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I've decided I hate small tanks


treesprite

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Dealing with this 50g tank (75 sv) has been a big hassle. I'm not going to set up the 120 that I was working on that has just sitting empty in a junk room for a couple or few years (I left it with half the silicon stripped off when I decided not to set it up).  When I had my 75g tank (100-110 sv), I could at least spend some time enjoying it without having to work on it. I think the rate of nutrient production matched up precisely with the rate of my tang picking at the rocks. I hate dealing with this 50g, but I can't set up a bigger tank right now.

 

I have had too much going on to deal with this unforgiving little tank, and I am tired of being frustrated with it. I'm going to just let it go to the amount of work I did on my old tank and try not to worry about it. I won't get any more sticks or zoas until I get a bigger tank; they grow,  but I have to pick bits of algae and when I don't have time to do it, the algae takes over them. I was going to let mushrooms grow all over the rocks so algae wouldn't grow on the rocks, but then a purple shroom killed a couple heads of duncan by expanding more than I thought it would, so I guess I'm not going that route.

 

I got crazy and bought a couple mollies a couple weeks ago think I ng maybe they will eat some algae. The salinity now matches the tank, so right now I'm doing the final tank transfer acclimation. They were eating algae off of rocks I had in their acclimation tank, so I think they will eat algae in the DT. They love Rod's Food... I bet they never had that at PetCo.  The only fish already in my DT are an orchid dottyback and a blenny, both of which are pretty much peaceful fish that don't dart around, so I think the mollies will be fine with them.

 

That's my rant for now. I don't really want any advice right now aside from anyone saying I made the right decision to not get sticks that are going to die from neglect.

 

 

Edited by treesprite
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What kind of algae? If its bryopsis or gha, I recommend fluxanole (reeflux). I speak from experience with recently dosing on my tank. Coral and tank inhabitants suffered no I'll effects. Matter o factly, I now have Coraline and my zoas have started to grow.

Apparently if you stop dosing, it comes back but at the very least it's nice to have a break from the algae.


-A-a-ron

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Green hair algae. I probably had bits deep in my liverock from when I had the bigger tank before I moved 3 years ago, I just didn't ever see algae because the tang ate it. I guess that it why we don't see so much algae on the reefs, the algae eaters eat it at a pace that keeps up with the growth.

 

I pretty much knew, when I decided to have a smaller tank, that without a tang I would probably have algae issues. My favorite fish of all time is yellow zebramosa tang - I can't wait to be able to have another one.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to look up the fluxanole as suggested. I just don't want to have to dose a bunch of stuff.

 

 

 

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If you feel confident that a tang would help then get a small one. Keep it until it gets big and then trade it in for another small one. The cost would not be terrible since you would probably get a year from the tang before you need to trade it in and really....at the end of the day how valuable is your stress relief? 

 

Maybe run a little GFO, manually remove what you can, an toss a beautiful yellow tang in there!

 

I hear the tang police sirens in the distance but in my mind I would bend the rules to reduce my stress and stay in the hobby.

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Reflux is amazing, I used double dose because I can't stand seeing algae in my tank anymore (Bryospis, GHA) everything was gone within a week.  I even took every rock and and dipped in peroxide and scrubbed twice and bryospis came back after.  After using Reeflux everything was gone, I wish I've known about Reeflux before going through all that work.  

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what is your clean up crew?  Snails Hermits Crabs?

 

Personally I only use Emerald crabs now. Snails always picked off by my fish or climbed out of tank. Hermits are too clumsy.

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5 hours ago, elbowdeep88 said:

No! Everyone stop with the advice. OP just.wants to rant...

 

You made the right decision.

LOL. I've had reef tanks long enough to know what is what. There are a handful of people here that might be able to to tell me something I don't already know or haven't already considered. I'm not going to keep stressing myself over the dang stupid tank when I have so many other things to be stressed about right now and on top of that have physical pain keeping me awake all night almost every night.

 

The only small tank I ever had that was effortless and still had "perfect" water, was roughly 12 years ago, a 16 high office tank that I had sectioned a third of off and packed with caulerpa, and had a 4-5 inch DSB because I was only using PCs and wanted corals closer to the light. There was no sump, no filter, no protien skimmer. Water changes were 50% roughly every 3 months. Undetectable nitrate and undetectable phosphate. I would love to try to duplicate on a larger scale, but I'm afraid of having a DSB that size go foul.

 

Maybe when the tank sees that I'm not going to let it get the best of me and am not going to give it up either, it will work things out on its own.

 

 

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While small for a Foxface, a smaller specimen might do you well; they destroy non-desirable algae (and desirable macros as well). I was blown away by just how aggressively they go after algae (they eat like a grouper!). 

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