A nano tank to replace my 140g setup

[tgunn]

And there are now rocks in the Solana. I was a bit disappointed; I made a nice structure joined by fiberglass rods and epoxy but it was not stable enough to be completely freestanding on the sand.

On the floor in the basement the left "Support" rock was not needed:

Of course I misaligned the magnet on the Koralia and it fell into the sand and silted up the tank AGAIN. So I guess by the time I'm back from Boston I'll get a clear tank.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Mini cycle is going

Mini cycle is going

Guess I had some die-off in the rocks by putting them in the Solana. Things are readjusting though.

Nitritres read 1 ppm, and nitrates read > 25ppm.
So clearly the cycle is on!

I'm not entirely surprised I got such high nitrates. The heater I put in the Solana had a whole bunch of mini starfish on it that died in the Solana, plus there was a crop of algae on the magnet cleaner I transferred to the solana. So I'm guessing that stuff died off and is now polluting the water.

I'm about to leave for the CHI 2009 conference in Boston for a week so it'll have more than ample time to stabilize while I'm gone.

I just ordered a Tunze Osmolator for a top off unit for the Solana. I was onsidering a JBJ or one of the Autotopoff.com units but then I'd have to figure out a pump and all that. This way I know it comes with everything I need (sans container I assume, but thats not too hard).

I'll have to see what kind of container I can find to put on the bottom shelf of the Solana. I'm thinking I'll rig up a float valve on that container hooked up to my RO/DI system. That way when the top off is getting low I can open the valve, let the container fill up, and shut off the valve when its done filling. This way I can let it fill on its own and come back later to turn the water supply off.

Alternatively I also have a RO/DI solenoid kicking around so I could always use a timer to turn on the RO/DI supply to the top off container every couple of days and let it fill up on its own. Not as safe as doing it myself, but still not that risky either.

Tyler

 

[Reefinabox]

Two 5.5 gal tanks will fit perfectly in the bottom of the stand. I picked mine up from petco. I am using one for top off water and I put a divider in the other and will dose two part from it. I am using aqualifter pumps for all the pumping duties.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14759750#post14759750 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefinabox
Two 5.5 gal tanks will fit perfectly in the bottom of the stand. I picked mine up from petco. I am using one for top off water and I put a divider in the other and will dose two part from it. I am using aqualifter pumps for all the pumping duties.

Sweet, I will have to check for a 5g tank; thanks for the suggestion.

I didn't think the aqualifter would have enough head pressure to pump up to the tank. Oh well. I like the Tunze stuff too though so should be fine.

Tyler

 

[Reefinabox]

My aqualifter barely has enough to make it up there. I am afraid that as the diaphragms age they will not make it all the way up there so I may be looking for other options.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14763149#post14763149 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefinabox
My aqualifter barely has enough to make it up there. I am afraid that as the diaphragms age they will not make it all the way up there so I may be looking for other options.

Okay, then I don't feel so bad about just ordering a Tunze osmolator then. He he.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Alrighty, I got the Tunze Osmolator installed.

I found a Sterilite tote that fits nicely on the bottom shelf. I installed a float valve so I can easily turn on the little JG valve to fill up the tote with RO/DI, and then just remember to shut it off later without overflowing it.

YAY! No more silly little bottles!

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Well, the tank is still measuring a little bit of nitrite and nitrates. So it seems the rock is still cycling in its final home.

I'm hoping that things should stabilize soon, especially now that the salinity is not wildly fluctuating.

I've started running the lights for some time each day in the hopes I can get some algae grown going to gobble up the nutrients.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Nitrites now read zero and nitrates are down to around 1ppm.

I think I'm going to start moving some of my little coral frags into the nano finally.

I'm not sure how i'm going to get the green ricordia off the big rock they're anchored to, but I'm thinking I can probably attach them to a little rock fragment and put it in a somewhat shaded area on the sand bed. The green rics have colored up amazingly in the lower light of the sump.

I'm thinking I'll plop some digitata on the top of the rockwork since it seemed to do well with high light in my 140g. I'm also thinking the purple monti cap will work well there.

The rest of my acros seem to like less light so I'm going to distributed them around the lower levels of my rock structure.

Can't wait to see this going finally!!

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

I moved over a couple corals and some snails last night.

Hopefully the rest of my snails show a bit more intelligence than the first one I put it; it almost climbed over the edge of the tank and fell to the carpet.

I'll probably aim to add a few corals every day until I've got the old sump cleared out.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Alright, I now have everything in the nano:

Things in there:
- electric blue chromis
- peppermint shrimp
- 9 snails; mainly star snails
- stammacorra
- "nice bali deepwater acro", about 4 pieces
- digitata
- green ricordia
- some kind of other acro ( 2 pieces, 1 small 1 large)
- tricolor acro
- purple cap

This is an earlier shot before I rearranged the stuff on top:

Some stuff on the "bottom" wings:

An earlier rendition of the top stuff as well; I moved the digi to the back where its brightest, and moved some other corals up front instead.

