My Homemade Nano - Pictures

[Flusher]

My tank has been up and running for a week shy of 5 months (since Sept 18, 2005). It originally had an AquaClear 50 to circulate water, but this was upgraded to a 4 gallon sump about a month ago (Jan 11, 2006).

The display tank is 15" x 14.5" x 15" H (about 13 gallons).
The sump is 12.5" x 5.5" x 16" H (about 4 gallons).
I change 2.5 gallons every week (about 15% of the total potential amount of water, so probably over 20% of the actual water volume).
I dose daily with aragaMILK. I only started dosing this past week, and I severely underdose (three or four drops daily as opposed to eight or nine). The aragaMILK seems to be helping, but it really is too soon to tell.
The salinity is SG 1.024, and the temperature is 82*F.
There is a total of 24.5 lbs of live rock, and about 2" of aragonite live sand in the display tank (about 4" deep in part of the sump).
The pH has been stable at 8.2, no ammo/nitrite spikes, and the nitrate has never shown up on my test kit. (I do need to test again soon, since I haven't in awhile and I started dosing the tank.)

This is my current livestock list:

2 x Ocellaris Clown Fish
3 x Scarlet Hermit Crab
4 x Blue Leg Hermit Crab
1 x Emerald Crab
1 x Peppermint Shrimp
2 x Cerith Snail
2 x Trochus Snail
3 x Deep Water Turbo Snail
1 x Star Snail

I had a Rainford Goby that did not do well, and it disappeared after a couple weeks. My research before and after purchase contrasted starkly; in hindsight, I wouldn't have bought the goby. I also lost about a half-dozen deep water turbo snails. I think pyrams (pyramid snails) may have taken them out. There was also an electric blue hermit crab in there, but it knocked the live rock and frags around too much. I gave it to someone else and it is doing well in a 20 gallon tank.

I plan to get a second emerald crab, maybe a cleaner shrimp or two (although they are expensive), and a couple more trochus snails.

Here are the hitchhikers I got on the live rock:

Small Starfish (LOTS!)
Small Snails (lots)
Small Nudibranch (just one little guy)
Small Jellyfish (a few - they are static; stuck on the live rock)
Feather Dusters
Peanut Worms
Bristleworms
Miscellaneous other unidentified worms and invertebrates

Here is a list of the corals in the tank:

"Waving Hand" Anthelia
Mushroom
Green Star Polyp
Colt
Finger Leather
Candy Cane

I had a Pulsing Xenia, but it started to wither. It is now doing well in someone else's tank.

I'm looking to add many more hardy soft corals, preferrably something with a lot more colour. Any suggestions? I like riccordea, but I'm not sure if I have enough light.


This is the most recent shot of the tank:

Here is the wooden enclosure:

I plan to paint the enclosure black when the snow melts and the weather warms up (I live in Canada). By then, the wood should have settled nicely so I'll be able to fill in any gaps. (Sometimes the wood dries out and shrinks a bit, I've noticed.)


Here are the lights (front view):

I went with two household 26W spiral fluorescent bulbs. Between the two is a 20W Coralife 50/50 bulb (actinic-side facing down). This gives me over 5 watts per gallon in the display tank, although the colour temperature isn't great for finnicky corals. These three bulbs are on a timer; they go on at 11 am and off at 11 pm. I put a small night-light in there as a moon light. It has a light sensor on it, so it isn't on the timer. This is all low-tech lighting, but so far so good. (Affordable, too.)

This is the sump:

Top:

Top (old wooden enclosure):

Sides (no enclosure):

This picture shows how the enclosure wraps around the sump and display tank:

The sump has a Lee's Protein Skimmer (small), an Ebo Jager 75W heater, and a Resun SP-1200 Powerhead (700L/H, or 185 GPH).

I've had very few casualties considering this is my first reef tank. Everything has been running smoothly. The corals are all growing, aand the coraline grows well too.

Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Siffy]

What color temps are the spiral bulbs? Standard household or the "daylight" stuff?

 

[Flusher]

Standard, I think. I picked them up at a hardware store. $10 for a pack of three, if I remember correctly.

