vogue. No substrate and a skimmer.

Conveniently, detritus had a habit of gathering in specific spots. Some airline tubing or other small ID tube will do the trick. Hope second go round for your critters goes a bit smoother.