My Nano Tank Died!

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beamer

New Member
I have a 12 gl Nano DX at my husbands office....or I guess I should say I did. Yesterday I broke it down and brought it home to clean.

The tank had been up for over a year and to me has been awesome! I use RO/DI, temp was fine, nitrites 0 nitrates around 40 (using test strips which I have found to be pretty accurate) I was out of my phospate kit. The salinity for some reason was pretty low 1.020. A couple of months ago my brown button polyps started dying off. The candy cane, ricordia and green star polyps looked great. The little clown goby died this week also. The rocks have gotten crudy looking. THey say they have been blowing the rocks off at the office but I'm not sure they are pretty yucky. I think I see some hair algae growing on some of the rocks. I've never had it before so I'm not real sure. I tried to scrub off some of the rocks around the polyps but out of the water I couldn't see the algae to brush it off and when I did use a brush (tooth brush) not much was coming off. The candy cane is real dead now. I thought I might be able to save it but all of the tissue sloughed off of it. some of the ricordia might make it and that's probably about it. I have these in a 10 gl tank I have at home. My precious little Nemo died awhile ago. I thought he was going to be o.k. but I guess too much stress.

Anyway there is no telling what the deal was. I no longer work at my husbands office so his staff is the ones that take care of it...one person in particular and she's upset about it as well.

I have the pump running in vinegar water right now along with the sponges. I'm wondering if the pump was not working sufficiently. The current didn't seem real strong.

If I replace this pump what size should I get?

I will be starting all over with new sand. The sand has had a small amount of cyano for awhile now. From reading another post I guess I'd better just let that rock sit for awhile. I have plenty of other rock that I can use.

Do these little tanks tend to crash? Any input would be appreciated.

Here's a pic of the tank before it crashed.


Thanks! Cindy
 
djconn

djconn

New Member
That tank looked pretty nice back when it was running good. It sounds like a combination of low flow and/or poor water quality. These tanks do require constant water changes. What were your Ca and Alk levels at?
How often did you or they do water changes?

Changing the sand is a little crazy I must say. It will most likely set off another ammonia cycle which will not be good for your corals and fish.

A few folks on this site who have nanocubes have changed out the stock powerhead with a better, stronger one. That might be your next step.
 
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beamer

New Member
Everything is in another tank anyway and the sand had gotten kind of yucky. Everything is dead now. I only had 3 fish and they are all gone and the only corals left are a few ricordia and I'm not sure they will make it. I brought the tank home so I could clean it up good.

What size pump do I need to get for it?

How often do you feel a water change needs to be done and how much? When I was doing it I did a wc weekly of probably 1-2 gls of ro/di

Thanks, Cindy
 
skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
Most people upgrade their pump to a MiniJet 606, I used an Aquaglobe AQ300 on mine. It puts out 300 gph and is a low voltage pump so there haven't been any heat issues. They are kinda hard to find right now, it seems that the company is making a few design changes and the new ones will be out about mid 2006. The new cubes have a stronger pump in them, maybe you can locate a source to buy one of those. HTH, Skip
 
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incysor

New Member
That really sucks.

Since everything is dead anyway, using your old sand isn't gonna hurt anything, because you're gonna have a cycle anyway.

A weekly 10-20% water change is pretty much required with these size tanks if you have any fish at all in them.

I'm not 100% I have the story correctly, but it sounds like you haven't been taking care of the tank for at least a couple months, and it's been left in the hands of someone else? Your salinity is pretty low, which means that they haven't been doing water changes with correctly mixed saltwater, or they've pulled too much and added RO/DI water back in to make up for it. Since salinity is one of the easiest things to maintain, I'd bet that the rest of your params were off as well.
I'd never leave any of my tanks in the care of someone that wasn't another reefkeeper for very long, simply because there's too many things that can go wrong, and in a nano it can go wrong very quickly.

I've gone on vacation twice where everything was set up so that my friend just needed to go in twice and feed the fish, and had problems. The first time a piece of sponge got lodged in the overflow, so the tank overflowed, and I lost a mandarin, and a lawnmower blenny. The second time for no apparent reason my potters angel disappeared.

You didn't mention changing your lights out. The button polyps and some of the others could simply have died because your bulbs aren't strong enough any longer. PC bulbs should be changed every year. If you have zoos, ricordias, or other medium-high-light-needing corals you should change them every
8-10months.

Just throwing out guesses here.

From the pics, I'm sure that when you get it back up, and let it cycle, it'll look wondeful.

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beamer

New Member
You are right its been actually been around 3-4 months since I was working at the office. There's no telling what all happened. THe gal taking care of it was as upset as I was and wants to learn more about the hobby. I'm not sure how the water got so diluted. THat had me puzzled. Since there wasn't that much sand in there anyway plus it was pretty stinky, I threw it out. I have about 120 lbs of sand in the garage so I had plenty to spare. When I set it back up I'll work with the gal on it and have her do some wc with me. I've scrubbed all of the rocks and they look pretty good now. One rock with button polyps has hair algae on it. I thought maybe if I put it in my 120 gal that maybe my foxface and tangs would eat it. Do you think they would?

I did change out the lights. I'm not sure how old they were. They were less than a year old and they were installed before everything went downhill.

Thanks for the info on the pumps, I will check into it. Do the mini jet 606 cause alot of heat?

When I was doing the wc I was doing around 10-20 %. I'll have to see how much she has been doing.

Thanks for all of the advice and help! Cindy
 
Dickie52

Dickie52

New Member
I am going to go with the lack of water changes too....

that and the lack of TLC, these nanos need.... :lol:
 
skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
No the 606s aren't bad on heat, I have one in my 6 galloon nanocube without any problems. I just wanted more flow in my 12 so thats why I used a different pump, I had originally used a 606 in it as well. HTH, Skip
 
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