Just bought a nano, Am I doing this right?

[funman1]

Went down to O street today and grabed an 12G Nano.
18#'s of fine-med sand
8#'s of LR
A small 50 Watt Heater
Test kits (A, Nitrate, Nitrite)
Reef Crystals 50 G's

The sand bed in the tank is about 2.5 inches deep.
And I placed 5 nice looking pieces of LR in
I just filled it with water, Sal 1.025 (measured with Refractomerter)
I used 0 TDS RO/DI water (freshly made 2 hours ago)
The PH is at 8.4
Temp @ 80

I plan to cycle the tank with LR for 3-4 weeks and monitor the usuals till they read 0

The Packaging says remove the ceramic rings, and bio balls; but then the only filteration is some sponges and the carbon bag.
Is that normal?

And the PH seems a bit high??

Do I JUST have to do water changes weekly, and change the carbon bag every month?? (besides alge scraping, testing water quality, and general tank monitoring, and water top offs)

This just seems way too easy.. compared to a larger tanks needs

Am I on the right track?
The Nano Forum seems oddly quiet right now.

Thanks for any help or sugestions you may have...
~Steve~

 

[pepe.king.prawn]

Sounds about right. pH will drop with time as dissolved gases exchange and your fresh mixed water equilibrates.

Do I JUST have to do water changes weekly, and change the carbon bag every month?? (besides alge scraping, testing water quality, and general tank monitoring, and water top offs)

How is that any different from a big tank? That's about all you have to do. Besides feed your fish of course

 

[Jacob D]

Sounds all good to me! Nano reefs are soo easy to maintain compared to larger tanks, although small problems become magnified in them. My wife has a 12g Nanocube that has been running for about 1 1/2 years and looking good w/o any major issues. She does a 1g water change every other week, rinse the sponges at that time, and replace the carbon once a month. She also removed all the other filtration, then again there are only 2 small fish in there so that does help.

One easy upgrade I would recommend is swap your stock pump out for a MiniJet 606. It will give you better flow and fits nicely where the stock pump does.

 

[funman1]

Well with the bigger tanks you have, Calcium reactors, Skimmers, Fuge's, MH lighting, more timers, more plumbing, dosing systems, Macro Alge, chillers, etc...

This nano thing just seems way too simple, so simple I'm really worried I'm missing something.

Heck if it's really this easy and cheap, I may just have to put one in each room.

Out the door for everything was only $250
(I already had the Typhoon III RO/DI, PH & TDS metters, buckets, and a Mag 5 for mixing salt water in the buckets.)

I know the real cost is in stocking the tank with cool stuff, but man, I started the whole thing for about the cost of the skimmer I was looking at for my 30G.

 

[funman1]

Thanks Mothra I will look into that pump right now.
That sounds awesome, Yeah I'm aware about the stability thing in nanos, and how quickly things can go to pot.

~Steve~

 

[Reefugee]

Steve -

Don't forget to do the cassette tape box surface skimming mod. It's cheap and easy. If you need to see what it looks like, look at O St's tank.

Minh

 

[lilleahseafreak]

i have a 12 gallon nanocube, as well as a 16 and a 5 gallon.

i learned the hard way about heat and nanos as my 5 gallon boiled (well it was 95 but to my corals that was boiled!) so that is my big advice is watch the temp!

if you are "craving for some lifeforms" as i was when i started (empty tank, so boring) the best starter (for me atleast) is a few blueleg hermits, they survive anything! they survived my 5gallon overheating and once one accidentally got left out of the tank for 3 days and was fine
i also think now is a good time to get/start a good micro clean up crew. i am talking about things like medusaworms, pods, small starfish and such, all are tiny pop eaters basically and i think that getting them when the tank is not stocked is a good way to get their numbers up and stablebefore adding anything that may eat them.

after a little while you can increase your cleanup crew w/a variety of snails. turbos are great for algae control but get big. if you want one i sudgest you go to aqualife and get a small orange one, they cost more but are so pretty and don't grow very fast.

then ya can pick a fish. fire fish gobies, gumdrop gobies, and percula clowns seem to be the best choices for nanos

i personally love having a lettuce nudi, and w/the nanos the pumps are all in the back so it won't get turned into coleslaw. its best to let the tank settle for a few months though, being a slug they are sensative and letting the tank set will allow the water quality to be stable and an adequate algae food supply to grow.

you can also consider a small brittle star at this point.

