85L Nano - work in progress

[bimborocks]

G'day everyone i just wanted to share my tank with you all and hope that you can admire and add any suggestions to make it better. This is my first attempt at marine and have kept freswater tanks for about 8 years now but have always wanted a reef tank. so here is my attempt and a bit about it.

The live rock was added about a month ago and initial cycle is just about finished so i will start to add some more things in the next few weeks.

The tank is 2.5L X 1.5 H X 1 foot long.
Lights - 2 x 55w 10000/actinic compact fluro
Circulation - Aquaclear 301 and Otto 400
Skimmer - AquaC Remora Hang on Tank run by a Rio 800
Filtration - Approx 20kg reef clulture live rock
substrate - 00 grade crushed marble
Top up - madison float switch which runs a windscreen washer pump

Inhabitants
i havn't added anything yet so everything in there is a hitch hiker of some description.
So far i have spotted (and are still alive after the worst of the cycle)
numerous brittle stars
lots of small crabs
a funky looking mantis shrimp - taking care of crabs and then will be moved
and worms in the substrate

Corals:
blue pulsing xenia - currently growing like mad
Colt coral
Goniporia - currently looks healthy
and another unknown coral - possible mushroom

Fish
planning on
a bi-colour bleeny
occ. clownfish - possibly a pair
possibly a coral goby or
a six line wrasse

anyway here is a few pics - these wer taken just after the live rock was added




Keep a lookout cause hopefully it will only get better from here. feel free to make any suggestions or comments

James

[KODLY]

I am only new at this to so do not take this as gospel. One of the first fish I put into my tank was a pair of Bi-colour angels, apparently they are good for eating algae, then hermit crabs and snails.

[bimborocks]

Thanks for the suggestion but i think that the tank would be too small for even one angel and i wanna keep some hermit crabs as part of my clean up crew.

here are some pic i took of the tank today. the tank could do with a bit a clean but you can see heaps more colour (coraline algae) on the rocks.

and some of the corals




James

[cisco]

Hi James
That,s a great nano set up, your rock looks really good and full of goodys, you defently need more of a clean up crew to keep up with the algae, but appart from that I reckon that will become a great little reef.
all the best cisco

[bimborocks]

Thanks.
at the moment i am the clean up creaw (you should have seen it before the photo)
realy just waiting for the crab population to deminish and then the mantis will be taken out and clean up crew added. hopefully in the next few weeks

James

[mycall]

awww i was just about to say that would make an awesome lil mantis tank, i must admit it is a pain not being able to keep a good supply of snails and hermits thou, tank does get quite a bit more dirtier.

[bimborocks]

well things are still going good. I recently moved teh tank from the office into the loungeroom cause the rest of the family thought it was a bit of a waste having it where not many people can see it. so the tank got a reasonable clean and i took some more pics. Only problem with the tank move is i am having a bit of trouble keeping the tank temp down as the fire is going in the loungeroom at the moment - bonus though is the aircon will come in handy during 40C summer days.

no more inhabitants as yet but will be placing an order through angelfish when they get back from holidays - a clean up crew and some corals to fill the box - thinking of 5 hermits and 3 snails then open brain, eligance coral, and torch or hammer coral.
I also took advantage of reefonline stocktake sale and bought Eric borneman corals book - discovered that my colt coral is actually Kenyan tree coral.

here are some pics of the tank

my mantis aka crab control



enjoy
anyone got any comments about my proposed fish list?

James

[Rors]

How about an octopus to clean up all af the crabs and the mantis shrimp. the mantis will be hard to catch once it knows your after it. An occy will clean them all out and by then will be tame enough for you to catch and resell befoe you put fish in.

[ninja750]

Saw an Octopus at an LFS. Loved it, thinking about replumbing my 3' for it.

Linh

[ben_qld]

make sure you cover the top real well !

Octopus are VERY smart, and will manage to squeese them selves into any crevice, or find some way of escaping

I would love a octupus and cuttlefish tank, these animals are amazing, they can change to any colour, checkers, flashing, all you have to do is change the colour around them, and they will instanty modify their colour and skin texture (from smooth to rough and lumpy)

from the docos i have seen they are awesome !

[ninja750]

thought about a cuttlefish myself, but they need an incredible amount of room, very similar to a stingray.

For the octopus, yes, l have seen some amazing things that they can do.

Linh

[dcvc]

Even better in real life!

[bimborocks]

this is starting to sound like the story about the woman who swalloed a fly
The mantis is under control. he accasionally gets a piece of prawn to chew on so he won't be difficult to catch. iff all else fails the rock he live in is easily removed. And to his credit there are plenty of little crab pieces drifting about the bottom of the tank.

