Update on the Nano Reef Tank project
Gill Passman
The tank is now set up (ish)……The substrate I’m using is something called “Tropical Marine Sand” from Tropical Marine Centre….apparently it contains algal oolites….I’ve put 4 Kilos in…..
I set up the tank using some cured Ocean Rock just to get a feel for how it will look…..I will be adding Living Rock (that matches) early next week…..I will probably leave the cured rock in as well on the basis that once the tank is running it will populate as well….
Some techie stuff:-
Tank is around 60L
I have 4Kilo of substrate
Heater installed
I am using empty canisters (in fact the Rena pump is less it’s canister as we got a better flow) – at the moment a Fluval 1 plus the Rena equivalent…..I most likely will change the Fluval 1 to a Fluval 2 Plus in the next few days
I have a Haldor internal air pump/bubble maker in there
I have a Sander Piccolo Protein Skimmer on order (cost £18) – I need to sort an air pump for it when it arrives
Lighting is going to be an issue….the Rena tank only has the capacity for one 15W lamp – for now I have a Hagen Power-Glo…..Hubby will custom build a hood for the tank to take more lighting…..plan is to do this before any livestock other than living rock is introduced – I also need to work out how much lighting we can put in without adversely affecting temps if we are custom building – the more the better but I don’t want rocketing temperatures
I used RO water plus Red Sea Marine Salt….right now my SG is 1.023 which if I understand correctly is pretty much ideal….I’m working on getting the salinity correct before starting to play with buffering and alkalinity…..if the SG remains stable overnight I will start doing this tomorrow…..
The plan is to add some live rock once I’m happy with the SG and alkalinity – hopefully Mon/Tues next week….then wait a week or two and start adding some invertebrates such as shrimp/snails/crabs….then after heavy monitoring start with some corals etc…..6 weeks after the Corals the Clowns will go in…..then the tank will be done…..I do not anticipate adding fish until the beginning of November at the earliest – it may even be sneaking up to Christmas…..I want to see how things go first….
This is certainly not a cheap project even though I had a lot of stuff prior to starting…..including what I had already (and not including the tank) I would guess already over £250 and that is before the live rock and livestock…..it’s scary how much it could cost doing this on a large scale…..
But I am enjoying it J
Gill
Altum
ammonia spikes and will gradually become colonized with interesting
algae and critters. After a year, I couldn't tell my cured ocean rock
from the expensive live rock.
I hope you're able to figure out how to light the tank for your
anemone.
--Altum