Okay, here's the story on my 24 nano setup:
Skimming - nope. It's a regular old JBJ nano, so I've got the basic set up, no bells or whistles.
Lights - I was running the stock PC lighting that comes with the JBJ hood. I did buy one of the Viper lights from the Critter on Saturday and have that on the tank now. I run the lights about 8 hours (noon-8PM) per day.
Flow - I have an MJ900 in the return and a Koralia 1 in the tank. We put the Koralia in about the same time we reworked and opened up the rock work. The corals overall look better since we've done this.
Temperature - Before, with the stock PCs, the tank was running about 80ish. We're jockeying with the temp now that the hood is off and the tank is open with the Viper. Right this moment, it's running about 77. In the process of getting everything adjusted with the new light.
Bioload - I have ~4 sexy shrimp, a green clown goby, a white ray fin goby/tiger pistol pair, misc. hermits/snails, and a scutus.
Feeding - I feed the tank every/every other day with a pinch of flakes. Periodically we feed some frozen Marine Cuisine and some cyclopeeze.
Water - We use Instant Ocean salt, and do a water change about once every week (or two if we get behind schedule)... We don't dose the tank with anything.
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We have had really bad luck across all the tanks when it comes to keeping zoos. We had some giant pink zoos we got at the 2006 swap that grew like weeds, but that has been it. We just can't seem to really keep them. They certainty don't grow to say the least.
I have a few small frags that we've accumulated over the last year or so in the nano, and they have either been staying about the same or slowly disappearing. I have 3 frags (from the Critter's frag tank & EBay) that probably have about 100 or so polyps on them each that seem to be doing fine - I've had them probably about 3 months or so. I've recently mounted them onto larger rocks in hopes of being able to track any growth if it does by chance happen. The zoos are spread out around the tank as far as placement. I've got some at the very top of the tank, some in the middle, and a bunch on the sand bed.
I have a good mix of corals in the tank that are growing and look healthy (mushrooms, hammer, duncans, leathers, candy coral, rics) so I can only assume (I know, I know) that the tank can't be a total disaster zone of death.
I had mentioned before that I don't think the sexy shrimp are necessarily doing the zoos a favor by prancing around on them day in and day out. I've asked around and done some digging but haven't found anything that's said there's a link between sexy shrimp aggravation and zoo issues. There is a trade off with the zoos on the sandbed. They seem to be doing the best there so I've let them be. However, the pistol periodically decides to renovate the sandbed and has been known to toss some sand onto them. I dust them off and just let them go about their business.
We make sure to dip all of the zoos for bad guys before they go into the tank. Depending on what we have on hand at the moment, we either use Lugol's or TropicMarin Pro Coral Cure to rid the zoos of any unwelcome hitchhikers. I've not seen any nudis or other said critters in the tank before.
I know I probably missed something, so let me know
