New Nano

[cFish]

I enjoy reading others account of their new set ups so I decided to contribute one of my own.

In late Jan I began to think about doing a nano. I had seen a cool setup in the LFS using a 7 gal minibow (plus I figured if I could bring home “Nemo” I would lock up that father of the year mug that I am hoping for on fathers day).

I am not looking to pull stuff off the reef and the fish that I want: false clown (Amphiprion ocellaris) is available farm raised. I will also try to only purchase non wild collected items where I can and it makes sense. – I have no problem with others doing otherwise I just want to see if I can keep my footprint to a minimum. I understand that the soft corals that I am thinking about are also available non wild so far so good.

I spent the next 2 weeks reading everything I could get my hands on. Last weekend my wife said “go for it” (I think she gives me the go ahead when she thinks we have the money and she does not want to hear me plan anymore). – I need to remember to hide the receipts.

I went to the LFS at 11:30 - I wanted to pick the owners brain and I wanted him not to be busy. He was great. He was very knowledgeable about the whole thing and his advice was in line with the advice I had read online (always a good thing).

12 Jan I walked out of the store with
7gal All-Glass Aquarium (AGA) minibow with hood
Penguin Mini HOB filter
32 Watt Smartlite Retrofit kit 10K + ultra-actinic side-by-side
SEN mini55 submersible pump (for flow after the LR is in)
Bag of Instant Ocean salt
Hydrometer (Instant Ocean)
20lb Carib-Sea Arag-Alive "live sand"
Visi-Therm Delux heater
Glass thermometer

It turns out the owner has been keeping nano’s for a few years now and he had some good advice.

I am a big believer in reading all of the opinions and information you can find and then finding someone you trust who seems to know what he/she is talking about and then going with their opinions unless you really know why you are disagreeing.

So the long and short of it that I now have my nano equipment.

Next Post: The set up

[cFish]

I got all the stuff home and after getting a “I can’t believe you went and did this” look went downstairs and started setting up my new creation.
Draining the sand - easy
Putting the sand in - trained monkey could do this
Heater - easy
HOB filter – easy
Making Salt water – moderate - I had to learn how to use the hydrometer get the right balance.
Light kit - OK here is a need for somebody to make a consumer product.

I basically gutted the light out of the hood leaving a plastic shell.
I then had to drill new holes in the reflector as it did not fit my AGA hood.
I then connected the wires (I have done similar wiring in the past or else I would have been in a state of panic)
I then had to screw the things in using the holes that I had drilled. This turned out to be the hardest part. Getting the holes to line up was problematic. - note to self - shining a flashlight onto a high performance reflector is a good way to lose sight for a few min....

Wow the light is bright. The actinic light gives a blue look to the tank.

Next Post: The live rock

[cFish]

Bought 8.5 pounds of Fiji live rock yesterday. Don’t want to get into prices but LR is not cheap... Don’t want to get into prices because I always find out that the prices that I paid were way over what I should have paid and it is much less depressing when you can blissfully feel that you got a decent deal.

I decided since my LFS did not have any of the Agra-Cultured live rock that I would compromise on the Fiji as I had read that the collection of late has been fairly responsible.

Brought it home and put it in the tank. The mini pump that I bought last time I hid behind some rock and adjusted it to give some good flow over the rock. As all the advice that I have been given says that good flow is important in a nano.

Spent the better part of last night looking at my very bright slightly bluish tank and wondered how long I would have to wait for the cycle to complete.

In case y’all are wondering watching Live Rock about as exciting as it sounds.

The LFS guy said the cycle should take about 3 weeks or so. I am going to monitor the levels and put in water as evaporation happens (you don’t put in salt water to replace evap as the salt does not evaporate).

After it is done I can go and get my janitor crew...
Movement in the tank I can’t wait!

My camera is flaking right now, but trust me it is just well lit sand and rock.

Next Post: (Hopefully) The Janitors

[Lou]

Hey thanks for posting this...very interesting.

[phOOey]

cool, maybe this should be made a sticky so other peeps can use it

[cFish]

More purchases

Yeah so the next post should have been in 3 weeks or so when the cycle showed that it was over…

Yesterday I hit Home Depot and the LFS. I got a static zap from my main tank after walking on the carpet for a while and starting thinking "isn't salt water more conductive than fresh?"

