Blinky's 9g Ric Tank

[dastratt]

This is a thread for Blinky's nano tank. Blinky is a Yellow Tailed Damsel (YTD) I've had for about 3 years. Here is a photo of Blinky in his latest home, a 9 gallon Cadlights tank.

I bought Blinky and his "sister" Inky when we started up a 35hex. Eventually we moved everything to a 54g corner. Inky and Blinky never got along well, and Blinky was picked on mercilessly by all the other inhabitants. I suggested we get rid of Blinky (and Inky too) but my wife was too attached to them. Fortunately she agreed to let me set up a nano in our kitchen which I had been wanting to do. I decided on a 9g Cadlights tank, because I like the open top look and it would fit under the cabinets if we need it to. Its set up in a set of corner kitchen windows as shown in additional pixs I'll be posting in a minute.

You might notice Blinky has no pelvic fins. He had a parasite about a year and a half ago that blew out the fins, for the most part, and they were picked off by his tank mates. I don't think he'll miss them much. :rollface:

 

[dastratt]

I got the tank just after Christmas. We also had a new range and microwave being installed. Here are a couple of pix from day one, the microwave is not in yet.

The 9g Cadlights has two separate fixtures which mount to the sides. Each fixture has 2 11" 8 watt T5 bulbs for a total of 32 watts (16 watts 10k and 16 watts actinic).

The tank has a two-compartment sump. Water flows in on the left (as you look at it) and out underneath into the right chamber where it is pumped back in to the main part of the tank.

more in a minute

 

[dastratt]

I put a theo 25W heater in the left compartment. I removed all of the bio balls. I put a bag of Seachem Seagel (a mixture of carbon and phosban) and a bag of Purigen in the left compartment. I retained the filter floss and cut some extra from other similar stuff I have lying around, so I can switch it out during weekly water changes. I have no plans to install a skimmer at this point.

I replaced the stock Rio pump with a Hydor Seltz which I dialed down to three ticks above minimum. I replaced the stock spinny thing (whatever, they never work for me ) with a spraybar arrangement made from stuff I had lying around.

A big splurge I decided to make was to get an Aquacontroller Jr. I have never had one before, but because this tank will be very exposed to the elements in this location, I wanted to have the Aquacontroller control the heater, a fan, lights, and turn on an alarm if the temp gets out of control.

 

[dastratt]

I added about 10 lbs of oolithic sand. I bought a 16 lb nano rock package from liveaquaria.com. This is too much rock of course so I ended up moving most of it to my main tank after I cured it in the cadlights tank.

Also I ordered 20 lbs of florida live sand from etropicals.com.

The tank only held about 4 1/2 gallons of water at this point ...

 

[dastratt]

I went about three weeks, changing water once a week and scrubbing hair algae off the rocks. I would drain as much as possible of the water, and scrub the rocks using the drained (nasty) water, refill with water taken from my main tank, drain again, and refill again, about a 90% water change.

Finally the rock was in good enough shape to swap some into my main tank and move Blinky into his new home. About 7 weeks total from initial set up. I also moved a few nesarrius and cerith snails in, 1 bumblebee snail and 1 scarlet leg hermit.

 

[dastratt]

Oh yeah I also put a frag of zoos in that had broken off a rock in my main tank and was getting abused by the flow. I went about another month before moving in the rics. I've had them in there a couple of weeks and finally had time to take some photos and set up a photobucket account. So the remaining pix are all from today.

Here is a context shot (microwave finally in )

Here is a full tank shot

 

[dastratt]

The corals are kinda mad in these photos because I just did a WC. I do about 50% water change every week.

The rics are all from etropicals.com. I ordered a dozen mixed a year ago. They sent me 14 rics: 4 orange on a neat rock with bright orange sponges and macroalgae, 8 blue on another really cool rock with tube worms macros etc., and 2 pink ones on a tiny piece of rock that I mounted on to a 3" rock.

