Smallreefer

Hi all, I have just added a new nano chillier to my system to ensure the temp remains stable through the summer months, it also heats the water as well when needed which is great so I have taken my heater out for now as well. Also my Torch coral is looking much better now and everything appears to be thriving. There is still a bit of hair algae that covers quite a bit of my rock but I’m doing my best to manually remove this with twice weekly water changes (siphoning it off) and running phosphate/silicate removers ect and I believe my Turbo snails are eating some of it as well so hopefully it doesn’t last much longer :-? -Dan (pics will follow soon )

Looking good

Thanks again for the advice all, its looking much better now. Also on a side note my turbo snails have been spawning the last couple of nights and there are quite a few eggs... does anyone know how long these take to hatch? Cheers -Dan

Cheers for the advice / comments as I do realize I probably should have taken things more slowly :oops: In regards to the points that you made I am currently just using 2 hydrometers to test with so that I can take the average from them and I will slowly increase my salinity through water changes as suggested – will get hold of a refractometer soon. In regards to frozen food I have really just started this over the past few days but I’ll try cutting this out all together for a while to see if this may be causing the issue and I’ll probably also grab some phosphate remover to be sure (I’ve heard seachem phosguard is quite good?). I would normally just swap over to the 150W MH if it were a larger tank however I am quite worried about the heat it produces and not being able to mount it very high above the top of the tank means that it will heat things up quite fast which may cause issues on hotter days so I have ordered a Chillier from overseas which should arrive within the next 10 days but I will try to organize something before then. (Maybe a large fan blowing at / over the tank will suffice?) -Dan

Before: After:

I have recently moved my power head to reduce the flow to it as well which did not seem to help as it used to be quite happy in the higher flow it did receive. One of my Clown fish does brush around it a lot however it was doing this over the first week as well which leads me to believe that it is probably something else?

Hi guys, Some of you may have seen my 30l nano reef build thread here however I have recently (2 weeks ago) added a torch coral once all of the main parameters checked out. For the first week or so it looked fine however recently it has started to recede back into its skeleton and is not extending much at all during the day. Currently it is under 30W of T8 lighting in a 30cm deep tank, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are testing 0 (nitrate may be a fraction higher - was hard to say), PH is around 8.3, Specific gravity 1.023, I am not currently testing for anything else however is it possible that phosphates / calcium issues could be causing this or is it more likely to be a lighting issue? (I have a 150W MH I could probably try) Also further info regarding my maintanence schedule... I feed once per day alternating each day between dried and frozen food (rinsed). I do 2x 5l water changes weekly with Red Sea Reef pro salt + RO/DI water and my plate coral / other life appears healthy. Thanks in advance -Dan

Hi all, Just another update with more pics! I recently got a new coral.. Orange plate: Updated full tank pick at 1 month: (Torch is closed up somewhat in this pick as the water change earlier annoyed him ) Now I need to work out what to put on the main piece of live rock as it looks a bit bare.. Any suggestions? -Dan

It should be ok however if at all possible I would use bottled / RO water just so you start with perfect water. If you do choose to use tap water you will likely notice more algae growth ect but this may not be too much of an issue. PS: Also added an Orange plate coral yesterday and have recently added a few turbo snails as well... pics soon (Also will be adding a chiller over the coming weeks as I can see my temp rises by around 2 degrees during the day atm) -Dan

I wouldnt saying having you're own RO / DI unit is essenital (for a nano tank) as I am just using bottled water from the supermarket for all my top offs / water changes. (the 10l Pure Dew ones - these have been paseed through RO / DI + ozone ect) - Dan

Hi, Generally the time it takes to cycles can vary quite a bit but is not normally longer then 1 month. I believe mine took approximately 3 weeks to complete however the only way to tell / monitor your progress is to test the water (I did this every day) for Ammonia and Nitrite as you should see your Ammonia spike after around the first week and then slowly go down as your Nitrite spikes which will then reduce and eventually should both read at 0 at which point you have completed your cycle. (This can be sped up by using live rock that has been in someone else's tank for some time) The last thing you should test for initially is Nitrate however this is much less toxic then the others however the bacteria that are needed to break this down into nitrogen gas takes much longer to take hold therefore frequent water changes are the best option to reduce this early on. (Which is easy in a small nano tank) -Dan

Cheers, Here are a few more pics that I took today (with my new Torch coral)! Clowns: Torch Coral (may not be fully open just yet as only added today): One of my glass shrimp (acclimatized to warm water - these guys are great, highly recommend them) Full tank pic: (I must get around to removing the dimensions that are still written on the tank :roll: ) -Dan

