# what not to do with a nano



## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

well heres the story my buddy moved to california and left behind his nano but of course beofer he loeft he dropped teh light and broke the bulb. i tried to show his brother how to take care of the tank but it was still severly neglected. i went over a few days ago to check it out,

the bulb had still not been replaced so it was in the dark for atleast three months, they were feeding it regular tropical food flakes and the water level was about 40 percent low, with no water changes for atleast three months.. it was pretty much all algea which i what the fish where living off of i guess, his coral banded shrimp died and all his zoo anthid died off..

well after bringing up the water level manually removnig ALOT of hair algea, then vacuming the tank and doing a 50 percent water change and cleaning the filter heres the tank after a week od er stablizing..

the mushrooms are coming back strong startign to split again already and amazingly the fish are doing well. i hoping that since i have been doing water changes, the filter is actually circulating the water and the light cycle is regular now that the algea will eventually reduce to a more manageable amount, he always ad a slight hair algea problem..


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## DucatiRave21 (May 27, 2005)

ewwy! glad to know youre fixing it up!


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## C.D. (Jan 31, 2005)

its a miracle the fish were still alive. the salinity must have been very high due to the evap.


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

ya i am suprised the fish survived the high salinity levels. and good to see the shrooms made it to.


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## Genin (Feb 4, 2003)

good lord. that's horrible. some people just don't care man. i mean you have to know that things are going wrong if stuff is dying.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

Genin said:


> good lord. that's horrible. some people just don't care man. i mean you have to know that things are going wrong if stuff is dying.


unfortunateyl his my buddies little brother is kind of clueless about aquatics, i even gave him a quick run down on how to take care of it and the links for the nano reef site and reeef lounge andreff central but he didnt look at any of it tehn i go to help him and he asks stupid questions that he could have easily answered with any one of those sites..


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## jiggy (Jun 27, 2004)

trade my manny for ur nano..


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

jiggy said:


> trade my manny for ur nano..


i would, i have a 125 that would make a nice home for a manny but i dont have enough room to set it up.. i barely have enough room for my 72 for my rhom and i still have a 20gal 30gal 55gal and 125gal plus a 90 gallon my parents will probably never use again sitting around in a garage for when i have enough space for the sickness to begin.. eventually i would love to have a study office room with all the tanks set up in wall, like two mini reefs and the rest amazon tropicals and p's

not to mention the nano has about 200 - 300 invested in it and manny isnt worth that much to me


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

Good save!


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## Alexraptor (Jan 30, 2003)

Saltwater fishes are fare more reziliant than ppl give them credit for, i remember hearing about an incident at a LFS store, where one of the tanks had been neglegted, the salinity was like way off the charts, 75% water evap, and the surface was coverd 100% by a thick layer of cyano, however when the guy brushed aside the slime he found a lion swimming around as healthy as can be.


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## jiggy (Jun 27, 2004)

hook me up with some of those tanks..


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

ok so heres a two year later update..

my buddies brother neglected teh tank for many many months proceded to let all the fish inverts and all but a few hardy mushrooms die so when my friend came back to jersey foor new years he told me to take the tank since his brother ahd let it go to waste..

this was from dec 05









and here it is jan1st when i moved it









and here it is just now









i am still dealing with the hair algea but not as bad, i have employed the help of an emerald crab, six dwarf blue leg hermits, two scarlet hermits, two turbo snails, two nasarius snail and soon to add half dozen margarita snails and a cleaner shrimp

corals include about five red mushrooms that survived the worst of it, about half dozen blue green mushrooms that i fragged off of a piece that has a mix of green and red button polyps and what looks like two tyes of a palys, i also have another piece that had a mix of blue green mushrooms stripped (bullseye?) mushrooms green zoa's and some other fancy colored zoa's, im fraggin the shrooms off of this piece as well. also i have what i think are riccordia in recovery, i found a pice of live rock at the lfs with some ill looking hitchhikers so im hoping they will come back to life for me..

so far the coraline algea is starting to grow back nicely but still kind of slow..

i would like to eventually grow out the zoo's then frag them and stragically place them around the tank with room to grow so its more organized then it is now with random base rock and mixed pieces from the lfs but im waiting for the coraline to get a better coverage and for the crabs to get the hair algea under better control..

well thanks for looking

i doubt anyone will read all that but if you do some tips on what direction to go in with this project or comments would be appreciated


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

a quick way to get rid of some of the gha is to add phosban or other phosphate removal media. then on the same day take a tooth brush, obvioulsy an unused one or one that you have cleaned throughly. attempt to scrub off as much of the gha as possible then a 10 percent water change to remove any of the nutrients that were released but the algea and derbis nocked off the rock. then kill the lights for 2 days. your corals are hearty and shouldn't have any issues with no light for 2 days, but the algea will. then another 10-20 percent water change before turning on the lights again. that should do a number on the gha. and the phosban combined with the water changes should take care of the nutrients released by the gha when it dies.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

ok its been about two months since the beging of recovery and things are doing well, i have a 70w mh on order i also added some more frag and a hectors goby, the emerald has done too good of a job with the algea, hes at least triple the size and has picked at my leather a few times so im debating giving him to someone with a large tank and algea.


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

looks good. if you want to keep the emerald you could just target feed him, they will eat meaty foods, might be worth a try to see if he will leave your leather alone


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

hes actually pretty bold, hes more of a finger chasher then most rhoms, i have been hand feeding him omega super vegggie flakes and it seems to keep him satasfied.. eventually though i would like to get a skunk cleaner or scarelett cleaner so im some what concered if her will tear it apart, he has lunged for the hectori goby but the fish is smart and fast..


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

updated again


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## Linford (Oct 26, 2006)

After reading this entire topic and looking at previous photographs, I can defiantly say Sir that you have saved this tank entirely. The visual impact this tank produces is extraordinary compared to your initial pictures.

Well done Sir, you should feel tremendously proud of yourself.

* takes hat off in recognition.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

Linford said:


> After reading this entire topic and looking at previous photographs, I can defiantly say Sir that you have saved this tank entirely. The visual impact this tank produces is extraordinary compared to your initial pictures.
> 
> Well done Sir, you should feel tremendously proud of yourself.
> 
> * takes hat off in recognition.


thank you thats quite a compliment.. take a look at my thread in the saltwater pictures form to see what this tank has progressed to


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