Off to Home Depot for some GFI switches. I bought two wall switches one for the main tank and one for the nano (I know shame on me for not having one on the fresh water setup until now). I also bought two portable GFI cords so that I could use it for things like the Q-Tank and others that sometimes move about a bit.

On the way Home I hit LFS and grabbed a moonlight LED for the salt tank.

I have 2 LED moonlights on the 75 FW tank and I love the effect (I am on an 8 to 8 light schedule and I can enjoy the tank after the daytime lights go off)

I installed the light last night and got to see Live Rock and sand under a less bright light. Still not the most exciting experience but at least I could enjoy the shimmering of the water.

Today according to the UPS tracking site I should get some timers (Coralife Power Center Day-Night or Wave-Maker Timer) from Hellolights.com that have a blue and red set of plugs that way when the time is triggered one set of lights goes off and the other comes on. I had bought some cheap $6 timers but they don’t have a ground and there is not a chance I bypass a ground for a water related item. If the timers are a miserable failure I will let y'all know.

BTW I am now thinking of scrapping the Hydrometer and going with a Refractometer as I have noticed that it is easy/common to get a bubble on the Hydrometer indicator (bubble = lift = higher salinity/specific gravity scores than actual). If anyone has some advice on this front I would love to hear it.

[S.Reef]

I congradulate you on your planning. Most people just go out buy the stuff and find out its a lot harder and more expensive then they thought. Very good idea to get the GFI switches, I have heard many horror stories of houses coming close to burning down because they did not have one. Some pointers I'll give you is one, use R.O. water for water changes and evaporation loss. Two, kinda of tap the hydrometer before you measure the specific gravity (gets rid of the bubbles). And finally get a small clean up crew for the tank. A brittle star or two, some blue legged hermit crabs, and a few astrea snails would be perfect for your Nano.

Sam Reef
_________________
90 Gallon FOWLR
20 Gallon Reef
10 Gallon Reef
20 Gallon Freshwater PLanted Aquarium

[cFish]

Thanks for the tips!

I cant wait for the cycle to end so I can get the cleanup crew so that something can be going on in the tank.

[cFish]

Houston we have a cycle…

I had read on some sites that the combo of good live rock and the live sand that I had bought would lead to a very quick cycle and it has.
I noticed an ammonia spike shortly after bring the tank home and then I did not mess with it for a while. I found a light dusting of brown algae on Tuesday and the water tested negative for Ammonia and Nitrite. I decided to go ahead and wait until Friday and make sure that each day I continued to see no Ammonia and Nitrite levels. Friday came and after a good test I was off to the LFS to get the cleanup crew.

Somebody had got to the LFS ahead of me with a large snail purchase and I could only find one that I liked I already had one as a hitchhiker on the rock and so I was not two disappointed. (the return to the store to get snails is a good excuse to stop by the store and look at fish so I am not too bummed).

I have noticed several small stars hiding in the Live Rock. I understand from reading that some of these could be of a type that stays small. I will have to wait and see.

They did have hermit crabs thought so I purchased 7 for my tank and got the guy to throw in a few shells so that they have a place to move to (hopefully instead of the snail shells that have snails in them)

Last night I put the crabs and snail in after going through the acclimation process.

I plan on giving the crabs some fish food that I bought that is good at dropping down to the bottom. I want to make sure that the tank does another mini cycle before I go and add my false clown and a small shrimp. I figure I should wait at least a week probably more for this mini cycle to complete. If I don’t see any spikes then next weekend looks like a good time to visit the LFS to buy a tank raised Amphiprion ocellaris.

I woke up this morning and noticed an empty hermit shell and none of the shells that I had purchased had been inhabited. I began to suspect that I had lost one and that he had been eaten by his friends until I noticed a pure white shell crawling on the back of my live rock. Turns out that he must have found the shell buried in the sand and decided that it looked like a good home. I am glad because he looks much more attractive in the new shell than his old grungy black one.

There is another LFS that I have been reading about online that is in my area that I plan to visit today or tomorrow to round out the snail population.

Next Post: (hopefully) The Fish

[cFish]

Went to a new LFS yesterday - the sales guys were to busy to get a good feel for the place. I did like their selection of stock. I managed to pick up the remainder of the ground crew 5 Margarita Snails (Margarities). When I got home from work today I saw that they had been making short work of the visible algae/diatom growth in the tank.