Well I am finally getting around to posting my tank setup here.
First I want to thank Mynd for all the help and encouragement he has given me, and for the rest of you that have chimed in along the way both directly and indirectly thanks.
Also thanks to the officers who did all the work done for the frag swap it was a big boost to our family’s involvement in this obsession, I mean hobby.
I started this tank in July, we had a FOWLR 10G in our old house and decided to try and upgrade when we moved. Still it is nano sized.
So here is what I have done, pretty basic really. AP 24G with stock lights and pump (at the moment I have a MJ900 that I eventually will swap out). Removed all the crap from the back chambers foam block filter, bio balls, and ceramic thingies. I made a egg crate platform for my inflow chamber in the back it is split in two with cheato in one half with a LED light over it, and my surface skimming side with floss and a filter pad. Under the platform I have 3 lbs of LR rubble. I left one hole in the platform so I can stick the siphon down and get some gunk out. The other side I hang a bag of Phosban, more on that later.
The tank has about 4 inches of live sand and 25 lbs of live rock. Now my levels are all pretty good, my only nemesis is my calcium which is just under 400, though my test kit sucks, I am ordering a good one this month. I dose with ESV Bionic 2, I do water changes once or twice a week between 15-25%.
Current inhabitants:
Cleanup crew usual mix of snails and hermits.
1 sand sifting cucumber AKA Sea Turd
1 royal urchin (no problems other then picking up an occasional snail for a ride and eating some coralline algae)
1 queen conch
1 flower anemone
1 bicolor pseudochromis (terror) Bic (pronounced Beak the Italian way, my wife’s fish)
1 ocellaris clown …Yep Nemo…my daughter’s fish. Both fish are about 3YO.
Shaving bush plants seem to be doing well.
Corals
candy cane coral light blue first coral
GSP…growing well…it is OK by me I like it.
frogspawn …from Sea Horse Org at the frag swap.
Blow pop zoas from Pnoy at the frag swap….should say he gave me about 2 times the heads I paid for …. It has grown well since then.
Green sarcophyton from Pat and Pablo at the swap very nice and growing
Unidentified Chalice and SPS …Mr Coral swap
Brown and orange zoas decent colony.
Blue mushrooms and green centered polyps from MAVL666…great guy very generous
Yellow gorgonian
My Failures…I figured I should include my mistakes and screwups.
#1 I didn’t use RO water to start…my gosh I was super at growing algae and diatoms.
Thus I keep a bag of phosban in the back now to try and keep my levels low, I notice that I have some residual amounts of phos in the system.
1 yellow leather…it never acclimated well to the tank and I lost it, I did drip method and was careful.
1 GBTA
1 peppermint shrimp…OK Bic bit his head off….I fed the rest of him to the flower anemone so it wasn’t a complete loss.
1 green clown goby, 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 scooter blenny….Bic is not a friendly fish is all I can say…the scooter was a LFS find I tried to save. I have resolved to not try any more fish until Bic moves on.
My Koralia 2 lettuce slugs 0. I tried a second time lettuce slugs are impossible to teach.
1 green ric
Halimeda and turtle weed no idea.
My chalice and SPS. I don’t know what they are, the SPS is doing OK the chalice was a mistake…both probably were to be honest, we asked if they would be OK before we bought them but our setup is not optimum for either.
Most upsetting …I think I have lost a head on my frogspawn. I am not exactly sure what happened, possible I got too much flow on it.
What I learned:
No more lettuce slugs as my Koralia is a super salad shooter.
I need to have much better care when introducing new fish into the system, Bic is just too nasty.
Water changes are my friend, flow is a good thing.
Yellow Gorgonians are a TON of work. Though I do like it.
RO water ONLY, I actually buy all my water salt and RO at Tropiquarium.
GBTA have no place in a nano tank … my darn clownfish doesn’t host anything anyways.
My fuge light
Front tank
Corals
[/img]
blow pops have doubled since the frag swap need a new pic.
ANYONE PLEASE identify this one for me???
Misc
Thanks everyone for looking.