BTW an occy would have absolutly no trouble getting out of my tank.

James

[dafidav]

thats a nice nano tank

got any more pics??

[bimborocks]

well alot has changed since the last post i made. here is a pic of the whole tank.

since i last put up a post i have removed the mantis - he now has a tank of his very own.

I have changed to NSW - when i first went to the beach to collect the water i went for a look around the rock pools and scored myself a clean up crew.

about 10 blue legged hermits
10 snails - various species
3 gold ringed cowries

I also bought a RO filter from psfilters and am using that for all my top ups. Top up is now controlled by a tunze osmolater.

I am adding about 1/2 litre of kalk a week. i just add it to my top up water at the beggining of the week.

paramaters are now
temp - 25
SG - 1.025
pH - 7.8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 2.5
Phos - 0.03
Calcium - 480

all are tested using salifert

The surface is now being skimmed using the aquaC skimmer box. It also has stopped alot of small bubbles getting to the tank.

I have also started to add a few corals. can't remember names of them but i will get a list together soon.

now the exciting bit. this weekend i will be heading up the the MASAQ meeting at reef culture and i plan to get 2 occ clowns to go in - can't wait.

James

[JDub]

Looking good James!

You certainly have been doing some upgrading......
Just curious, what is your Alk levels?

Cheers
Joel

[bimborocks]

currently don't test for ALK. when i get some more cash or someone is having a sale i will be getting a few more test kits - alk and probally iodine don't know what else i should be testing

[JDub]

I think once you have an Alk test kit you should have the complete set you need.
BTW I wouldnt be dosing any calcium or alk buffers without a ALk test kit. Calcium, pH and Alk all effect one another and you really need to be able to test them all. JMO

Looking good BTW

[objetda]

Well done Bimborocks, glad to see someone else going into Nano.
I'm currently finishing off my 80Lt tank, when I say finishing off its been
running now for just over a year. I would of liked to have all corals in
by now for MASOV tank comp. The pics here are the first stage,
I'm not going to show how it looks now until I have my lights setup.

The tank is 1500 L X 250 H X 250 W.
Current lights - 2 x 55w 10000/actinic fluro
Circulation - 3 x Aquaclear 201
Filtration - Approx 10kg reef clulture live rock
Eheim ECO 2231
Substrate - 00 / 000 grade crushed marble

Inhabitants:

7 x hermit crabs
1 x banded coral shrimp
6 x snails
1 x Lawn mower blennie
1 x Six line wrasse
1 x Puffer
1 x Clown

Corals:
A few soft corals, currently very little (waiting on new light setup)

[image]http://www.objetda.com/projects/pics/TANK_PICS/build1.JPG
[/image]

[dangqld]

Jaz that is awesome!

[objetda]

Thanks for that, hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll get some
shots of both sides and closeups.

[bimborocks]

I originally started adding kalk cause wheni first tested teh tank the calcium was about 380 i think. i have gradually brought it up from there. I always thought that the bonus of kalk was that it looked after the alk level for me. anyway i still have much too learn.

BTW nice tank jaz

James

[bimborocks]

I HAVE FISH!!!!!

I went to the MASAQ metting at reef culture on teh weekend and picked up two clowns
here is a pic of one. they are just starting to come out a bit more and they both ate some brine shrimp today.

[ReBooT]

You didnt 'steal' one of their breeding pairs did you ?

[objetda]

He looks right at home already

Are you going to get an anemone soon. I think one reason my first clown died was because he was sleeping on the sand and the crabs eyed him off. When I bought the next one, I got a bubble tip a few weeks later and he dived straight in and called it home, crabs won't go near him

P.S. That LR is looking very good.

[bimborocks]

You didnt 'steal' one of their breeding pairs did you ?

sssSSSSHHHHHhhhhh i've been found out

[bimborocks]

well it has been a while since i posted in here but i got a new camera yesterday so i've been taking a few pics of the tank (still trying to figure out what all the buttons and knobs do) but here are a few pics of my fish
My clowns have paired up and this is the male

I have also added a six line wrasse


we got a new kitten a few weeks ago and like me loves my tank - it spends alot of time looking into the tank and trying to get the fish through the glass - the fish seem to know they are pretty safe though cause it doesn't seem to bother them


well that is all for now but i'm sure there are plenty more to come

James

[bimborocks]

Well it has been a while since i posted here so i thought i would update a bit.

here is a full tank shot



and a few new corals i have picked up around the place




James

[SLACkra]

looking good. nice ricordia and zoos. i have zoos that almost exacly the same colour cept mine have a slight lime green tinge on the tenticles.

andrew

[dangqld]

Love the zoo's,
and the ricordia!