The rics are on a rock in the back against the overflow in the shade. They seem to do the best in lower light.

The one fish that DID NOT make it out of the sump was the purple dottyback. I just don't understand that fish. Both it and the damsel hid when I started to try to catch them. The damsel swam into the old return pump intake piping. So I had to disconnect the old return pump from the sump, and open the ball valve to drain that all out into a bucket so I could catch the damsel. I thought the dottyback was in there as well too but I couldn't find it.

I thought the dottyback went and hid inside one old rock I had that had a little tunnel in it, so I broke the rock open, but there was no dottyback. So I honestly have no idea where that fish went. Its a mystery! I have a feeling the guy who is coming this week to buy the remaining rock is going to get a hitchhiker. Oh well, it was a pretty aggressive fish I suppose.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

I just moved the UPS that was in my Solana stand to a shelf in the old fishroom in the basement. I found it was getting pretty warm inside the Solana cabinet and I figured if I ever had a power failure (the UPS heats up even more when its in use) that it might get unsafe. This also has allowed me to move the Solana shelf up so that I can actually peek into my top off container and see if the water needs refilling.

So far the damsel is being a pain; it's been busy moving the sand around to make some caves to hide in, so the water is pretty murky at the moment. Oh well, I'm sure it'll settle in soon enough.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Well,the Damsel is now housed in a little "fish pen" in the nano made out of a yogurt container. I caught him today after deciding I was tired of him trying to more around all the sand in the tank. What a mess. My cap was coated in sand, and the water is practically translucent from all the silt he has stirred up! I've got a local reefer coming over soon to pick this guy up. I think I'd rather have a cardinal or something like that.

In other news I started to clean out the fish room from my old 140g. Wow, I took up 5 trash bags of junk from there. Just little chunks of hose, eggcrate, pvc pipe, and all other sorts of garbage.

Frighteningly enough there is still a "scary crab" in the sump, despite it being 99% drained (just a little water left I need to suck out with the shop vac. I didn't think anything was left in there, but it was scurrying about in the ice cold water.

Now I've got a big 'ol 5g bucket of "muriatic soup" with all sorts of powerheads, and other goodies soaking away. Soon soon soon this fish room will be cleaned!

I've got someone coming over tomorrow to pick up the last of my 140g's liverock. I have a feeling the purple dottyback is hiding in there somewhere. Oh well, freebie for the next owner.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

The damsel was picked up last night by a local reefer. YAY! No more sand storms! The tank is clear again.

I also picked up a bicolor dottyback and a cardinal for the nano. They're both VERY small fish. I'm thinking one more small fish would be a good complement.

Tyler

 

[Reefinabox]

Sounds like it is coming along nicely!!

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14875885#post14875885 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefinabox
Sounds like it is coming along nicely!!

Thanks!

Yes, so far it is coming along quite nicely.

I think the next thing I need to pick up is some nassarius and cerith snails. I have 10 star snails right now but I think I could use a good assortment of smaller ones to keep the sand bed clean.

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[lucas73]

Looking good tgunn love your avatar, same reaction from my 2yr old he loves the tank.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14875983#post14875983 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lucas73
Looking good tgunn love your avatar, same reaction from my 2yr old he loves the tank.

Thanks!

I need to update my avatar; that's still my old 140g tank in the avatar. But I do have another pic with my daughter pointing at the nano.

It was priceless when we went to the LFS last night. She stopped in front of a tank filled with baby tank raised clowns, looked up, pointed, and said, "WOOOOOOW! Fee-shees!".

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

I moved my UPS to the basement and put some more "stuff" on the shelf above (which is moved up so I can see into the top off container). I need to think of a way to fit things in better so I can orient the various monitors and displays vertically.

I figured I might as well use the ORP and Ph monitors from my old 140g setup:

I also cut a piece of plastic to fit over the overflow and help keep the light out:

My snails are less than intelligent; spending most of the day crowded into the corner:

New bangaii cardinal:

Bicolor dottyback:

FTS. The snails are getting the silt cleaned off the overflow finally...

 

[tgunn]

Well, the good 'ol startup cycle continues. I am getting cyano on my sand. Fun fun fun!

I'm also reading a low level (0.05 ppm) of nitrites, which REALLY surprises me. I've been doing water changes to make sure this doesn't get out of hand.

Ca and Alk were a bit low (320ppm, 5.5dkH respectively), so I'm using 2 part to slowly bring those up to where I want them to be.

All said things are going well.

Tyler