12dx cycled & ready.....questions?

[schnell76]

My 12 gallon deluxe is done and cycled and I have a couple questions. It has been up for about 3 weeks, everything spiked and is now down to zero including the nitrates. My first question is my ph is and has been at 7.8 the whole time. I started with special grade agra-alive sand and about a week later I added the 16lb nano live rock pack. It cycled in about three days after the rock went in. Is a ph of 7.8 typical for starting and then I need to buffer it more? Would this be a one time problem or is this going to be a continuing item to raise? Second question is I have begun to get some brown pieces of algae growing on the rock. I have only been running the lights about 4 hours every evening to minimize it, but now I have them off completely. Any suggestions for a clean up crew to take care of that problem? Also, would I be overloading the tank by adding two small percula's now that it is cycled? That is all the fish I want and I would like to add them together so there is no issues later if I were to add one at a time. Thanks for any help/suggestions :D

[theop]

Welcome to RC!

You'll find some differing opinions, but I don't think I am going against conventional wisdom with the following advice.

(BTW I am setting up a 12g nanocube dx myself right now in my office - I added cycled LR yesterday)

First, the basics:

What type of water are you using? Tap water is generally a bad idea as it contains phosphates and sometimes nitrates. Reverse Osmosis or RO/deionized water is preferrable.

Are you planning on adding any additional filtratation such as a protein skimmer or macroalgae/lighting in the back chamber?

Are you planning on keeping corals, and if so, what types?

To address your questions:

1. Your brown algae are diatoms and are normal in a cycling tank... It should go away on it's own in a week or two. I don't know if anythink will eat it, but I wouldn't worry about it anyway.

2. New tanks will tend to have low pH, especially while they are cycling. I think it is from organic acids released from decaying matter during the rock curing. While some will say that 7.8 pH is ok, I prefer to keep it closer to 8.3. You'll need to test your alkalinity, which gives your pH buffering capacity. Most likely, your alk will be low and this is why your pH is drifting down. I use Marine Buffer or Reef Buffer (both by Seachem) to remedy both alk and pH problems, but many similar products exist. In my reef tank, I always had to add a little of this buffer every couple of weeks to maintain the values.

3. Two perc clowns would be a good bioload for the tank, but I wouldn't add anything more. You can check bioload by testing nitrates over time. If your nitrates stay zero (or low:- < 5ppm in a reef tank is best, or < 10-20ppm if you don't have corals) your bioload is ok. The amount you feed will also have an effect on this.

Hope this helps!

[schnell76]

Thanks for the reply and the answers. Both the brown algae and low ph is something I have never experienced. I had a 58 gallon soft coral tank for about 5 years, about 5 years ago and I am just getting back into the hobby after the 5 years abscense. I would like to do a skimmer of some sort, but from what I have read fitting one in the back compartment with the cover on it is tough. Especially to get one to work for you. I used to have a bak pak skimmer on my 58 and it worked awesome, but I really want to keep the cleanliness of the tank and the original hood to hide everything. I used tap water to set up the tank. Never really had a problem with tap water before so felt it was safe to use. Not as good as RO water, but much cheaper. I have a feeling that the tap water does have phosphates though. I have that problem in my pool and it is obviously the same tap water, so I may end up doing something about that in the future if the phosphates prove to be high.

As for the livestock I want to go pretty simple. The two perc clowns initially and then a cleaner shrimp and whatever clean up snails/hermits needed. Down the road some small basic corals (just softies). Something like zoo's and mushrooms. Only other fish I would consider adding later is a yellow clown goby or neon goby....I love those little guys :)

[theop]

Your plans are that different from mine, as far as the tank setup. I am not interested in upgrading the lights beyond what the dx comes with, so I plan to stick with the softies as well: mushrooms, zoas, other polyps, and maybe a leather coral.

As for fish, I'll probably not get a clown since I'll put a pair in my 37g reef at home when I set it back up (I'm in the process of moving now). I was thinking a rainsford goby or shrimp goby of some type hopefully paired with a pistol shrimp, a firefish, and possibly a royal gramma.

As for cleanup crew, I like astrea, nassarius, stomatellas, and cerith snails the best. My LR I added yesterday has collinista snails which are supposed to also be good. Hermit crabs can be aggressive and kill snails (especially blue-legged ones), so I'll probably avoid those but might give a couple a try. My rock came with a couple of asterina stars which I'll keep, but they can eat corals. A mini brittle star would be nice too if I can find one.

I am planning on not using a skimmer, but things can change. I know that the Fission skimmer is supposed to fit in the back, but it doesn't get good reviews. There are other small air-stone driven skimmers which might work as well.

As for water, you could use one of these, which is just a DI chamber, but will get the job done. For the small volumes of water you need, you shouldn't have to change cartridges that often: http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?familyid=2856#details

In the long run, I'd anticipate you'll have algae problems with the tap water. You could run some type of phosphate remover, but it's easier just to go with phosphate-free water.

I am hoping that 2g water change every 2 weeks will be sufficient for my tank, but I'll have to see how the nitrate levels go.