Oxygen bubbles on sand - doesn't bode well

[Untapped]

In all honesty I need to test my h2o parameters, and will tomorrow - I just did 2 water changes around 4 days ago.

2nd one because I feared I may have gotten happy with the calcium and freaked out about stressing my clowns and inverts.

I dont know the lingo - but I did have a red slime that appeared that I just cut off that portion of anthelia <forgive me if I misspelled- I will learn!>
I put it in water with H2o2 and it didnt color the water - read that was a way to tell if it could spirulina(?) And today there was this!

My Kenya tree has been pretty tight and not as flowy the past 2 days also - but I am working 11 hour shifts as a Census Supervisor and tomorrow is the first day I will have to take time to research and test etc...

With these bubbles I suspect an algae bloom is coming.

Anyone have insight or is it just a simple and natural phenomena?

Also - while I am at it, this tank was established at a year - I bought it last month - have added a skimmer but it is a pretty complete setup - being so small I know it will be tough.

My first and only previous tank was not reef - I was more invested in the eco system but never bought corals because of the lighting conditions being so essential.

So learning about how the chemical of the corals and behavior is absolutely fascinating to me - and though I do want to run out and purchase compatible and "easy" care corals- I am highly concerned for their wellbeing - I love to see things thrive.

I would like to move everything to a much larger tank - but am concerned about the stress of another adjustment and getting the lighting system correct, and everyone settled into a happy spot.

My original plan was to seed a new tank and build it from the sand up - I actually had such satisfaction looking at a lump of live rock sitting in a sandbed for months before I introduced my first fish - and clean up crew.

But this is a whole new game with having a reef tank - I got an excellent deal from someone who had cared for it well and picked the buyer *me due to my experience and questions and willingness to learn.

I would like to post my water stats and the residents and ask a "what would you do" for advice and guidance - I do not want to be babysat - but I do wish to have a comprehensive understanding of what is best - there is so much information to weed through...I am not doing very well with my usual 'self taught' approach.

My last tank was a poster child of ease and happy creatures - this one...whew, keeping me hopping!!

Thank you everyone who got this far reading- I truly wish to master an understanding of these little lives in my care.

Oh -i almost forgot- my frogspawn suddenly had the one <imagine correct term here> of its spires or side close up - honestly dont know what caused it - but after seeing a zoa death by hatchling sea spiders I have been freaked out about killers that may have survived my coral dip n frag scrubbing - so I ripped it for longer than I usually would and did a tap water rinse and ROiD soak and then another soak in tank water - it did seem to expand a bit and not look so shriveled and melty - but what is the cause & what could I do to help?
Open to suggestions!

Thanks to you all for being here and allowing me to vomit my concerns - today my 'humanity ahead' warning reads: Exhaustion can cause verbosity.
Once more - thank you enthusiasts!

I do have over 20 yrs as a freshwater eco system gal - loved it but dropped the hobby and when I came back after 3 or so years I decided on a salt tank.

When I left the state for work and returned to a crashed tank I didnt touch aquariums for around 2 yrs - went back to freshwater and the blizzard hit - no electric for 3 day and lost another tank - in all the moves i have made since I was 17 i have Never lost a tank - and to lose 2 in a matter of 5 years put me off tanks - but my fella said he had a generator to keep the tank going if another outage happens - so I took the leap! Here I land - and look forward to thriving life and frags to share, and things to learn.

[Feeling kinda sheepish about sharing so much to a blank canvas & right off the cuff too] but ya gotta start somewhere!

What makes those tracks up the substrate? I added more sand and these little boogers made themselves known- oh and the thread like filaments that appear - are they really those tiny snails that travel on silky threads and are beneficial to waste reduction? I have a pic of one in pulled off my birdsnest...

 

[Untapped]

Geez - so many misspellings and garbled auto correct - should have take time to reread- I want to say - I never had corals before and did have one salt tank that was amazing to grow - and always freshwater since I was 17...
I apologize for the mistakes - I just wanted to get this done so I can answer the shower and bed that are crying out to me - thanks guys for understanding..

 

[Shawn]

What a post! LOL. So - a few things.

1) Test regularly. Like, daily. If you don't have a monitoring system you need to be testing regularly. Once your tank is established (I'm talking three months or more) you can back off to every few days testing. However, your tank looks REALLY new. So you'll have to be on top of it if you want to keep corals.

2) Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. You shouldn't need to dose anything with those few corals in your tank. So stop it

3) Always try to find natural solutions to your problems. The silky strands - those are vermetid snails, and they're not bad, per se, but they can irritate corals and keep them from opening.

4) I don't recommend using hydrogen peroxide to dip corals. Or RODI for that matter. Use a good dip, and you'll be golden. I use five different dips when I get new corals, but I'm super crazy about my corals. But CoralRX is a good starting point.

5) The air in the substrate is something I can't properly identify without knowing how the tank was set up. If I were you, I'd vacuum the substrate the next time you do a water change and see if they come back. If they do, then that's a different story.

6) What type of filtration are you running? A sump? Refugium? Hang on back? Tell us what you're using.

7) The red slime you mentioned sounds like cyanobacteria, which is either caused by low flow or high nutrients, both of which are easy to fix. That ties back into question number 6.

8) This is the last one - I would sincerely recommend you find a reef "mentor" and take their advice. There are more than one way to skin a cat, but you need to meet someone who is knowledgeable and will get to know your tank because what works for one person might not work for you. There are plenty of folks here who've had bad starts - I'm one of them. But I've learned a LOT over the last two years. Haha. Find someone who can help steer you in the right direction, lol.

 

[Untapped]

Fantastic advice!
*I use coral dip that is the real stuff - just put the slime coated parts I cut off in the h2o2 to see what happened per a post I found in research

--No More Additives - gotcha

*feel really good that I got those
threads ID'd on point! Took slot of looking online to find info...yay me - tiny snails - love it.

-I hereby solemnly swear that I will test faithfully!!
Just lost my wave maker - it shorted out and am waiting on replacement so that would be an issue for circulation

And the tank is self contained - the college kid I bought it from was supposed to include manuals but we forgot & I think that ship has sailed.

It has an <loving new tech> AI light and the filtration is the stacked sponge filter, carbon bag, and on the bottom a refugium that has these hard white balls - also a top off system and an inexpensive highly praised skimmer -

So - since it is an established tank that has been relocated and traumatized- & the time it would take to get my larger tank stable seems like it would be kinder to leave it alone and maybe do a slow transition? I had alot of concerns on having a "small" tank with my 30 gal that I lost - now I have fallen in love with this 13 gallon nano...talk about raising the stakes.
I also just got an ROID filter that needs to be set up - but I want to continue to use my LFS for the saltwater...
Thank you for your insight and I will put together the make n model info in my profile when I get a moment.

 

[lmm1967]

As Shawn indicated - slow down. The types of coral you have in the tank won't die overnight unless something MAJOR happens - like a huge swing in temp, alkalinity or salinity. Going too fast will cause more harm than good

You have a small volume of water - I would suggest mixing your own water and not buying from a store. Preferably from your own RODI but if you need to buy RODI or get from a member I would do that. (I have 100 gallons of RODI on hand almost all the time - if you get in a bind and can drive to Acworth I'm happy to fill some jugs for you)

(this is just me - so take this part for whatever it's worth) - I would not run a skimmer on a tank that small. Small skimmers are horribly inefficient and with 13 gallons you can literally pull out 1 gallon of water, replace it with new once a week and that should be just fine to keep everything in check and stable.

Another argument to ditch the skimmer - I don't see much of a bioload in the tank, you have sizable snails that need food and you have some macro algae that needs nitrates, phosphates etc etc.

Lets start with some basics:
How are you handling top off water?
Temp?
Salinity?
PH? (not that important at this phase but you should know it)
Have you tested for Ammonia, nitrites & nitrates?
Any fish? What are you feeding?

 

[Adam]

We also have a meeting coming up early next month. That would be a good opportunity to meet some members and possibly find someone you like close to you that can help mentor you. With your plan to already upgrade to a larger tank that will be quite valuable.

Beyond the info requested above, I only see two fish in the tank. A very common problem with all noobs, including myself, is we tend to feed too much at this stage. Don't feed more than the fish will eat in a minute or two. Clowns are very small fish and as such also have very small stomach's.

When you did the H2O2 test, did you remove some of the Red Slime to put in there or something else?