Nancy's Nano

[NMC]

I decided it's time I started a build thread, if only for myself. Sort of a diary of progress and hopefully not setbacks.

I got a 28 gallon JBJ LED in late February.

The rock is BRS reef savor rock. Sand is pretty fine arogonite sand. I've been reading and reading by this point and coming to some conclusions about my all in one system. It's not quite all in one, for one thing.

 

[NMC]

Nest thing to tackle was the water itself. I bought this RO/DI unit from BRS and I'm happy with it. It's under the sink in the bathroom.

What to use to make/store water in turned into quite a project. I found the 5 gallon buckets too heavy to haul around on a regular basis, but have a couple Home Depot buckets I plan to use for water changes. I was looking for something not quite so large and food safe to use for storing water and I also needed to find space for storing it. From reading, I wanted to have enough water on hand to do a big emergency water change.

I found these water bricks! Not cheap, but a one time purchase and perfect for storing/stacking. Had a couple of water making floods in the bathroom when the cats knocked the tubing out of the container, so now I make the water in the tub and then put the containers in a coat closet in the hallway.

 

[calistyle]

very nice water storage setup. I look forward to following your progress!

 

[NMC]

Thanks!

 

[NMC]

I have an old house with old electricity. This required a bit of thought and planning. There is a plug right behind the tank, but it isn't a grounded one. The nearest grounded plug was a bit away.

Back to Home Depot. I bought a GFI thing with multiple outlets and an ugly, long yellow cord. It was so unsightly, that cord, that I went back to Home Depot again. I'm really learning my way around the Home Depot and am now on a first name basis with several employees. This time I bought some stuff that both covers the unsightly cord and adheres it to the wall. Not perfect, but much better. I also added one of those little stick on lights inside the stand to see better. About the stand: Not bad, but such a cheapo knob! Plastic, tacky, yuck. Back to Home Depot to get a decent knob.

 

[NMC]

I didn't take pictures of my rock scaping efforts. The BRS rocks are nice, but very big. I started one way, had to change stuff. Not completely happy with it, but it will do for now. More pictures will follow.

An issue that came up very early in the game was the protein skimmer. The tank came with a little skimmer that fit in one of the back compartments. It did absolutely nothing. So I bought a Tunze nano skimmer that would fit in the back only where the media basket goes. I wanted the media basket, so the Tunze went back. I bought the In Tank media basket and the Tunze protein skimmer both from In Tank. They very graciously took the skimmer back and gave me a refund so thumbs up for them.

As far as what to put in the media basket: I don't know what the best thing is. I put what seemed to be recommended most here on RC. I have purigen on the bottom, chemipure in the middle, and filter floss on top. Seems to be working ok.

The lights were an issue. I'd thought there would be some sort of timer. There wasn't. I have moonlights, actinics, and daylights and until I got some sort of timer I had to manually plug and unplug them.

This tank has 2 return pumps and a wavemaker. To this day, I've no clue how best to set up the wavemaker.

 

[NMC]

This tank is lidded and evaporation is not huge, but I still wanted an ATO so I didn't have to fret about that aspect. I opted for the JBJ ATO with a Tom's aqualifter. Not the best, or most expensive (I think maybe the Tunze Osmolator might win in most expensive), but works fine for me.

The challenge came in finding a container for the RO/DI water. I wanted something that fit in the stand. The stand is skinny. Most containers skinny enough were also pretty short and didn't hold enough water to make them practical. A time consuming internet search yielded nothing. Back to home depot. I found the perfect thing! I think it hold 3 or 4 gallons and fits perfectly!

 

[NMC]

So, I need a QT set up. I read that I do, it makes sense. I decide it should go in my bathroom, so can't be very big. I also want it to look nice. So I bought a 6 gallon Fluval Edge (this won't end well).

 

[NMC]

The Fluval Edge saga:

Many on RC said 6 gallons wasn't big enough. But 6 gallons was what I had so what was I gonna do?

The glass top: Cool looking with water all the way to the top, but there was only a small hole to put things in/take things out. Not only that, when you tried to put things in or take things out, you needed to siphon off water first or water would go everywhere when you put your hand in.
I dealt with this for a while. Finally got frustrated and removed the glass top. Much more workable, but now without the top, evaporation is a bigger issue. With only 6 gallons it doesn't take much to throw off the salinity. So, a second ATO was purchased.