Any comments ect would be great...don't kill me too bad.
First I want to thank Mynd for all the help and encouragement he has given me, and for the rest of you that have chimed in along the way both directly and indirectly thanks.
Also thanks to the officers who did all the work done for the frag swap it was a big boost to our family’s involvement in this obsession, I mean hobby.
I started this tank in July, we had a FOWLR 10G in our old house and decided to try and upgrade when we moved. Still it is nano sized.
So here is what I have done, pretty basic really. AP 24G with stock lights and pump (at the moment I have a MJ900 that I eventually will swap out). Removed all the crap from the back chambers foam block filter, bio balls, and ceramic thingies. I made a egg crate platform for my inflow chamber in the back it is split in two with cheato in one half with a LED light over it, and my surface skimming side with floss and a filter pad. Under the platform I have 3 lbs of LR rubble. I left one hole in the platform so I can stick the siphon down and get some gunk out. The other side I hang a bag of Phosban, more on that later.
The tank has about 4 inches of live sand and 25 lbs of live rock. Now my levels are all pretty good, my only nemesis is my calcium which is just under 400, though my test kit sucks, I am ordering a good one this month. I dose with ESV Bionic 2, I do water changes once or twice a week between 15-25%.
Current inhabitants:
Cleanup crew usual mix of snails and hermits.
1 sand sifting cucumber AKA Sea Turd
1 royal urchin (no problems other then picking up an occasional snail for a ride and eating some coralline algae)
1 queen conch
1 flower anemone
1 bicolor pseudochromis (terror) Bic (pronounced Beak the Italian way, my wife’s fish)
1 ocellaris clown …Yep Nemo…my daughter’s fish. Both fish are about 3YO.
Shaving bush plants seem to be doing well.
Corals
candy cane coral light blue first coral
GSP…growing well…it is OK by me I like it.
frogspawn …from Sea Horse Org at the frag swap.
Blow pop zoas from Pnoy at the frag swap….should say he gave me about 2 times the heads I paid for …. It has grown well since then.
Green sarcophyton from Pat and Pablo at the swap very nice and growing
Unidentified Chalice and SPS …Mr Coral swap
Brown and orange zoas decent colony.
Blue mushrooms and green centered polyps from MAVL666…great guy very generous
Yellow gorgonian
My Failures…I figured I should include my mistakes and screwups.
#1 I didn’t use RO water to start…my gosh I was super at growing algae and diatoms.
Thus I keep a bag of phosban in the back now to try and keep my levels low, I notice that I have some residual amounts of phos in the system.
1 yellow leather…it never acclimated well to the tank and I lost it, I did drip method and was careful.
1 GBTA
1 peppermint shrimp…OK Bic bit his head off….I fed the rest of him to the flower anemone so it wasn’t a complete loss.
1 green clown goby, 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 scooter blenny….Bic is not a friendly fish is all I can say…the scooter was a LFS find I tried to save. I have resolved to not try any more fish until Bic moves on.
My Koralia 2 lettuce slugs 0. I tried a second time lettuce slugs are impossible to teach.
1 green ric
Halimeda and turtle weed no idea.
My chalice and SPS. I don’t know what they are, the SPS is doing OK the chalice was a mistake…both probably were to be honest, we asked if they would be OK before we bought them but our setup is not optimum for either.
Most upsetting …I think I have lost a head on my frogspawn. I am not exactly sure what happened, possible I got too much flow on it.
What I learned:
No more lettuce slugs as my Koralia is a super salad shooter.
I need to have much better care when introducing new fish into the system, Bic is just too nasty.
Water changes are my friend, flow is a good thing.
Yellow Gorgonians are a TON of work. Though I do like it.
RO water ONLY, I actually buy all my water salt and RO at Tropiquarium.
GBTA have no place in a nano tank … my darn clownfish doesn’t host anything anyways.
My fuge light
Front tank
Corals
blow pops have doubled since the frag swap need a new pic.
ANYONE PLEASE identify this one for me???
Misc
Thanks everyone for looking.
Any comments ect would be great...don't kill me too bad.
