My First Attempt at Nano...

[Dewman]

Well, here it is.
After weeks of reading and researching, I have my initial setup in place.
I decided to go sumpless. I will be adding a fuge on the back, but that's about it.
Here is what we have so far:
- 10 Gallon AGA
- 16 lbs mixed Florida, Fiji and Tonga LR
- 2 inch Carib Sea DSB
- Custom Sea Life Fixture
40 watt 10,000k & 40 watt Super Actinic
with moon LED
- Penguin 125 without filter cartrige
- 100 watt heater
- Accidental Inhabitants - Aptasia (of course), 2 hermits, one is a blue leg for sure, about 6 quarter sized flower anemones, 3 other unknown anemones on the Fiji (long, thin, clear arms with pink bubbles at the end) a small orange ball sponge, peanut worms, tons of pods,
And a couple of unknown snails...

My last tank was a 75 gallon. I sold that at the beginning of the summer for several reasons. This is my next endeavor. I am so excited to be back in the swing of things again. After reading this forum for the past several months, i had to give it a try.
The Live Rock is not fully cured yet, it has been sitting in a bucket under lights and flowing water for a week. The DSB was seeded with 3 cups of sand from a dealers tanks. The only other real equiptment I plan on adding is a refugium on the back.
Future inhabitants will hopefully include a pair of Yellow Headed Jawfish, or a Highfin Banded Gobie. Not sure what other fish I could get by with. As far as inverts, i want to keep mostly soft corals and eventually a medium sized Crocea, or Maxima...The guy I bought the CSL light from had a nice Maxima in his 10 gal about half way up, it had LOTS of growth on it and he only fed the tank DT's once every two days. But that is on down the road.
For now, here are some pics...
Thanks for having this forum for the "little guys"

 

[brandon4291]

That could not possibly be a better start for a Nano reef aquarium, wouldn't you agree Matt? I know the system looks awesome at night because a friend of mine has moonlights on his 75gallon, looks amazing.

looking closer at the pics, I see you have nice coralline seeding. What do you use for calcium/alk support?

 

[Dewman]

Thanks guys, i really appreciate it.
As far as the coralline seeding... my LFS where I bought the Live rock, keeps theirs uncured and cured in a 100 gal tank under MH bulbs. I think its great. YOu can see what you are getting instead of just picking out of a dark, cold plastic tub of smelly uninteresting rock. Due to the fact that most of their customers buy only the big chunks, I can pick out some really nice smaller pieces that have been in there forever, and are covered in coralline and inverts.
I plan on dosing with B-Ionic 2 part to keep my DK/ Calcium levels up.


What do you think of the snail. It's not a Nerite, shell is rough, not smooth. ?

Again, thanks for the support. It's all fun from here on out...

 

[brandon4291]

I'll have to get the snail ID to Matt, he'll catch it. I never kept them much, only bumble-bee conchs due to their size.

If you ever want to try another nice Ca/Alk dosing system I use C-Balance.

 

[Dewman]

I will look up C- Balance. My only complaint about B-Ionic was that when I added it to the sump in my 75 gallon, it would eventually coat the walls of my sump with an accretion of calcium, which would flake off the walls and get sucked into my return pump which would then, shower my corals with white "dandruff" and make the tank look like crap no matter how much I cleaned.

 

[Dewman]

Well, I have newpics of the tank. It had already cycled through the algae stage and I took the skimmer off. I al;so added my first inhabitants 5 days apart. First my Gramma, i hae always wanted one of these. Then, later my clown Goby. It'sgreat. He is less than an inch and he won't get much bigger. He'sso funny to watch. i wish I could keep 10 of them together, they have so much personality.
I just put my CPR 'fuge on my tank with an 18 Watt Jebo PC light. It is running with Grape caulerpa, and feather caulerpa in it. Hopefully, I will start to see growth in the Fuge.

 

[Dewman]

Here is the clown Goby...

My little Yellow Puppy Dog..

 

[Dewman]

Here is a pic of the entire tank and the fuge...

 

[Dewman]

Ok, so now I have added a CPR Refufium with 2 inches of sump mud. I am lighting it with a 18watt JEBO 'fuge light. I had to take the Penguin off of the tank for space reasons and now I just have a small whisper filter in place for extra aeration and a MaxiJet 400 powerhead. I plan on replacing these with a more powerful powerhead in the near future.

The Hang-on-side heater is being replaced with a submersible which will go in the overflow for the 'fuge.

As for stocking the tank, I think I may go with only 2 more small fish like a neon goby, or when my pod population takes off, and the tank is well established, maybe a Yellow Headed Jawfish, or a Blue Dot...

 

[Dewman]

New Pics and updates to follow...

 

[Anonymous]

Tank looks good man keep it up

 

[Dewman]

Well, the tank has sort of " evolved" I never have posted any updates. So here it is now.
2 years later, almost to the DAY!!

 

[Anonymous]

Outstanding!

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like you ditched the fuge and went with the Prism? I had one on a tank with pendant lights, and I hated how gummed up it would get with algae because of the lights shining on it.

I'm kicking around doing a nano, too.