New Nano on the block

[Nanogasm]

Hi all,

I stumbled across this site and I must say, it looks loaded with some fine info. Much reading to do...

I am new to the marine lifestyle, having just purchased a Nano tank only a few days ago. I'm awed by reefs and marine biology, so I thought I would take the plunge.. on the nano scale.

I wanted to share some stats of my tank with you, as I'd love to hear your suggestions or words of caution during the newbie marine start-up process, as well as comments on what you feel it is capable of holding:

24 gallon Nano-Cube DX glass bow front (approx 20"x20"x20").
3 stage Carbon filter - 290 GPH submersible pump.
Two 36 watt 50/50 compact fluoresents (2" from water surface).
Two 60x60 mm fan cooled flip top canopy.
100 watt submersible heater.
(no protein skimmer)

I have a 3" mix of live sand and aragonite as my substrate.
26 lbs of live rock situated with circulation and light/shade areas in mind.

The fish store guy said it was ok to put the live rock in after a day of cycling, to which I did. It's the Fiji kind and looked like it had quite a bit of life on it upon purchase. A customer who was watching me pick rock samples said I scored good with respect to quality. Anyways, there seems to be loads of life emerging after a few days - to what they are called I have no idea. Everything from wiggly worms to spiny worms, to some sprouts of plant life, to tentacle flower things that hang onto the rocks, to feathery flower things that hang from the rock as well. My apologies for my lack of terminology...

My plan is to continue monitoring Ph, gravity, ammonia and nitrite, and conducting partial water changes every few days. From what I understand, once all of these are at the 'green light' level, I can introduce a hardy fish to take the cycling to the next level.

The long-term goal is to make it a reef tank with a couple of fish.

Would love to hear your thoughts on things I'm doing wrong, or should keep an eye on.

Would also like to hear about what types of corals I can one day get with the lighting I have. I hear terms like low, medium and high light types, and I'm just not sure what type my lighting can accomodate. I figure it is best to start researching now.

Sorry for the whack of questions and long post. New guy syndrome. :wink:

Cheers

 

[Rikko]

:welcome:

Sounds like you got some decent advice from your store - cherish that, it seems rare.

My advice would be to track your ammonia more than anything right now - once you see it go up and disappear you are essentially cycled. With smaller tanks I like to do a sizable (like 70% or more) water change after the cycle to eliminate any nitrate that built up in that period.

Test your pH first thing in the morning and right before lights out - maybe even log it. It's not something you're going to be doing much in the long term, but it's good to see it illustrated how pH swings throughout the day (it drops at night).

Your salinity, honestly, isn't something you need to constantly monitor as carefully as you might think. It's not going to change from day to day except for evaporation - what you'd be better off doing is discovering what the evaporation in your tank is and coming up with a topoff system (doesn't have to be a mechanical system at all, it can even just be that thing you do every night when you get home). The only other ways your salt level will change is during a water change (and you're obviously paying attention to salinities at that time) and gradual depletion through salt creeping outside the tank.

As for corals, let the tank age a month or two before trying any, and then make up a stocking plan. Randomly buying "nice" corals makes for a pretty tank but you can end up with species that constantly war with one another and will create a headache for you. Just as a ferinstance, I planned my 65 gallon reef to have only Euphyllia species corals (of course it never ends up that way, but that was the plan originally) - they are all in the same genus and not too bad with one another. Some corals will notoriously produce long sweeper tentacles at night and pummel the hell out of each other.
As far as what you "can" keep in there - realistically almost anything. The problem with keeping high light corals (like SPS) under the lighting you have is that they will turn brown to compensate for the low light.. You are far better served to choose low to medium light corals so you can appreciate their rich colours.

As always, I suggest picking up a couple of good books to supplement you online reading. I've read it's a German thing to collect books on your hobby and treat them as a point of pride. Guess I fell right into it

 

[Nanogasm]

Thanks Rikko!

Sounds like some great advice.

I was planning on hitting the fishstore later today to upgrade my thermometer from the sticky peel-on type to something digitial. (the warm weather here at home is pushing things a little higher than I would like, so I would like to check accuracy before I implement some cooling techniques). But grabbing a good book while I'm there sounds like an excellent idea.

And thanks for clearing the coral types with respect to lighting you think my tank can accomodate. From the reading I have done, I hear some people say that depth of tank makes a difference where you should place your corals (ie.. put the higher light ones near the surface), but then I read articles that say it doesn't matter. In the nano-tank realm, given there is only a 20" depth, do you think it is an issue with respect to "altitiude" of placement?

 

[Anonymous]

Great advice so far Rikko. The only thing I can think to add is a good book recommendation--Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman is great for coral selection, placement, and care. Look for some nice zoanthids, mushroom corals, or perhaps green star polyps as your first coral addition.

If you hadn't considered fish yet, click on the link at the bottom of my post.

...and again, welcome to RDO!