ojonas nano tank 2.0

[ojonas81]

Here we go again. As some of you may already know my first build, started last fall, failed completely in July. The build thread can be found here: Build thread for version 1.0.

After draining the old tank I took it outside and did a complete cleaning of it. Scrubbed down every square inch to make sure nothing was left from the old system. Dried off the tank and took it back in and put it on the stand again. All clean and nice. Almost like new. Then I added water and vinegar and let it run for over a week with one water/vinegar change in the middle. Drained and rinsed off the tank again. Now it was definitely free from any leftover bacteria etc. from the old system. Even got all the coraline algae off the walls. Now it was ready for saltwater.

 

[ojonas81]

Version 1.0 I used live rock only and even though it made the cycle quick and added a lot of life to the tank I also got a lot of unwanted critters such as mega bristle etc. I was also never really happy with the aquascape which became sort of limited because of the nature of the live rock and the short time outside of salt water that you can work with them. This time I went with dry rock from BRS. Opted for their Pukani rock with a few branching pieces as well. Heard a lot of good things regarding the Pukani. The big advantage with the dry rock is that you can take your time and really get the scape the way you want it. Did numerous of tried on the floor before I settled in on a design.

Added live sand and then started to put the rocks in the tank. This time I decided to "glue" them together to get a rock solid structure.

Next step was to add the rest of the salt water.

 

[ojonas81]

Added the rest of the salt water and this is the final result.

Last time I mixed the salt when the water was already in the tank. This time I mixed it in 5g buckets. Last time I added the sand at the very last, after water and rocks. This time I added it first. Made a huge difference in how quick the water cleared up.

Shortly after I went to my LFS and got a few smaller pieces of live rock to seed the tank. I also added a fresh raw shrimp to start the cycle process. The live rocks will be removed soon because they does not fit my scape, just added them to seed the tank temporarily.

Have already seen my ammonia spike and it is now going down. System has been running like this for a few weeks now so hopefully I will be able to add a small CUC soon. I will in fact get a shipment of sand/live rock dwelling critters tomorrow from Inland Aquatics. So far they have been very helpful to me.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that when I got the dry rock from BRS I had them in the tank in saltwater for over a week to get most of the dead stuff skimmed away in order not to introduce more phosphate than necessary.

This is where the tank is today. First critters will go in tomorrow and if all values are OK by next weekend I might consider adding the first fish. I am very excited about this new build and I really love how the aqascape turned out. So much better than before.

 

[ojonas81]

One thing I also took my time to do with this restart of the tank was to better organize my power cables. It was a real mess in the last setup. Here are pictures of old setup versus the new current setup.

Old setup
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8023/7258335836_34efa005b3_z.jpg" width="398" height="640" alt="Aquabus_Wiring">

Current setup

 

[ojonas81]

I decided that it would make more sense to keep the original build thread since it is the same tank. It can be found here.

This thread will not be updated anymore and can be closed by the admins if they like.