MD Ocean Girl
New member
I was taking some pictures of my tank last night, and decided to make a thread showing the progress of my 10 gallon nano tank. I started the tank in September 2010, as my first venture into the wonderful world of saltwater aquariums. I'm pretty proud of how the tank has progressed. I've had some wonderful help along the way, including my boyfriend, Jesse, and our roommate, Ryan, who also works at ABC :fish1:
When I first started the tank, I didn't realize how much more difficult nano saltwater tanks were. The tank had previously been a betta tank, and as I already had two freshwater tanks, I wanted to do something different. Jesse suggested doing a saltwater tank. After building the rockscape from a bunch of small pieces of live rock, and adding sand and water, I was more than ready to start putting things in the tank. If not for Jesse strongly suggesting I wait a few months before adding anything, I'm sure the tank would have crashed and burned by now!
This is what the tank looked like in October 2010.
In November 2010, I added a tube anemone on an impulse buy from Diver's Den. I bought it because it looked pretty. I had NO idea about it's care or how big it could potentially get. One of the best and worst impulse buys ever. One of the best buys because it's beautiful, different, and is the coolest thing ever to watch when it eats. One of the worst buys because it's really limited what I can do in my tank because it tends to sting up corals on the front of the rockwork if I'm not careful as to where I place them. Sigh.
So by the time January 2011 rolled around, my tank was starting to look pretty shitty. I was getting all this ugly algae growing no matter how often I did water changes, which was 2-3 times a week. First, a CPR bakpak skimmer was put on the tank, but it didn't make enough of a difference. So after a few months of little change in the tank, I decided to get a stand for the tank and add a sump to the tank. I bought the stand that's normally for a 29 gallon biocube. Love the stand, but it is NOT meant for any normal sized sump on the market. I was getting really frustrated. In desperation, until I could find a sump that would fit in the stand, Jesse stuck a salt bucket in the stand, stuck the bakpak on the bucket, and used that as a sump. It was going to be a temporary solution to my problem. Needless to say, it's still the sump on my tank lol. I currently use a CS50 overflow, a Mag 2 for my return pump, and the CPR bakpak for my protein skimmer. I'd still love to get a better sump for my tank, but what I have now has made such a difference in my tank that it was totally worth it.
Pre-sump tank.
Tank with just the bakpak, April 2011.
Tank in August 2011, about 2 months after the sump was added.
Current picture of the tank, January 2012.
There are things I still want to do to the tank. I have never found a light source/spectrum I'm happy with. I currently have a 70W metal halide on the tank, but no matter what bulb I buy, the tank still looks yellow. To counteract that, I also run an ecoxotic, but the light gets too hot because it has to sit directly under the light from the metal halide in order to get the spectrum I want. I've tried just the ecoxotic, but my tank is so blue that you can't notice half of the colors of the corals in the tank. So I just ordered a new ecoxotic panorama pro light that is a mix of 12K white LED's and 445nm blue LED's. I'm hoping that will give me the spectrum I'm looking for while also still giving me growth for the corals. I'm not looking for rapid growth, just mostly for the corals to stay healthy and grow a little. I'd also love to put a proper sump on the tank at some point. And once my evil frogspawn finally calcifies enough that I can frag it down to a managable size :hammer: (the other LPS in the tank have calcified enough that I've been able to frag them multiple times already), I'd like to add a nice SPS coral or a gorgonian, or both. For that, I think I'm going to need a bit more flow in the tank, so I'm going to have to either upgrade to a Mag 3 return pump, or find a tiny powerhead to put in the tank.
While keeping a nano tank has been a challenge, it's really been rewarding, and I have no plans to upgrade to a bigger saltwater tank. The size of the tank really has limited what I can do with it, and what corals I can buy, but I'm really enjoying the challenge of caring for these animals in such a small environment. It's going to be really exciting to see the tank continue to fill out and mature down the road.
Thanks for following along!
When I first started the tank, I didn't realize how much more difficult nano saltwater tanks were. The tank had previously been a betta tank, and as I already had two freshwater tanks, I wanted to do something different. Jesse suggested doing a saltwater tank. After building the rockscape from a bunch of small pieces of live rock, and adding sand and water, I was more than ready to start putting things in the tank. If not for Jesse strongly suggesting I wait a few months before adding anything, I'm sure the tank would have crashed and burned by now!
This is what the tank looked like in October 2010.
In November 2010, I added a tube anemone on an impulse buy from Diver's Den. I bought it because it looked pretty. I had NO idea about it's care or how big it could potentially get. One of the best and worst impulse buys ever. One of the best buys because it's beautiful, different, and is the coolest thing ever to watch when it eats. One of the worst buys because it's really limited what I can do in my tank because it tends to sting up corals on the front of the rockwork if I'm not careful as to where I place them. Sigh.
So by the time January 2011 rolled around, my tank was starting to look pretty shitty. I was getting all this ugly algae growing no matter how often I did water changes, which was 2-3 times a week. First, a CPR bakpak skimmer was put on the tank, but it didn't make enough of a difference. So after a few months of little change in the tank, I decided to get a stand for the tank and add a sump to the tank. I bought the stand that's normally for a 29 gallon biocube. Love the stand, but it is NOT meant for any normal sized sump on the market. I was getting really frustrated. In desperation, until I could find a sump that would fit in the stand, Jesse stuck a salt bucket in the stand, stuck the bakpak on the bucket, and used that as a sump. It was going to be a temporary solution to my problem. Needless to say, it's still the sump on my tank lol. I currently use a CS50 overflow, a Mag 2 for my return pump, and the CPR bakpak for my protein skimmer. I'd still love to get a better sump for my tank, but what I have now has made such a difference in my tank that it was totally worth it.
Pre-sump tank.
Tank with just the bakpak, April 2011.
Tank in August 2011, about 2 months after the sump was added.
Current picture of the tank, January 2012.
There are things I still want to do to the tank. I have never found a light source/spectrum I'm happy with. I currently have a 70W metal halide on the tank, but no matter what bulb I buy, the tank still looks yellow. To counteract that, I also run an ecoxotic, but the light gets too hot because it has to sit directly under the light from the metal halide in order to get the spectrum I want. I've tried just the ecoxotic, but my tank is so blue that you can't notice half of the colors of the corals in the tank. So I just ordered a new ecoxotic panorama pro light that is a mix of 12K white LED's and 445nm blue LED's. I'm hoping that will give me the spectrum I'm looking for while also still giving me growth for the corals. I'm not looking for rapid growth, just mostly for the corals to stay healthy and grow a little. I'd also love to put a proper sump on the tank at some point. And once my evil frogspawn finally calcifies enough that I can frag it down to a managable size :hammer: (the other LPS in the tank have calcified enough that I've been able to frag them multiple times already), I'd like to add a nice SPS coral or a gorgonian, or both. For that, I think I'm going to need a bit more flow in the tank, so I'm going to have to either upgrade to a Mag 3 return pump, or find a tiny powerhead to put in the tank.
While keeping a nano tank has been a challenge, it's really been rewarding, and I have no plans to upgrade to a bigger saltwater tank. The size of the tank really has limited what I can do with it, and what corals I can buy, but I'm really enjoying the challenge of caring for these animals in such a small environment. It's going to be really exciting to see the tank continue to fill out and mature down the road.
Thanks for following along!
Your blenny trips me out the faces on them are adorable. I'd love to see your bucket sump pics 