 

[yoshiod9]

for good info, check out the place where i first got interested in reefing-- www.nano-reef.com

as far as nanos go, jacob was spot on in his response.

so yeah...go check out n-r.com...there are a lot of things that have been and can be done with a nano-cube, you'll be very surprised! oh yeah, make sure that your tank isn't cracked.
-danny

 

[funman1]

Wow thanks for all the sugestions.
Yeah Minh I put that on cause it looked like a good idea and it came with the tank?? I guess that this didn't used to come with it as you called it a mod??

So I'm good there, thanks

I will check out that website tonight.
This sounds like a lot of fun.

Now wait though I'm not suposed to put anything in there till the tank is done cycling right? I guess that will take a few weeks, so I will keep monitoring. I can't imagine putting a clean up crew in there while it's cycling...

and after you put the crew in the tank what do they eat if you have no fish to make a mess for them to clean?

I plan on puting a few hermits in there, a mated pair of small clowns, some snails, maybe an urchin, a pep shrimp, and lots of soft corals.

I will try and take some pics of the tank soon before I start adding stuff.

Also I went back to O street and got more live rock, but now it all won't fit in the tank. Is there anyone who wants a few small nice branchy pieces? I put 16 punds in there but it's just too full of rock, it's like an overfilled tank with rocks.. I need to cut back on some so it looks better and has room for other stuff..
first I had too little LR and now I have too much..

Thanks again for all the help guys..
~Steve~

 

[lilleahseafreak]

there is always a little dieoff when adding rocks and algae will begin to grow, thats why ya can add 1 or 2 hermits, they will eat anything, i see them pick at rocks even where there seems to be nothing to pick. but yeah, i can see your point, i may be good to wait just a bit before adding anything.

if you are eager to add somthing living you can always add 2 bluelegs and give them a few pellest to munch on. they can live through the cycle fine and are somthing you want to keep (unlike a damsel, the typical cycle fish) i only say this because i am the impatient type who cannot live w/a empty tank for long, and just 2 hermits is enough to please my eyes as it gives me somthing to watch and "hold me over" untill the tank is ready to stock.

but if your not like that then by all means wait.

as for the extra/too much live rock, maybe having it in there for now will help the cycle go faster/better?

 

[Jacob D]

Sorry, but adding any living critters to your tank while cycling (or to cycle your tank) is nothing but irresponsible. Just because something can survive the cycle doesn't mean that it should have to endure being subjected to ammonia and nitrites.

 

[Marc Daniels]

Steve-

I have a 2.5g tank on my bar, and I don 't wory about it. I do a daily 16oz water change with my big tank. I know what the big tanks parameters are and the time or two that I have tested the 2.5g it was almost dead on with the 300g.

 

[Jacob D]

Mark,

You do daily water changes on your 300? If so, you are one dedicated reefer! Do you use tank water from the big tank as water change water in the small tank? I do this with my 5g nano and it seems to keep the nano really happy, every once in awhile I would do a WC with fresh saltwater.

 

[Marc Daniels]

Jacob-

I do weekly on the 300g, and daily on the 2.5. Every day I take 16oz out of the 2.5g, and pour it into the 300g. I then take 16oz out ofthe 300g, and put it into the 2.5g. At the end ofthe week when I change 15g out of the 300g, I also change 1/2g out of the 2.5g.

My nano is real happy as well.

 

[Jacob D]

Sounds pretty cool. That is about as close to having the 2 tanks plumbed together that you can get w/o actually doing it. I do the same thing but on a much less frequent schedule as there is only coral in my 5g so not much bioload.

 

[Kinetic]

Re: Just bought a nano, Am I doing this right?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7103840#post7103840 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by funman1
The sand bed in the tank is about 2.5 inches deep.
The Packaging says remove the ceramic rings, and bio balls; but then the only filteration is some sponges and the carbon bag.
Is that normal?

The sand bed seems a bit deep for a nano. it's a bit too shallow for a deep sand bed for NNR, and a bit too deep to keep it from collecting detritus and trapping a lot of nitrates. I'd recommend going down to 1" deep. Still looks good.

don't use bioballs and ceramic rings. those can be replaced with live rock, and can become nitrate traps in the long run.

you can even do without a sponge and just run carbon =P which is what i've been doing on my 32g. Only filtration is carbon and some phosphate absorbing media, and it only gets hit by some water.

goodluck

 

[funman1]

Well thanks for all the info..

My cycle completed 2 days ago, everything was at 0 except for nitrates @ 12, which I hear is fine.

Today I went over to Johns and bought 10 tiny hermits, and 10 misc snails.

Holy cow they chowed down on all my alge!!!
I had tons of alge growing on the rocks form a bloom while cycling and those little hermits had it all GONE within hours!!
The snails totally cleaned up the glass too.

My tank looks sparkling and awesome!!