Hi all just thought I would post another update on my Nano... Soo... good news it has completed cycling and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate have all been 0 for the past few days so today I decided to add a pair of small Clown fish (Percs I believe), they have settled in well and are very active. I had also noticed the water was somewhat cloudy this morning and as far as I could tell it was an algae bloom so I completed a rather large water change and added a UV sterilizer (This was probably an overkill ) however it seems to be clearing up quickly now :bounce: I am also thinking of slowly adding some corals and I currently have my eye on a very nice Torch coral at HFF, my question is would this be fine under my lighting (30w) and what sort of flow would you recommend for it? (Low, med, high?) Cheers -Dan (PS: pics to follow soon )

Cheers, I think my tank should be fully cycled in the next weekish roughly as my nitrites are spiking and my ammonia is slowly coming down so hopefully it won’t be too much longer before I can cautiously start adding live stock. I am also wanting people opinions on a DIY fuge I have in mind that I see a lot of nano reefers doing with Aqua clear HOB filters (this type of thing http://www.reefmonkey.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2222) however I am not sure how effective it would be and if it would be worthwhile on my tank?

Hi all, Just another update on my Nano.... I have recently added 2 Glass Shrimp from my local beach / rock pools to provide some life while the tank finishes cycling and these little guys appear to be doing great and will let me hand feed them ect and are generally quite active however I think they are still a little shy.. Also I was wanting to know from anyone that has Glass Shrimp whether these would get on okay with Cleaner / Fire Shrimp as I plan to have 1 of these as well at a later date and would like to keep my Glassies too?

Very nice looking set up, keep us posted please.

Hi rollergirl, Cheers for the advice and I am glad to hear that I will hopefully be able to keep most corals under my current lighting and will likely upgrade to another one of my current lighting hoods if needed. I have also always been interested in LED lighting as I believe that it is the way of the future, will have to have a look around to see what’s out there Also just a quick update on my nano.. I have started using TLC instant cycle which claims to be able to cycle a new tank almost instantly, I will take that claim with a grain of salt (no pun intended ) and keep monitoring my parameters to ascertain when it is safe to begin adding stock as I know nothing good happens fast with a reef tank (http://bit.ly/coy0OJ - Link to the product if you are interested) Also diatoms have started growing over my rocks and it is slowly trying to populate my sand bed as well so it looks like everything is progressing nicely atm.. (It is actually allot lighter than it looks )

Ok, thanks for the advice I may need to grab one of those. I am also wondering about my lighting again as I am unsure whether 30 watts (1 x 15w white, 1 x 15w Actinic) will be enough lighting to keep most soft corals ect. I do have a 150W Metal Halide unit but I feel this may a bit of an overkill, especially with the heat it produces?

If I were you I would just stick with the stock set up for your HOB filter and add the power head somewhere else in the tank that way you can position it to cover a different area from the filter to avoid dead spots ect.

Hi all, Just another quick update... I decided to take dennisisawesome's advice and added a couple more pieces of Coral rock to outside edges which looks good. I managed to get these pieces from HFF's sumps so they are live which should seed my existing piece and hopefully speed up the cycle as well Also on a side note what brand of heaters are the most accurate / popular as I’m finding that my Aqua One (yes I know it’s cheap ) isn’t really keeping the temperate that precise and its varying a bit?

I'm thinking it would likely be too strong and cause your sand to all be moved to one side of the tank ect... Possibly look at a 2000lph one + your filter which will give you a 45x tank turnover per hour which sounds about right.

@dennisisawesome Yea I agree that there needs to be a little more rock scattered around to make things look less man made... I am going to try to get a small amount from an existing tank if I can to help speed up the cycle / seed the tank with good bacteria. @ Brennos I’m not 100% sure exactly how much it has cost however I put together a small list below with the main items but there were plenty of extras I had to get as I did not have much gear left over from when I last had my tank. Tank - $55.00 HOB Aqua Clear 50 filter - $90.00 Lighting - $100.00 Aqua One Heater - $25.00 Via Aqua power head - $23.00 Substrate - $6.00 (1 bag) Rock - $20.00 (unsure exactly how much this was, 2kgs) So far that list comes to around $300 or so however if you then include test kits, salt, extra heater for water changes... this quickly goes up :-?

Hi all, Just a quick update on my tank, I decided to do around a 95% water change in the hope of removing what ever was making my water so cloudy (wasnt the sand) which seems to have done the trick for now as it also gave me the chance to clean the sand properly as well as the live rock which I should have done before I filled it up last time around :oops: Much better I was also up at HFF today and purchased a new Aqua Clear 50 hang on filter which is rated at 800lph as well as a Via Aqua 400-600lph power head for extra water circulation which appear to be creating a nice level of water movement. (45x tank volume per hour)

Ok thanks for the advice... I will find something suitable tomorrow. Also my tank is still very cloudy (more so that it was when I first set it up) is this just being caused by all the dead organisms ect within the un cured rock leeching out as it smells a little as well so I don’t believe it is the sand? -Dan

Yup thats the stuff im using it seems to work well