Stew's Nano ***~"Emerge"~***

**stewpid** · 17th Feb 2011, 20:51

Hi all,

After decomming my nano reef tank some time back, i was left with a Mini M dimension-ed MIZU WORLD tank. I decided to give it a good clean up and possibly start a CRS nano tank. Most of my equipment are left overs during my reefing days.

KK enough talk now some pics

Went over to C328 in the noon and bought the following.

And now the scape. abit noobish here...tried my best!LOL!

And voila!

Due to my excitement, totally forgot to wash the gravel.

Will have to stir the gravel a bit every now and then,and do massive water change in future i guess.

I have a Hailea 1/15hp chiller but not too sure whether i should use it. Shall wait and see.

I also have a CO2 tank somewhere in the storeroom, might take it out to use. But I am hoping that this tank can be as maintenance free as possible.

Feel free to comment!

**jeffteo** · 17th Feb 2011, 22:34

Layout looking good. Can't wait to see more progress.

The stone on top of the DW looks a bit distracting. It is there just to weight it down?

**limz_777** · 17th Feb 2011, 23:15

Any close up on the sudo brown substrate? look reddish colour

**stewpid** · 18th Feb 2011, 00:56

Originally Posted by jeffteo

Layout looking good. Can't wait to see more progress.

The stone on top of the DW looks a bit distracting. It is there just to weight it down?

thx jeff...Yeap the stone is to weigh the DW down!

Originally Posted by limz_777

Any close up on the sudo brown substrate? look reddish colour

Will try to take more pics of the sand tmr...yeap it is a light brownish red color.dun think the white balance of my camera caught it properly.

Just wondering any old birds out there have successfully kept CRS in a nano high tech tank~?
Cause im worried the dosing and CO2 might be a problem for the CRS.

Thx!

**Apistoinka** · 19th Feb 2011, 22:34

Nice setup bro... Very brief detail... Do show us more progress of your tank... Looking forward to it...

**jeffteo** · 20th Feb 2011, 00:32

Not sure about CRS but I do have Malaya shrimp in my tank with DIY CO2 and EI dosing and they are doing great. I guess must important is clean water and stable water parameters. I.e. stable PH and low nitrate.

**stewpid** · 22nd Feb 2011, 00:06

Algae~~~

I encountered this before in my previous tanks...should i start to dose some seachem excel to get rid of it?or just leave it?

**stewpid** · 22nd Feb 2011, 00:27

Originally Posted by Apistoinka

Nice setup bro... Very brief detail... Do show us more progress of your tank... Looking forward to it...

Thx bro! wanted to edit the 1st post with some details but seems like i cannot edit it anymore.Not too sure why it is so.

Originally Posted by jeffteo

Not sure about CRS but I do have Malaya shrimp in my tank with DIY CO2 and EI dosing and they are doing great. I guess must important is clean water and stable water parameters. I.e. stable PH and low nitrate.

Guess I will have to try it for myself once the tank is cycled. Really excited now!

**jeffteo** · 22nd Feb 2011, 01:11

There is a limit of 20 mins for edit after each posting. After that, you can't edit it anymore unless you contact administrator for help.

Now I have RCS and Malaya in the same tank with liquid fert and CO2. One of the RCS just molted only.
Ammonia, Nitrite and NitrAte reading all zero. Floating plants will help you achieve zero for NitrAte reading.

**stewpid** · 22nd Feb 2011, 21:37

Oh didnt know that lol...thx!

what is your Gh reading with the CO2? and how many bps of CO2 are you using?

**jeffteo** · 22nd Feb 2011, 22:23

GH is around 1-2 only. As I am using DIY CO2, I don't have an accurate bps. If you are getting CO2 cylinder, I guess you will have to trial with the bps till you the the right balance where your plants can flourish while not jeopardizing the critters. Got to watch out for them if they are getting weird when you turn on the CO2 too high. You should know what will happen when they do not have enough oxygen right? Every tank is different so there is no magic number for CO2 bps.

**jeffteo** · 22nd Feb 2011, 22:27

Forgotten that you already mentioned that you have a CO2 tank. But what is a reefing guy doing with a CO2 tank???

**stewpid** · 22nd Feb 2011, 23:45

Haha! CO2 was left over from my old planted tank.

And reefing does use CO2 tanks as well for maintaining of Calcium levels in the reef tank.(via a calcium reactor)

Btw do you keep the CO2 running when the lights are out?

**jeffteo** · 23rd Feb 2011, 00:17

I got no choice as mine is DIY CO2 using yeast and sugar, it runs 24/7.
It will be good that you have it turned off when the lights are off to avoid pH swing which may affect the shrimps especially the more sensitive species.
Something which I don't understand is my tank pH level stays the same through out and no casualty so far.

Shrimps pro out there, correct me if I am wrong. My advise is based on what I understand so far.

**ZackZhou** · 25th Feb 2011, 02:41

Turning co2 24/7 will keep ph same. Turning it off then will cause a difference in ph lvl.

**jeffteo** · 25th Feb 2011, 12:51

Originally Posted by ZackZhou

Turning co2 24/7 will keep ph same. Turning it off then will cause a difference in ph lvl.

Shouldn't it be the other way round? As when lights are off and with CO2 still running and higher CO2 concentration in water which will cause carbonate acid to increase thus pH drops. KH buffering will help to maintain the pH level of the water preventing it from getting too acidic. Read this and you will understand more.

This is where the weird part comes in for my tank. My water KH is almost zero but i hardly see any pH swings, I suspect is the large amount of DW helping to keep the pH stable at 6.5. Trust me, I measured it many time through out the day...

**wusong** · 27th Feb 2011, 23:30

I use CO2 24/7 for my 4ft tank in Vietnam and I find no problem at all. Even the plants grow better than when I turn it off when the lights are off.

**jeffteo** · 27th Feb 2011, 23:46

That's why it weird, pH is expected to change when there is a higher concentration of CO2 dissolved in the water forming carbonate acid. Maybe the excess water movement and lower CO2 inject rate may have gas it out fast enough.

**stewpid** · 28th Feb 2011, 18:11

Hmm interesting~maybe I should try it with some RCS when the cycle is complete~

Seems like I have some black hair algae developing

Might reduce the lighting time to 6hrs

**jeffteo** · 28th Feb 2011, 18:20

How many watt of lighting to you have and what is the volume of the water. If you got 2 light tubes, maybe remove 1 first?
Lower photo time may help for short term only as it slow down the algae growth but not eliminating it. If you got too much light, the plant will still use up the important nutrients and leave excess nutrient like phosphorus which are what algae needs. The only way for the plant to outdo the algae is to use up all the nutrient leaving the algae none. Add in your CO2 tank or Excel dosing to see if it helps.

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