My First Sony...Oops, I meant Nano

[Goannaman]

Hi everyone. I thought it would be fun to document setting up my 10 gallon nano.

For just a bit of back ground information, this is my first ever saltwater tank. For that mater, this is really my first tank of any kind. We had a freshwater tank growing up, but my Dad did most of the work. I just helped out with feeding and picking out some fish.

I had been wanting to start a small tank for quite some time, and last week my wife and I decided to go for it. I had a regular 10 gallon tank in the attic from when my tortoise was smaller than the palm of my hand, so that part was easy. The rest of it was not so easy. It seems to me that while the fish stores here in Central FL have a great selection of livestock...not so much on the dry goods. When I asked about a light at one of the local shops the owner said that I should order online .

But without too much fuss, I got what I needed. After a quick stop at the grocery store for some water, away I went.

Here are a few pics, this is from today, just about a week after set up:

Full tank shot:

Live Rock Close ups:

Problems I have had so far...
1. LFS convincing me to buy a 25w heater. I don't know if he just didn't believe me when I said I never used the heater in my house or what, but if any one wonders, a 25 w heater will not heat a 10g to 80 when your house is dropping into the low 60's at night. I upgraded to a 100w this morning.

2. I don't like the maxi-jet 600 as a powerhead. I mean, it works fine, but just looks bulky and plain old ugly (especially in such a small space) compared to the Koralia Nano on the other side. Eventually it will be put out to pasture and replaced with another Koralia, but that is pretty far down the list.

Water parameters are good so far. As of yesterday Ammonia:0 Nitrite:0 Nitrate:10. This morning I did a 20% water change, and will test again tonight. If everything still looks good, I will add my clean up crew tomorrow maybe. I am planning on 2 Nassarius, 3 cerith, 3 nerite, and one hermit. Yes I understand the hermit might be a problem, but we both think they look cool. Hopefully it will work out ok.

My light should be here Tuesday. The one used in the pictures is just an old single bulb hood that I had laying around. I ended up with a 96watt Coralife PC fixture. I was contemplating getting a T5 setup, but decided that I would wait on that. Both my wife and I think we should have gone bigger, so plans are in the works to upgrade to a 40 Long at some point this year, so I decided to just get an okay light for now.

My next major purchase will likely be an Aqua C remora skimmer, which I will eventually use in the sump of the 40.

Further bulletins as events warrant

Comments and advice for this complete aquarium noob are welcome!

 

[Rue]

Looks like you're off to a good start!

No mechanical filtration?

 

[morbius18]

If you really want to go larger at some point and hate the powerheads and can afford it go with a Vortech MP20. It is expensive, but since income tax return time is coming... I have bought the upgrade to mine, and will never use another powerhead again. I replaced my 4 maxijets with this 1.

 

[motocrosstcw]

Looks like you're off to a good start!

No mechanical filtration?

i second this question but looks like a great start to me too keep posted with pics

 

[Goannaman]

Looks like you're off to a good start!

No mechanical filtration?

No plans for mechanical filtration right now, but who knows, my outlook on that may change

 

[yungreefer2410]

so the tank has been up for one week? if so you need to add a deli shrimp and let it cycle. all tanks need to cycle.

 

[bratyboy2]

backing youngreefer! and you should just add a simple hand on the back.

 

[Goannaman]

Just a few updates (no pics till next weekend):

Added my clean up crew, they are doing well. Water parameters are still looking good (testing PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate with API tests).

I had a small bloom of diatoms on the sand, but the cerith snails have mostly tamed that. I added a Coralife 96 watt pc light. It was affordable, and will work for now (later this year I plan to upgrade to either a 40 long or a 55, and will add t5 lighting then.

I did a two gallon water change last night, tank is back to being crystal clear this morning. I still don't plan on adding any mechanical filtration. Unless I am missing something, and please let me know if I am, mechanical filtration only eliminates suspended visible particulate from the water column. If there is little to no visible particulate is there any benefit? From what I have read, a mechanical skimmer is of little use in a nano system where weekly water changes are simple. Ditto for the protein skimmer I suppose, but it will be put to work when I upgrade tanks, so it seems a better investment. At any rate, in the next few months I hope to have a sump set up, and will run a sock on the drain to the sump.

New additions:

I did buy an aqua c remora skimmer it is being delivered this week. In the same order I picked up a refractometer and a magfloat cleaner. Note to anyone that is new like me that happens to read this...buy a refractometer, don't waste your money on a swing hydrometer (especially when you can pick one up from Marine Depot for under $40). On the same topic, I would put swing hydrometer's at the bottom of the pile for user friendliness. Seriously, at least buy a float hydrometer.

When I add the Remora, I plan to ditch the maxijet 600, and use the skimmer return for flow on one end and the koralia nano on the other.

I picked up a nice oak stand that is 49x16.5x30 for $20 (thank you Craigslist). Only problem with it is that someone decided to paint it with a green crackle finish...ugh paint stripper here I come. But, for twenty dollars I can't complain.

Plans:

I will be in Dallas this week for work, then home for the weekend, and Boston the following week, so getting the stand stipped and stained will be put on hold for a while. I will be testing the water when I get back this Friday. If everything still looks good, we will be adding two small clown fish this weekend. Stripping (of the stand, not me) should start next weekend as well.

 

[Goannaman]

Not sure if anyone is reading this or not, but at least it keeps me honest...