 

[Mikeeal]

Dude! We basically have the same setup. Check it out.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=749539

Lookin good man. Have you tried the LOA bulbs? They are 6500K, found at Wal-Mart, and look whiter than the ones you are using. Nice job! :thumbsup:

 

[travisurfer]

nice tank...can you please tell me how you did your lighting? or a link would be nice too.

thanks
travis

 

[Flusher]

Mikeeal, nice tank! Ours do look similar, though yours is a little more "pro" with the drilled rimmed tank and most likely a superior skimmer. :lol: Good luck with the canopy; your tank is gonna be killer.

I didn't drill my tank or sump; my nano was up and running for several months before I decided to add a sump. Here's the overflow siphon tube and the powerhead modification I used instead:

I'll keep an eye out for those bulbs, too. Admittedly, the picture of the tank (above) isn't the greatest. The lighting looks off. Here's an older picture of my tank showing the difference that the 20W 50/50 bulb makes:

As you can see, the lighting (on the right) is better in that picture than in the one above on this thread. I think I took the new photo during the day, as opposed to after dark, so the photo didn't turn out as nicely.

Travis, here are some pictures of the old canopy:

Here it is again after an upgrade:

The "moon light" was added even later:

The moon light is a night light on an extension cord. :lol:

Basically, for the lighting I bought three electrical cords, three sockets, and three bulbs. They were assembled and secured into place. For the new canopy, I ripped out all the hardware from the old canopy and made a wooden box that snugly holds all three lights, then secured it to the top. You can see the rear of the wooden box, with the wires coming out, in the top view picture of the sump. (I didn't add the reflector in the new canopy, but I might later on.)

My wife had the camera out of town when I installed the lights, so I didn't get a picture... :rolleye1:

Thanks for all the input.

 

[Agu]

Very Nice :thumbsup:

I'd highly recommend that you use three coralife bulbs, or at least replce the curly bulbs with "daylight" curly bulbs. You might also want to paint the inside of the canopy white to reflect more light.

 

[Flusher]

I tried three Coralife bulbs; they just weren't bright enough. I'll keep an eye out for those daylight bulbs, although I haven't had any problems growing hardy soft corals and coraline.

 

[aural]

i'd scrap those bulbs too.. get yourself an inexpensive retro kit or something. That is too nice of a setup to have it look yellow!

 

[Flusher]

I noticed that the spiral bulbs I was using were going yellow after about five months. I replaced them with new 26W bulbs, and the colour looks quite a bit better. From now on, I'll just change 'em every six months. That'll only set me back $25 a year.

While I was at the hardware store, I was looking at halogen lighting. Would these be any good for my tank? The bulbs are cheap, and they come in a decent assortment.

 

[brainiac]

nice tank.

 

[Flusher]

Thanks brainiac (and everyone else for that matter).

I did some research: halogen lights are no good. Too hot, bad output, so on, so forth...

I've decided to add a fourth bulb to the canopy. It'll be a Coralife, and I'll attach it to the swinging lid. I figure every six months I'll put a new Coralife between the two spiral bulbs, then move the old Coralife bulb to the lid outlet. The one going in, for example, is the one I just replaced, which has only been used for maybe five months. That rotation should work pretty good, except that the Coralife bulbs don't seem to ever have the same side of the bulb (ie. actinic) pointed in the same way relative to the outlet. Meh.

 

[asphaltpilot]

Nicely done :thumbsup:

 

[kaserpick]

Really sweet setup!

Thumbs up!
Kaserpick

 

[Flusher]

Okay, I added a fourth bulb - a second 20W Coralife 50/50. I was painting the wooden enclosure black, so I took a photo of the canopy while I had it disassembled:

 

[Flusher]

I tried out four of the Coralife 50/50s (and rearranged the layout in my tank):

Does this look like enough to grow the corals I have, plus Frogspawn? I think so, bit a second opinion never hurts.

 

[cmondo]

-Nice setup, good job putting it together.

-As for the setup, you know that anthella is going to keep growing like a weed so that will probably take up most of the rock. I like how you put the leathers on the sandbed to avoid thier over growth. Are you going to do that with your frogspawn?

- One suggestion for the lighting that would greatly improve the amount of light you are getting is put a reflector up in the hood. You can easily do that with a piece of polished alluminum or some mirrors, or anything else you can think of.

Good luck keeping up with the anthella and with the tank.

Chris

 

[mr.bear]

pretty niftty there

 

[vanmo92]

how dose tht skimmer skim for you. nice tank by the way.

 

[HartfordWhalers]

cool