Skipped last weekends 50% water change because my nitrates and phosphates bottomed out after adding a fleece roller, feeding less, removing a clownfish, and adding a bag of copepods
My nitrates and phosphates are still bottomed out.
Over the week, I've done the following since I last posted the issue.
- Skipped Water Change
- Slightly increased feedings
- Lowered Speed of Fleece roller
- Reintroduced Clownfish from QT
- Stopped cleaning rear wall algae
I also tested Calcium and Magnesium, and those have dropped to critically low levels which I assume is due to skipping the water change. Ammonia and Nitrite 0.
Should I go ahead with my normal 50% water change to at least bring the calcium and magnesium back up a bit?
Any tips to start a Copepods Culture?
Day 30.
Only 3 fish, but lots of easy corals, copepods, some inverts and live rock. Plus a steady dosing routine of nitrification bacteria.
The "ugly" stage lasted less than a 4 days and I think I am most happiest with the growth of that patch of macroalgae which I am sure is ripping out the Nitrate and phosphate but is wiping out the pest algae.
The goni isn't thriving but a drop of manganese seems to be assisting now, and I should probably try and get the peppermint shrimp out now they took care of the aiptasia but are now free to harass the BTA. Which the Clowns are not impressed by.
Hey guys, im a month in with my first nano (80l) and hitting a bit of trouble which id love some advice on.
Currently no fish, but added 4 trochus snails 10 days ago to start getting some life in there once cycle was complete.
My LFS recommended adding 2 bags of copepods and 2ml of phytoplankton once a week whilst we don't have fish to (i think) speed up algae growth.
For the last 5/6 days the water has looked a bit cloudy and nitrates have dropped from 18 to around 2 or 3. Chat GPT is saying it could be a bacterial bloom.
Continued in comments...
Just started my first Phytoplankton culture working with Reef by Steele. He’s been awesome. We decided on a Single Strain Phytoplankton Diatom Cheatoceros Muelleri that will help with my diatom issue and feed my copepods.
Day 6. 8:30am.. the jars look good. But after doing a little more research on the Copepods. It looks like they're going to take a little longer to grow. Like 2 to 4 weeks. It's only the 6th day with the jar. They are dancing in there but it's not enough of them to culture. So I am going to add more Copepods from my local LFS. And give it a couple of more weeks.
My new copepod and phytoplankton culture set up. I've got Tisbe, Tiggers and Apocyclops. I am trying the miracle grow method for the phyto. Fingers crossed.
Skipped last weekends 50% water change because my nitrates and phosphates bottomed out after adding a fleece roller, feeding less, removing a clownfish, and adding a bag of copepods
My nitrates and phosphates are still bottomed out.
Over the week, I've done the following since I last posted the issue.
- Skipped Water Change
- Slightly increased feedings
- Lowered Speed of Fleece roller
- Reintroduced Clownfish from QT
- Stopped cleaning rear wall algae
I also tested Calcium and Magnesium, and those have dropped to critically low levels which I assume is due to skipping the water change. Ammonia and Nitrite 0.
Should I go ahead with my normal 50% water change to at least bring the calcium and magnesium back up a bit?
Whoops! I added a fleece roller to my system. At the same time, I lowered my daily feeding frequency from 2-3, down to 1 a day. Also added a bag of copepods.
My nitrates were 7ppm, and phosphates were .03ppm before the changes.
I've not tested these two parameters since making the changes about a month ago. Was about to do a water change, so I decided to test em. I'm glad I did.
Im considering my options because I dont want these two bottomed out. Some of my corals have looked less happy than usual, and this is probably why.
Do I? -
• Do smaller water changes
• Increase the feeding
• Do less frequent water changes
• Throw it all away
I had originally made these changes to combat the uglies. It worked..
1:43am never seen him out. 2nd day of having him. Decided on to name him TentaCruel if you know Pokémon You know Tentacool 🐙 “kinda worried him not eating” Tank been running Copepod population is like crazy in this tank. I’ve read Baby Octopus feed on pods But like how lol. I tried small piece of Shrimp, Clam on a HalfShell. Right now I just tried putting a squirt of Marinecube mix with mysis, krill and other additives. Hopefully he can catch it. There’s also really really tiny hermit crabs like micro red legs around the tank. Hopefully he can feed off those 🤷🏽♂️
Definitely going through ugly phase right now🥲. Having cloudy water problems after adding some bottom dwelling copepods and some more crabs. I have started by doing some small water changes and then 1 larger one but no major improvements; thinking it’s just a bacteria bloom from the change in bioload. Got recommended Clarity by seachem and just added the first dose. Does anyone have any advice?
How often do you add copepods to your tank? I have a 175g display with a 30g sump. I have a mandarin, yellow coris wrasse and clownfish that prob pick at my pods but I don’t think I have anyone else in my tank that eats them. Really prob only the mandarin and maybe the wrasse. My tank was moderately stocked before I added them and I’ve added prob 7ish bottles (mix of algaebarn and ocean nutrition) over the last three months my tanks been up and running with fish. Could I get away with every other month at this point?