I had some fake plants in it, the filter that came with it, a small heater. I actually cycled the tank before putting any fish in it, thinking it was going to be a challenge to keep the amonia down is such a small amount of water and cycling first would help.

I ordered the Salifert amonia alert thing that sticks on the tank and also some emergency amonia neutralizing potion. I've had my tank about a month already and have yet to add any critters to it while money continues to bleed from my bank account.

 

[NMC]

On 3/24/12 I'd been adding fish food daily to my JBJ, but nothing seemed to be happening so I went to my LFS. It's a small place right down the street. I bought a few pieces of live rock that looked pretty dang dead and put it in my tank to "seed" things.

Meanwhile, I'm having a hard time getting the temperature stabalized. It's up, it's down.

On 4/4/12 I got a Vortech MP 10 so I'd have more flow. Do I need it? I don't know. Everyone says so, so I got it. I'm a bit of a sucker for stuff sometimes. I like it though. It's a very nice toy. I will never run it at 100% in this sized tank, but it's still a nice thing to have.

I've also decided my "live" rock is just plain dead and there is still nothing happening in my tank. The QT is cycling as predicted, but my main tank only had a very small blip in amonia. Never any nitrites or nitrates. So I decide I need live rock that's actually alive and order some from gulfreefsupply.com.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing for some critters. I want a jawfish, that's why I have as much sand as I do. Today I built a little PVC condo. Had to take all my rocks out, bury the condo under some sand with and entry way sticking up. I had an old urchin shell that I glued to the entry so it didn't look as unnatural. Put all the rocks back, but for the life of me, I couldn't get them like I had them before. I also decided I better glue/epoxy them if I'm to have a jawfish that digs (he may choose to forego the house I made him and dig elsewhere).

 

[ilyad]

Just noticed in your picture that your MP10 isnt mounted with the little sticky thing and zip tie to hold the cable upright... I highly recommend doing it.. If for some reason the pump fell, that clip keeps it from crashing down onto the floor and damaging itself... Would not want to pay for a replacement dry side.

As far as the wave setting on the return pumps, keep them on at the same time... with an MP10 you can create various currents, so no need for it with the return pump... mine acts like a plug saver. When I feed and have to disconnect the return pumps, its only one cable instead of two, lol

To start up a cycle, just head out to your local market and buy some (1) fresh shrimp (dead), toss the sucker in and watch the cycle start.

The aquascape - one rule is it will NEVER go back the way it was. lol ask anyone, that was many of hours of frustration for me before, now I learned that if i move the rocks, then I just build a new scape that works. So if you find one you really like, dont mess with it. I would agree gluing and epoxying the rocks unless they stack very very solid. One problem though is that early in the tank you will want to change your rocks pretty often until you find what you like, so that being said, wait off on the jawfish, once you find the rockwork you can live with, then epoxy and glue it and then introduce the jawfish that way you wont regret a rockwork you glued together and now cant undo.

Another alternative to gluing the rocks is using thin pvc piping, drilling holes in the rocks in appropriate places and then using those pvc tubing as little pegs to hold everything in place, kinda like building Ikea furniture.

Good luck and Im looking forward to seeing what else youve got!

 

[NMC]

Thanks for the pointers! I need all I can get. My tank is about 2 months further along than this thread. I just wanted a "from the beginning," thing. So it has since cycled.

That holder thing for the MP10....don't you ever want to move the MP10? I'm still trying to decide where it should go. Once decided, do you leave it or move it on occassion, say to the other side?

 

[NMC]

Moving ahead to 4/18/12:

Based on things I'd read here and elsewhere, I finally opted for the Aqua Maxx HOB 1 protein skimmer. I had to make some adjustments so I could still open the lid of the tank all the way. Many thanks to Ange here on this forum for the detailed pics of just how to do that.

It works great! At first it was a bit loud, sounded like a kid blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk, but it has quieted down. The fans that come on automatically when the daylights come on are louder than the skimmer. Quite happy with it. It has a lot of parts, but it's easy to take apart and clean. I've found one of my least favorite tank jobs is cleaning the cup....stinks!!

