Nano owners help me out....

[Mr Cob]

Ok, I'm getting another pair of Onyx Clowns from GCReef this weekend (Thanks, Bill and Dr Mark).... and I want to insure they live this time.

-I have an 8 gal BioCube macro tank (been set up for like 6-9 months)
-stock everything
-need to add a small heater
-also have frozen mini mysis stocked up for them

Here's the tank:



Tell me what you would do to keep things stable....

Add an air pump?
Remove the stock bio stuff/carbon and replace with live rock?
Water change 10%-25%/week?
SG?
Add a heater?

PS: I have no problem taking it back to the basics....talk to me like I'm a newbie....things didn't work out the last time so I want to cross my "t's" and dot my "i's".

I'm seriously thinking about just adding the clowns to the main display (144) from the get go where they will have 3 anemones to choose from.

[Big_Pun]

umm in all my cubes i took out the stock media, run rock rubble, i used a coarse black sponge in the second chamber cut to fit the opening perfect, over rubble, also you can run chemi pure in first chamber just bought a seperate bag and divided it up, so one thing of chemi would last a while, i had bad heat issues so i never ran a heater but it might help to keep them from dropping at night. Fans also got noisey so i replaced mine also cut vents in front door and back for more airflow. i think thats it lol. water changes once a week 10-25% is good

chris(former biocube king)

[corruption]

Add a heater, remove the bio-balls, trim the baffle between chamber 1 and 2, remove the false floors, and add a light and some more macro in the middle chamber... Otherwise, just stick with water changes (tough line to toe in such a small volume -- too much and its a hard shift in ionic balance, too little and you achieve little results...) I tend to do 1 gallon per week in my BC8 (w/ rock, probably about 6 gals of water -- a bit over 15% per week).. My biggest fear is the bioload that the cube would take on -- clearly the last pair had an adverse reaction (perhaps it was a side effect of no heater?)...


If it were me/mine, I'd add to the display and forego the 'hardening' in the biocube..

-Justin

[Jarob]

I have had mine for sometime now and they seem to be doing great! All Im doing is keeping them in a standard 10g aquarium with 110gph HOB filter with carbon and a little LR rubble, a small heater and 2 large rocks in the display covered with xeina (they love swimming in it!!) with a ball of chaeto. There are a ton of copepods in the tank but I feed them filtered out mysis and baby brine shrimp twice daily, morning and evening. The tank is barebottom so I siphon up anything I see resting on the bottom every few days, and do about a 15-20% waterchange every weekend if I can get to it, a week and a half at MOST. I dont do anything out of the ordaniry I think? Im realllllly wanting to put them in my main display though, Im just scared they would get picked on or lost!

[Mr Cob]

Chris, I was hoping you would chime in....I was going to send you a PM but figured you would be bogged down with PMs, being that you were the BioCube King and all.

Did you run any carbon in any of them?

[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.

[corruption]

I also use a bag of chemi-pure -- though its just the bag itself in the first chamber, I didn't divvy it up like Chris did... Otherwise, I just treat the back area as a way to hide the heater and provide a small fuge

-Justin

[Mr Cob]

Justin...you bring up an interesting fact....I was doing the big water changes last time too. Perhaps that was a cause of things going bad. I might stick to 10% twice a week if I go the BioCube route.

Seriously considering dropping them in the display tank though.

Jarob...glad you chimed in too...your basic approach is proving to pay off. Not sure I'm obedient enough though....which makes me nervous putting them in the BioCube.



Thanks for the help everyone.

[Mr Cob]

Kristy thanks for posting what works for you...I'm a big fan of "experience" over anything. I can get the temp to stay stable but only if the temp outside is not causing my house to go from Heat to AC back to Heat etc....so yes, temp has been an issue with this little tank.

I also agree.....nanos are not always easy to keep....now a macro nano....that's easy! Just don't add anything else.

[Big_Pun]

Nano's are so much more challenging, as most view as a good starter tank,they are not, things go bad fast and stability is hard to achieve. i would run carbon once in a while but with the chemi pure you shouldnt need to. yea do small water changes you dont want to completly clean out the "good stuff" in the water, keeping up with top offs helps since evap is quick and in such a small aquarium makes things change fast. upgrading the pump in the back helps also if you dont want to add a nano k but the new nano k comes in 2 versions and the smallest one would be great for your tank.you have macro in the tank that should help, i never went to the fuge option but i kept alot of macro in my display.