lots o' silt

[chasesng]

Sorry to clobber readers with long story, but am hoping for commentary on anything we've done wrong, should undo, or redo correctly (hoping to learn from mistakes)....

wife and i are newbies who picked up a functioning albeit empty 12 gal jbj nano on ebay earlier this week. know small tanks are tuf but figured this would be harmless way to take first step on marine hgwy. Tank was running with SW and LS and a couple of golf ball size rocks, even some coraline. Otherwise empty... which we figured meant there was little for us to kill.

Obviously the move stirred everything up so we gave tank a day or 2 to settle. Then tested and found SG low at 1.0175, Amon and Nitrite okay, but Nitrate high at around 40 (altho these color coded tabs can be really difficult to read). Found Nitrate level peculiar but assume tank was cycling properly and PO removed LR and fish but never did final water change.

So we do about a 20% water change the next night. There had been covering of gray/brown silt on the LS that i vacuumed up during the water change. Unfortunately we unleashed a blizzard of new silt from the back "filter section" of the tank when we added the new water! Now I'm visually no better off than before (altho i suppose i got some of the silt out).

Also removed the PO's bag of phosban, and replaced half the activated carbon in the other bag. (In process we were started to find several nickel sized star-shaped worms and a couple of mini red worms which i'm assuming are bloodworms i've read about.)

Tonight i remembered to clean pump which seemed rather yucky and water flo is better but still dosnt seem like schmutz is going into the filter slots in the back of the tank. Figure we'll do another set of readings tonite and anothe water change in day or so.

So my questions are:

shall i vacuum crap out of back of tank or just leave it there, vacuum front and make sure we dont pour water into tank through the back cavity

assuming i get the SG and Nitrate levels improved, will clean-up crew help get rid of the silt? do they eat that stuff too?

i'm buying an exiting mariner's live rock and was thinking i'd put 15 or so pounds in the tank. is that a bad idea?

what were those little wormy things? bristle worms?

anyone have experience with the jbj nano cubes and know if theres a better way to mechanical filter?

and how about chemical filter? dont think i need phosban, but how about the charcoal? and there's this hunk of green plastic shredded wheat that the PO left in the tank. he seemed to be saying that it held microalgae

whew......thanks for any observations or help.

steve

 

[pufferbob]

newbie myself so i will answer what i can...

i have not used a nano nor am familiar with its contents (i have seen them, am familiar with what it is and even want one one day...) so some things may not be possible as far as this goes, but most will apply

if nitrate is high and amonia and nitrite low, that is a grate thing! just continue with w.c's to reduce the nitrate (a good wc point is between 30-40 on those). for the muck, more than liklely not a bad thing... just reducing your visibility.. clean off from the intake, impeller, glass sides and front, you do not HAVE to remove all from the back or filter casing. a cleanup crew (janitors) will help with reduction, certain animals are good for certain mucks and will differ on what they eat (lfs MAY be able to show you which is good for what). live rock is a good investment (natural filter), 15 is a good mark, you want bt 1-2 lbs per gallon... BUT only add about 1 lbs per few hours, even spread it out over a couple of days... if you add all at once you may come into a bio overload which could kill some lr, ls and lead to amonia and nitrite spikes requireing starting cycle over again. worms... hopefully they were feeder worms... but i cannot assume that they were... there is always a possibility they were a bad parasite. to get a better idea, do you know what the po kept? chem filter... phosban can help maintain the nitrate level remain lower, not knowing how long the po had this pack and considering the nitrate being at 40, i would discard that one and get some new, phosban or any other phospherate absorber will slightly reduce w.c's frequency. charcoal is a good one to have, it will constantly remove impurities that may (hopefully won't and shouldn't) come into water (chlorine, chloramine, metals), in marine you are better safe than sorry. the green plastic shreeded wheat.. a type of macro algea housing, a great thing in any form (bioballs, sponge brick, green plastic shreaded wheat). macro algea clings to all surfaces in the wet tank, this is a bio filter aid, the more surfaces they have to house on the cleaner the water will be. if there is room in the filter portion of the nano, place that one and any others you can fit into that space loosely. macro algeas love them fishy wastes....

 

[luckybob611]

chasesng, this is pufferbob... as you can see above, that account is currently band...

about the live sand... how much is in your nano? i have recently learned that you cannot go by the lbs per gallon rule on sand (it does still apply to lr)... there is apparently a dead zone when using sand... ideally you want 1 of 2 things in a sand bed.. either 1/2 inch or what is know as dsb (deep sand bed). knowing you are running a 12 g nano, the later is more than likely not your option... but, look into sand bed filtering...... watchin out for ya....