Now that I took the top off my Fluval Edge I needed to make some sort of screen top so my fish don't jump out. I had a couple of known jumpers in my stocking plans. I ordered this screen making kit from BRS.

There's lots of pics of the Aquamaxx so I'll forgo posting any of those.

 

[NMC]

4/20/12:

I had some brownish reddish junk on the top of my sand bed. I'd been running the lights 24/7 so decreased the lights to a more normal cycle and increased the flow. Stuff went away in a day. Not sure what it was. Maybe cyano or diatoms? Don't know, it's gone, don't care.

 

[NMC]

4/26/12:
Got rid of the dead "live" rock I got from my LFS and added the rock from gulfreefsupply. Lots of neat stuff on this rock.

A muscle or clam

A coral of some sort

Some sponges and lots of macroalgae.

I was happy I finally had something to look at in my tank.

 

[NMC]

4/8/12

Bit the bullet and bought the Apex Lite controller. It's all good now, but, for me anyway, getting it up and running properly wasn't easy. I had 2 phone sessions with Paul at Neptune Systems (great customer service!), and even had some help from an RC Member (Cobra 9), who was gracious enough to actually call me and help. I can say with certainty, I'd never have figured this thing out without help. It's still a really swell thing and I'm glad I got it. No more plugging and unplugging lights, temperature controlled. A nice thing to have.

 

[NMC]

4/9/12

I got curious about this pretty macroalgae I had on my new live rock

So I did a google search and a search here. It's a form of calpera with nothing but horror stories attached to it. "Takes over your tank," "Impossible to irradicate," "still fighting it after 3 years," stuff like that.

So, it had to go and my clam/muscle thing and my hitch hiker coral went with it.

In the meantime, I'd gotten some snails from reefcleaners.org. John is very helpful....once again running across great customer service! This is a good hobby so far in terms of the service I'm getting. My bank account that was oozing blood is now hemorrhaging so I'm glad at least I'm getting good service

I gotta say, that's a whole hell of a lot of snails! There are many here on RC who say reefcleaners.org recommends and sends way too many snails. I don't know. It's almost 2 months later and they are all still alive and busy so I'm not complaining.

 

[NMC]

5/10/12:
I got my first fish (a purple firefish) and corals.
I have discovered I'm no good at taking tank pictures and will have to rectify that.

The fish went into the cycled 6 gallon QT. I dipped the corals in Coral Rx, just followed the directions, and put them in the DT

The corals I got were:
1. 5 headed Kryptonite candy cane
2. A yellow finger leather that was way to big for my tank
3. 2 stylophora frags, one green, one a dark rose
4. A ricordia
5. A freebee teeny tiny ricordia and teeny tiny green birdsnest
6. A 2 headed duncan

The leather, duncan, and stylophora were from Liveaquaria and the others from a nice fish store I found about 30 minutes away.

The finger leather is ugly just sitting there like that, but it was pretty later when the yellow polyps came out. Still too danged big though.

 

[NMC]

5/11/12

My firefish is QT is terrified of me. Doesn't seem to be eating, looking kind of blah.

There is already amonia in my cycled tank.

I threw in some Amiquel and did a big water change...about 3/4 of the volume.

I have one of those Seachem amonia alerts. I will say that I had amonia of .5 and the alert said there was no amonia, so it went in the trash.

 

[NMC]

5/12/12

6 gallons is too small for a QT. I was having to change water way too often, more than once a day, and still had amonia. My fish didn't look too hot. I got afraid I was going to kill it. I work long shifts and couldn't be home to change the water frequently enough.

So my good QT intentions went out the window and I put the fish in the display tank.

3 weeks later he's doing fine, eats like a pig, and is no longer shy. The Fluval Edge got emptied and is sitting in storage. I ordered a cheap 10 gallon to use instead for my next fish.

In my DT I'm having some chemical puzzles. I used Kent reef salt so the Calcium and Magnesium are very high, but the dKH is consistently very low. The corals all seem fine and the fish is fine, so my plan is to start dosing alk.