You could say I asked for it...

[mzzmorgan]

Hey everyone-
I haven't been on here in awhile, hope everyone is doing well. I got mighty brave and started a 3.5 gallon hex tank with bits and peices of my established 20gal. Its been up and doing well with about 1.5lb lr, and the inhabitants are a few shrooms, a sexy shrimp (the impulse reason to set up the tank!) and a very amusing porceline anemone crab. Its a pretty active bunch between the sexy shrimp's constant dancing and the crabs 'cheering' arm net/fan things. They are a riot. We just added a tiny yellow clown goby to the mix. Everyone is doing well and we keep up with water changes religiously. Anyhow- I can't shake the cyano bloom. we've gone thru the cycles of everything else, but the red just keeps coming back- aggresively. I've treated with chem-clean more than I'd like and I've changed to only using purified water, as las vegas water is nasty and probably the culprit. Any other advice or suggestions would really be appreciated. Also- I keep hearing that the penguin filter should be run without the biowheel? I understand why carbon shouldn't be run, but whats the advantage of taking the biowheel out? Thanks so much for the responses, it's good to hear everybody's 2 cents.

[labooe43]

In a tank that size i would recommend that you go with some blue-legged hermit crabs (4 or so) and an assortment of snails... that crew may be able to keep your cyano bloom un-bloomed... i wouldn't know of any other natural cyano munchers that would do well in that small of a tank.

bio wheels cause biological filtration of the water... but so does live rock and live sand. In a reef tank, you don't need (nor necessarily want) the extra bio filtration... so it is recommended that the bio-wheel be removed. The biggest requirement is proper water circulation... this will allow your live rock to do your filtering. I would imagine on a 3.5 Ga that penguin mini would provide all the circulation you need once you remove all the filter elements and bio wheel... Good luck... hope this helps... let us know how it goes.