7Gal Bowfront Nano

[Gilman]

My 1st post on Reefs.org........... Hi to the Reefs.org forum! My girlfriend and I recently (1.5months now!) put together a 7gal AGA Bowfront nano reef tank. I wanted to post some photos of our tank here in case anyone was interested in small reef tanks. There are ALOT more photos on our website http://www.oc-creative.com/reef.

Recent Full Tank Photo

Tank specs are as follows:
7 Gallon AGA Bowfront back painted blue
32 Watt CSL Smartlight PC Retrofit
CPU Fan built into light strip
Tronic 50watt heater
Whisper 5-15 HOB Filter
Rio 50 Powerhead

Livestock
8.75 lbs Fiji Live Rock
8.5 lbs Live Sand
3 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs
3 Astrea Snails
Many Stomatella Hitchhikers
Many baby snails of some sort
Feather Caulerpa

Corals
Candy Cane Coral Frag
3 Mushroom Corals
3 Stalks of Xenia
1 Tree Leather (Capnella)
Green Star Polyps Frag

Fish
none

Here are some photos of our frags....

Xenia

Green Star Polyps

Candy Coral

Tree Leather

Mushrooms

So far we have spent quite alot of time looking at our little reef and its inhabitants. I can only hope that our tank stays healthy and stable in the months to come. I perform weekly water changes with LFS bought RO salt water, and top off daily with LFS bought RO water. After doing much research on small reef tanks, it seems this maintenance schedule works well for other people with tanks this size. So far so good.....

till next post,

Gil

 

[RobWillett]

Gil-

Nice tank bro! Im very interested in small reef tanks. Im in the process of setting up a 29 gallon. Its encouraging to know that small tanks can be maintained. Gives poor people like me a ray of hope :wink:

Keep us posted on how your tank does...

Best of Luck Bro!

Rob

 

[Gilman]

Rob,

Thanks for your nice comments. I am a complete web head and have been monitoring and posting on our website, the progress of our little reef makes on an almost daily basis, so people can follow along with us. As I said above, so far so good.

Gil

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef

 

[Gilman]

reefnovice,

Our Nano is running a Custom Sea Life 32watt Smartlight Retrofit. I purchased the kit from Premium Aquatics, and installed it into the existing AGA Bowfront lightstrip quite easily. If you have any other questions about the specs on our Nano, you can visit our website and you will find an always current list of tank specs (dry goods and livestock) on the bottom left of the page.

Happy to help,

Gil

 

[Gilman]

Well it has been almost 2 months since my last update. Our little reef has been doing very well so far, and it is really beginning to take shape and look more as I imagined when we began the project. Here are updated specifications and some photos of new creatures in our little 7gallon Nano Reef.

Tank specs are as follows:
7 Gallon AGA Bowfront back painted blue
32 Watt CSL Smartlight PC Retrofit
CPU Fan built into light strip
Tronic 50watt heater
Whisper 5-15 HOB Filter
Mini Jet 400

Livestock
8.75 lbs Fiji Live Rock
8.5 lbs Live Sand
5 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs
3 Astrea Snails
Many Stomatella Hitchhikers
Many baby snails of some sort
Halimeda
Feather Caulerpa
Hitchhiker brittle star
Many tiny Hitchhiker starfish

Corals
Candy Cane Coral Frag
6 Mushroom Corals
12+ Stalks of Xenia
1 Tree Leather (Capnella)
Green Star Polyps Frag
Yellow Orange Center Zooanthids
Toadstool Leather Frag
Yellow Polyp Rock
Frogspawn Frag

Fish
Green Banded Goby

Here are some photos.....

Green Banded Goby

Yellow/Orange Centered Zooanthids

Toadstool Leather Frag

Updated Xenia Photo

Yellow Polyps

Frogspawn

Updated Candy Coral

Till next update.......

Gil

 

[sohoal tang]

Hey, I love the 7 gallon bow front....

Could you give me a few tips on HOW you set it up....
Length of time between stages etc.....
and....Where did you get the tank with that light?

Thanks
Tim

[email protected]

 

[Gilman]

Tim,

Thank you for the compliment on our little reef. The tank is an AGA 7 gallon minibow, and the original light has been replaced with a Custom Sea Life 32watt Retrofit which fits into the existing lightstrip perfectly.

Here is a current list of tank specs, and some new photos.

7 Gallon AGA Bowfront
32 Watt CSL Smartlight PC Retrofit
CPU Fan for cooling light fixture
Tronic 50watt heater
Whisper 5-15 HOB Filter
Mini Jet 404 Powerhead
8.75 lbs Fiji Live Rock
8.5 lbs Live Sand

Livestock
5 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs
3 Astrea Snails
Numerous Stomatella Snails
Bristle Worms (at least 4)
Tiny Brittle Stars
Feather Caulerpa
Small Halimeda

Corals
Candy Cane Coral Frag
Yellow Polyp Rock
Assorted Mushroom Corals
Red Sea Xenia
Tree Leather
Frogspawn
Green Star Polyps Frag
Orange Yellow Zooanthids
Small Toadstool Leather

Fish
1 Green Banded Goby

Updated photo of our reef

Yellow Orange Centered Zooanthids

Candy Coral - This was our 1st frag and was 3 polyps. Now it has 6 polyps!

Green Star Polyps

Yellow Polyps

Mushrooms - These mushrooms have been making babies regularly now.

Our Green Banded Goby

There is a news archive on the website I created to follow the progress of our reef since the beginning. Here is a link to the website.... http://www.oc-creative.com/reef

Gil

 

[Gilman]

Well it's been a while since updating this thread, so here goes. Our nano has been going very well. Over the past 6 months, our zooanthid collection has grown and filled in, we received a Green Montipora a few months back that is still in fact green and has grown quite a bit. We also just got our first clam, a small squamosa. Here are some photos.

Full Tank Shot - 04.07.03

Our new Squamosa

Same Candy Coral as pictured earlier in the thread.

Green Montipora when we got it 12.05.02

Green Montipora photo taken 04.01.03

New photo of our Zooanthids

Orange Ricordeas have been in our tank for a few months.

There are now well over 400 photos of our Minibow Nano Reef on our website, so feel free to take a look. There are also some photos of a few other local reefers larger reef tanks as well.

Gil
http://www.oc-creative.com/reef