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Advice for setting up nano cube.


Dixon1990

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Skimmer - get the best you can find, for whatever money you put aside for one. as i said, budget three to four hundred dollars for a decent skimmer. Reef octopus are alright, and are probably in your price range brand new, otherwise look around for a second hand deltec mce300 or 500, even 600, or find out how much they are new. Deltec is pure quality, and you get what you pay for.

Other things you will need will be a heater (any heater will do but i'd buy a brand new one, of a good reliable brand, because you do not want a heater to fail in a marine tank and cost you hundreds if not thousands!) powerheads. For a start, aim at around 30 times flow for the volume of your tank. Any powerhead will do realy, but if you want quality, again go for a tunze nanostream or two. the smallest ones are down around $100 now so aren't too bad. Lighting is a major part. Metal halide or T5. in a 3ft tank you wouldn't realy want to much around with T8's as they just aren't powerful enough. i think you can buy a double T5 ballast and end caps on trademe these days for $100 or so, which is not bad. then you need rock, which as wilson mentioned earlier (i think) you should get first and get it cycling. Put it in a barrel/container of saltwater, in the dark, with a string powerhead to keep things moving, and change the water weekly. this will start your rock cycling and help prevent a cycle happening in the tank which will cause all sorts of weird algaes (which you will get anyway mbut no as bad)

Sand is your choice. either do bare bottom or use sand just for aesthetics. BB is best :wink: easier to keep clean.

Um, thats about it realy. theres all the other things, but those are the main things you need to start with

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Why don't you listen to the people who have been there, done that, and know that it is extremely hard to do, and extremely hard to make it look good? If you are going to do a marine tank, don't even try doing anything under a 3 foot tank, preferably over 200L's. Yes people will say 'but i have this size tank and its fine' but its not easy to look after, and requires a lot of effort. Trust me, i tried to do a 60L tank, an even after spending $600 + it failed on me because i still didn't have the correct stuff.

Answer this question - Do you have $1500 to dedicate to a marine tank? If yes, then go for it, but get a bigger tank, if no, then don't even try.

Yes I can remember that, we were all trying to talk Evil through setting up his tank, and, I've got to hand it to him for keenness and positive attitude!

He did actually get it going and for a while things were OK, kinda. But in the end the lack of funds and ability to get the required equipment was the finalising factor.

However, if you really want to do this Dixon, just set up your 20 litre tank with some seawater diluted with 10% fresh water, a heater, the little skimmer you are planning, and somehow incorporate some Seachem Phosguard to keep it clean. Put in some cured coral rock and for corals just grow mushrooms and zooanthids. Some of these are low light and can grow simply with light from a window. NO FISH. 2 or 3 small rockpool shrimps, not too many as they have to be fed. NO OTHER LIVESTOCK. If you can keep this running OK for several months, you may be able to try some other corals, but ask here first so we can tell you if it's suitable.

Don't take what I say as an endorsement of this 20 litre plan, but at least you could get you feet wet in this marine hobby, and maybe move on to bigger things in the future.

If you do set this tank up drop me a pm and I will send you a couple of suitable mushrooms for it in the post. But I'll only bother to send them if the tank has a functioning skimmer.

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in the end the lack of funds and ability to get the required equipment was the finalising factor.

And that is it. I thought 'yea i can do it cheaply' but in the end, found out the hard way that i couldn't do it cheaply, and that i messed up majorly. I had a small tank, skimmer, HOB filter with carbon, powerheads, did water changes etc, but in the end, it came down to me not being able to afford test kits, supplements, good equipment, good lighting and pretty much everything else you need, and it crashed. I even managed to kill 5 frags that Wasp very kindly gave to me ( :oops: )

I still want to do a marine tank, but i will not be doing another one until i buy my own home, and have a spare 4 grand (at least) to throw at a marine tank. Next time i do a marine tank it is going to have the best skimmer i can get, gunna be as big as i can make it, and im not gunna skimp on anything, simply because i know that trying to do it realy cheap, is destined for failure.

Wasp has a good point, and if i were you id take him up on his offer for the mushys etc, but remember, even to get a 20L going and to keep it going, with just a few small mushrooms, you are still looking at probably around $400-$500.

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Nope, not at all. infact i do know that sand does have other benefits, but in my opinion (and partially experience) it is much easier to keep the nutrients low in a BB system then it is a system with a SSB or a DSB. DSB's do work, but will crash unless looked after properly. BB is easy, and works. that is all

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Has your sand got diatoms on it? Does it let out heaps of crap when you stir it? If the answer to either of those two questions is yes, then there you go. With a BB system the crap may settle on the bottom yea, but then what you do is have powerheads pointing everywhere which doesn't let it settle and it eventually gets pulled out by the skimmer. What good are worms in sand to a marine tank anyway? :wink:

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What about a 2 ft cube (60cm x 60cm x 60cm)? Would that do ok for a reef tank?

Already got a skimmer, cannister, heater etc etc in it. Just need to buy a light.

What sort of light would I need to buy? Something to fit under the hood.

Sorry to hijack this thread!

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Hi Jasmine, a 60 cm cube is small but OK, my first "reef" was 60 cm x 30 cm, less than ideal but had it for a couple of years and was able to keep a number of soft corals and small fish.

For lighting, i would recommend either a 150 watt metal halide, preferably with a 14,000 k bulb, or some flourescent tubes. A new 150 watt MH is fairly expensive but they can often be purchased 2nd hand on trade me for perhaps 50 bucks or so, but you would have to replace the bulb with a marine suitable one. If you decide to go with flourescent lighting, a general rule of thumb, if the plan is to grow corals, that you need a minimum of one watt per litre. This will not be enough for all types of corals, but will be enough for quite a few. You need to use marine suitable tubes.

The cannister is not a good idea for biological filtration if you want to grow corals. Instead, put cured coral rock in the tank, the bacteria in the rock do the filtration. The reason for this is that using a cannister for biological filtration allows nitrate to build up to levels that are harmful to the organisms we keep in a reef tank.

BTW it is hard for people who have been fresh water tank keepers, to adjust to the idea of not using a cannister. But a marine tank will do better without one.

And before getting all set up, it is a good idea if you can, to find some nearby reef keeper and see if you can look at their tank. You will learn heaps just by doing this and can help you get started on the right track.

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