I really liked these pieces, and for this new tank I ordered another "8" green ones. They sent me the large rock which is on the sand in the middle. There must be 15 rics on this rock, and tons of life, including neon green sponges. They're a bit more yellow than I expected but really cool. I wonder if I should add one more order to really fill it up. What do you think?

 

[MrMexReefer]

Looking great! Beautiful set up.

 

[SOULEMAN]

great setup and love those rics

 

[Jadams]

AWESOME RIC'S!

 

[circusordie16]

looks good, rics are one of my favorites. do you have any heat or algae problems with it being in between those two windows?

 

[FishMachine]

nice

 

[tiffrobbins]

Thanks for treating the damsel like its the beautiful fish that it is. I keep a 10 gallon sump just for my domino that everyone harrasses me for keeping and not flushing down the toilet.

 

[nYgel]

I love the tank itself, what brand and such? I myself am aiming at a ric tank with my current 5.5g.... good work.

 

[dastratt]

MrMex, Souleman, Jadams, Fishmachine -- thanks for the compliments. Glad to hear from the fellow ric fans.

circus -- well with the summer approaching I'm going to find out soon just how bad an idea it was My main tank is overrun with coraline and I'm wondering how impossible those curved corners are going to be to scrape. Heat is also a concern. I have a fan I'm going to use the Aquacontroller Jr to control it. Actually the windows can allow a lot of wind in when its cool. Fall back plans will be to shade the tank during the late afternoon, more drastic will be to move the tank over to the counter. (That's one reason why I got this tank, it will fit underneath the cabinets where a jbj or other larger one wont). The final fallback is to move everything back to the main tank. As long as I don't overstock it first :lol:

Tiffany - yes damsels are a pretty fish just a PITA. I'm wondering if he's on his own for a long time if those fins will ever grow back ... my other one is actually a really nice looking fish even though they're so common, that doesn't bother me. Hey I have two "nemos" too ...

nYgel -- the tank is actually made in NY I don't think I can post a link but if you search for cadlights you will find them. There are usually postings about their larger tanks in this forum.

 

[samson78945]

im liking this tank alot!! kinda makes me wanna set up a nano again!

 

[drummereef]

Awesome tank! Have you had any algae issues being setup in the window? You won't regret the ACjr, they are awesome.

 

[dastratt]

Samson, thanks. I think you should go for it. You have a humu humu in your gallery do you have a big tank?

drummer - this will be a big challenge and if I'm going to keep the tank where it is I hope this works:

algae -- I'm hoping to keep the green stuff and cyano in check by minimizing nutrient import (minimal feedings), export through big water changes and chemical filtration (Seachem seagel and purigen). Also, by keeping alk and ca at good levels through big water changes and addition of two part solution, the environment should be favorable to coraline algae, which seems to dominate the green and brown algaes given high kelvin lighting and good water quality. Now, at some point I feel that the coraline itself is tough to deal with because it is tough to get off the glass especially in this little tank. So there's going to have to be some major maintenance action there (removing rocks and corals so I can scrape it out). That's actually a problem in my main tank which is well shielded from sunlight so I don't see how to avoid it. I'm not adding an urchin to either tank.

heat --- I avoided MH and stuck with T5 which should keep the rics happy with minimal heat input. Also the open top should allow for better heat dissipation than the closed-top styles like the jbj and aquamedic. I've got a fan that's not hooked up yet but I have the program in the ac jr ready, so once that's installed the ac jr will turn it on once the temp gets to 80, off at 79.2. Also at 81 the ac jr will turn the lights off. I'm not going to let it turn the pump off since there's only one (that's why I upgraded the pump). I may adjust these parameters since I think the rics and Blinky would be fine with temps in the low 80s. If I cannot keep the temps in the low 80s or the evaporation gets to be a problem, I'll have to shade the tank in the west facing window (other is north). And if that doesn't work I'll move it to the basement for the summer I guess (a cool 70 deg).

This is an experiment actually, isn't it always ?

:rollface:

Thanks for the support everybody

Hey suggestions are welcome.