my 12g nano

[dempseyjosh]

thanks guys. now i have a question about acclimating stuff. i looked at the guide on this site, but that would be quite a bit of water from my tank to let it go for two hours. i'm just worried it would be too much of the water out of my tank and be like a 30% or more water change when putting in new fish.

 

[clay12340]

Dripping an addition can take a fair bit of water out of a nano. As long as you arn't dripping into many different containers it shouldn't be anything too drastic.

 

[innerdragon103]

drip acclimation is best but is not absolutely necessary... i reduce the level of LFS water the new addition is sitting in and then add about a 1/4 cup of tank water in every 25-30 min... i may go up to about 1.5 cups of water... then i release the new addition into the tank, ive never lost anything that way.
oh yea and be prepared to see alot of ugly brown everywhere, they're called diatoms and there's nothing you can do about it, it comes and then it goes mostly within a week.
i'd recommend using inverts to test out if the water is safe, leave them in there for a couple weeks and continue to check levels, then add in your fish.
also do some research about tank additives like B-Ionic, you will need to add additives to the water (alkilinity and calcium) especially for coral life.
good luck buddy i just started my nano in january!!!

 

[innerdragon103]

one more thing;
i leave the little lid on my nano open and it relieves the temperature, mine doesn't go above 78 and i have my lights on for 8 hrs a day.

 

[dempseyjosh]

PH about 8.2 maybe closer to 8.5
kh was about 125.3ppm
phosphate 0ppm
nitrate about 8ppm
nitrite 0ppm
Calcium 580ppm
ammonia 0ppm
temp 77
specific gravity almost 1.026
i went to the lfs and they didn't have a big selection today at all
i ended up getting 2 red leg hermits.
thats all they had from the list. i'm acclimating them as i'm posting this now. i'll post up more pics tommorrow

 

[dempseyjosh]

the tank

this doesn't look like algae to me

i went to another lfs and again all they had was the redleg hermit crab. they had green leg hermit crabs, but no blue. i don't want to order off of this site because everything comes in much larger groups than what i need.
i also need to know what kind of supplements i should start stocking up on or saving for.

 

[peef]

You should get B-Ionic two part alkalinity and calcium buffer. Untill you start getting into corals thats all you need. When you get corals get Reef solution additive. Other than that weekly 15% or so water change will resupply all the trace elements you need. I do agree with above statement I think it was for astrea snails...they are a good addition that I forgot. If anyone knows of a different hermit other than blue and red leg that are ok let us know here so dempsey can get some crabs, (oh thats a weird sentance to say about someone

)

 

[dempseyjosh]

PH about 8.2
kh was about 143.2ppm
phosphate 0ppm
nitrate almost 20ppm
nitrite 0ppm
Calcium 560ppm
ammonia 0ppm
temp 78
specific gravity 1.0255
i went another lfs, and finally got some others for the cleaning crew.
i got 1 emerald crab
2 dove snails, the guy told me they are similar to the nassarius snails in what they do, but are bigger
4 blue leg hermits
4 astrea snails
to go with the 2 red leg hermits

 

[big-fish]

if i wear you,,,i would get alot mor live rock,,so that you can have more places to place your corals thank on the sand,,,i would pick up about 2 big peices and 4 samll ones,,,that should be plenty

 

[dempseyjosh]

i planned on leaving room for adding things on, and i didn't really see any peices i liked. i want to find some shapes i like instead of rushing in to get anything

 

[reefernana]

Just to let you know, red leg hermits are not the same as scarlet leg hermits. Scarlets stay fairly small where as the red legs get pretty big. Also, there are different blue legs, too. The blue with the red knees stay a smaller, than the blue leg yellow-tips, they get big like the red legs. The little zebra hermits are great, too, and they stay on the smaller side as well.

 

[dempseyjosh]

the red legs i got were smaller than the scarlets i saw, and the blue legs are way smaller than them right now too.

 

[dempseyjosh]

i did about a 25% water change because of the nitrates, and i cleaned out the sponges.
now my readings are
PH about 8.5
kh was about 125.3ppm
phosphate 0ppm
nitrate about 5ppm
nitrite 0ppm
Calcium 560ppm
ammonia 0ppm
temp 78
specific gravity 1.026
the emerald crab was out for the first two days and now he has found a nice deep hole under a rock that he hasn't come out from today. do they usually hide most of the time?

 

[peef]

Yeah, he will hide alot during the day and then go out at night to partay!!!

 

[dempseyjosh]

my emerald crab died. i don't know why. i had time to test nitrate and ammonia before i left for work ammonia was at 0 and nitrate at about 8

 

[dempseyjosh]

everyone else seemed alive and well. they are all constantly eating off the rocks, is there something else i was supposed to be feeding this guy?

 

[peef]

nope they eat algae. sorry

 

[dempseyjosh]

so do you think there is something else specific i should test for?

 

[dempseyjosh]

i plan on going to the LFS today to see what they have. any suggestions from anyone on what i should get? if i don't see any supplements or something i should get, i am thinking i will just replace the emerald crab

 

[peef]

Honestly I have stopped adding any supplements except for some reef solution when I feed. Do a 20% water change a week and with my oceanic salt mix everything is great. You CAN test for as much as you want to, but the thing is with regular water changes you don't need to. I would only test for calcium around every 4 days and it never hurts to once a week test for nitrate just in case. Thats all I do right now.