My RSM 130 13/04/14

[Godly3vil]

It's been a while since I started a thread so I thought I would share the progress of my nano reef tank.

I bought the tank 2nd hand off another local hobbyist about 6 months ago, it was in excellent condition except one of the stock return pumps was buggered, instead of replacing it with another stock one I replaced both with eheim compact 600s, there was a noticeable decrease in flow so I also added a small tunze wavemaker which worked a treat and now have no dead spots.

I then decided the tank needed some better night viewing lights so installed a rgb led strip light that is controllable, does the job but I am really considering either installing some sort of led kit in the hood or removing the hood and running a metal halide as the stock bulbs just don't produce the colours I would like and would also like to grow some sps corals.

I am in the process of making my own media rack so I can run a tunze 9002 skimmer that I bought as the stock skimmer is crap and the low humming noise coming from it annoys me. After this the tank should run pretty quiet which means I can have it in the lounge when we move soon,  :dnc1:

At the moment I just use NSW as I don't have a ro/di unit. I'm reasonably happy with it though if I want to grow harder corals like sps I will have to supplement certain trace elements like magnesium and calcium as it's pretty low in these values so will just buy a cheap ro/di unit from the states and start using ASW when I do. Also with winter coming up I'm not too enthusiastic about my chances of having a few days without rain so I can safely collect NSW, it's been rare enough over this summer to get 2 clear days in a row haha.

Stock so far is;

Pair of ocellaris clowns.

Pair of bangaii cardinals.

Coral banded shrimp.

Rose bubble tip anemone.

Various lps and softie corals.

I plan on adding a lawnmower blenny and a sixline wrasse at some point and that will be it fish wise. I will be adding and changing corals as I go along.

Any ways here are a couple of pics of the tank and inhabitants.

6 months ago.

4 months ago.

1 week ago.

Ocellaris Clown Fish.

Coral Banded Shrimp.