I came home on Friday and checked my water:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates between 5-10 (Did I mention I have always hated the comparing colors tests?)
PH 8.2

After calibrating my new refractometer both with distilled water, and then checking with 1.025 reference solution (directions found in a Reef Keeping Magazine article, I think it was 3.65g of Morton's table salt to 96.35g distilled water), I checked my salinity to find it was 1.021. Stupid swing hydrometer. So, I will slowly be raising that by doing my water changes with water at 1.025.

Salinity aside, the tank is doing well. I had a small issue with diatoms before I left for Texas, but the CUC took care of that. Also a small outbreak of green filamentous algae, that the CUC is eating right now

We did go ahead and add a small Clown to the tank, here is the best pic I could get:

I will try and get better at quickly moving objects.

I also added an AquaC Remora skimmer. I started it up Friday evening, it is still producing micro-bubbles (which, per the instructions, is expected) but is starting to make a light brown skimmate. Hopefully the quality of the skimmate will improve when it is broken in. Here is an FTS:

This morning when I woke up, I found this tiny mystery snail on the glass. It is either the best hitch hiker ever, or a baby Cerith any ideas:

Quick shot of the Wonder Hermit:

The hermit has become quite a bit more shy (which from reading seems to be normal for scarlets) with the addition of the fish. Kind of a shame, because before he ruled the tank!

Project refinish the $20 stand continues. It is a very sturdy stand, made out of 3/4 oak ply. Unfortunately someone put an awful finish on the wood, that is the bane of my existence to strip:

It does have doors, they are just off in this pic.
Here is a closeup of the crackle finish from heck:

Thats all from this update. I'm off to sunny and warm Boston tomorrow. Why I got a flight that I need to wake up at 0300 the morning after Superbowl I may never know.

 

[morbius18]

If you have a 96 watt quad PD fixture over a 10 gallon, that is some lighting. You really don't need to "upgrade" to T5s until you get the bigger tank. Tank looks really nice.

 

[ZAPCOnj]

Welcome to the forum.

got a couple of questions for you....

• How long has your tank been up and running?
• how much Live rock do you have in there.
• What do you plan on keeping in it? (such as corals and fish)
• in the two weeks since you started this thread did you register an ammonia spike with your test results?
• how often are you testing your water?
• have you been doing water changes since you started the tank?

It seems like you're trucking along pretty fast. it maybe a good idea to take a step back and make sure things are working in your favor. The worst thing you can do is rush along with these tanks. ESPECIALLY in a nano. smaller water volumes are harder to keep up to snuff. I'm not gonna bash you for adding a fish within what seems like a tank that has been set up for 2 weeks, since it's something that more people do than don't but i would definitely take some time and do a little waiting to make sure everything working out.

GL in your SW adventure!!

 

[Goannaman]

Welcome to the forum.

got a couple of questions for you....

• How long has your tank been up and running?
• how much Live rock do you have in there.
• What do you plan on keeping in it? (such as corals and fish)
• in the two weeks since you started this thread did you register an ammonia spike with your test results?
• how often are you testing your water?
• have you been doing water changes since you started the tank?

As of today, it has been up for three weeks (it had been up for a week when I started the thread).

There is 10.25 lb of live rock, and 20 lb of Caribsea Aragalive sand. I know that generally you are looking for 1.5-2 lb per gallon. I made the decision to go with just a one after talking to several different LFS'. My reasoning was that as the tank matures and I add coral, each will come with some rock, and I didn't want to take up to much room at the beginning. It does look a bit empty though, so I have been thinking of making an aragocrete rock as a fun DIY project in the future, and just let that get colonized in my tank.

Right now there are no definitive stocking plans. We will likely add one more small fish, possibly a shrimp and some zoas. I don't want to add anything to finicky while I am getting comfortable with the tank.

My wife did notice a small ammonia spike after set up. I was out of town and forgot to ask her to check nitrites *edited to correct typo*, but when I tested, the water was good (0 ammonia, 0 trites, 10 trates). I did not use the deli shrimp method (as honestly, and this may just be the noob in me talking, it seemed like overkill for ten gallons of water). I did sprinkle in some fish food though.

I am planning on testing once a week now (although in the second week (after I added the CUC, I was testing every three days just to make sure the water was still ok). I have been testing on Saturdays and doing water changes on Sundays.

I did a one gallon change after the first week. Since then, I have been doing two gallon changes every week.

Thanks for the comments

 

[Goannaman]

Weekly update:

Every thing seems to be going well in the tank. I tested yesterday, and the water parameters were great:
Ammonia: Undetectable
Nitrite: Undetectable
Nitrate: Looks like just over 5 ppm
PH: 8.2
SG 1.024

I finally identified the mystery snail as a stomatella. I have only seen it one other time, deep inside a hole in the live rock.

Now for my questions... Right now (stock settings) my skimmer is producing a skimmate that looks to be the color of green tea. Am I correct in assuming that as I raise the cup, less water will be collected and the skimmate will be more concentrated? The instructions that came with the unit were good on explaining how to do things, bad on explaining what to aim for.

As I am planning to add zoa's eventually, if I mount them to the live rock, and they expand to cover it, I loose some biological filtration capacity right? So I don't want to let the zoa's cover the main rocks right, or wrong?

No pictures as there are no real changes. The clown fish have taken to digging up areas of the substrate as they see fit, and while the control freak in me hates it, another part of me thinks it makes it look more natural.

 

[yungreefer2410]

i dont think that youll lose biological filtration. i do think you need more lr if you havent had anything. most people like caves and arches