Nano owners help me out....

[Kristy]

I would never presume to tell you what to do with your tank, but instead I'll share with you what we found works with OUR tank to keep it stable. Of course, every tank is different and your objectives with your tank may be different than ours, too.

1. So true what they say that it is more challenging to keep conditions stable in a smaller tank than a larger one. Never have we struggled with a big tank like we have with our small one.

2. We were having a long drawn-out battle with hair algae, low pH, high nitrates and phosphates, and unstable temps in our 20g hex and found the following things turned the life of that tank around:

3. We do 50% water changes on our 20g hex weekly (occasionally it will go to two weeks, but most of the time weekly). I know that sounds crazy, but since 50% = only 10g of saltwater, we started trying it and it made this amazing difference.

4. We put way more flow in there than any tank should ever need. This *probably* is only specific to the hex shape with smaller surface area relative to volume of water, but upping our flow and pointing it near the top so it bounces around and agitates the surface more, increased oxygen and improved pH and appeared to make everything much happier.

5. We bought a bigger heater than we "should" need for this size tank and it has really seemed to keep things more constant.

Edit: After about six months or more of this routine, we now face what seems to be TOO MUCH clean up crew and we are contemplating backing off of the WC.