Marika's hobby nano tank

minisea

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Marika's hobby nano tank

Disclaimer: first tank, no saltwater or even freshwater experience here, possibly a lot of newbie mistakes. Suggestions or advice are welcome.

My wife (Marika) wanted something interesting to look at in the mornings while booting up mentally and waiting for the coffee to brew. Two colleagues of hers keep small, simple, filterless tanks in the office at work (one mostly macroalgae and soft corals, the other with soft corals only), which we really like. Decided to make our own tank at home. I researched for a few weeks then we took the plunge and set up our tank. I kinda took over and did the setup, and I'm doing the research and maintenance, but we both enjoy the tank.
The starting point was that we set up a small tank on the counter between our kitchen and living room. It will be without any filtration, just live rock, a lamp, a heater, and a wavemaker. Originally we thought of just keeping whatever grows out of the live rock and not stocking anything else (spoiler: couldn't resist buying stuff...). While I was doing my research for 3-4 weeks, the best guide I could find was by Kirk A. Janowiak in the form of a Quora answer (https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-run-a-reef-aquarium-with-just-live-rock-and-powerheads). I really liked the info in this post, where the main message was to do everything real ssssllloooowwww.

At his point, the plan was to set up a tank with a thin sandbed and 1/3 or 1/4 of the final live rock quantity, let it run, and add a further 2-3 batches of live rock in the course of about 6 months (Spoiler: I was not that patient...) It was much later that I found the thread by @brandon429 about skip cycle setups: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...kip-cycle-instant-reefs-no-bottle-bac.794146/).

Anyway, we ordered a simple custom tank (45X45X35 cm, 17,7"X17.7"X13,7") from 6mm glass from a local guy. The volume is about 70l/18.5g.
The tank was set up on 28/11/2023 with just 3 liters of DUPLA Marin Reef Ground (2-3 mm course aragonite sand) well rinsed and 2g of saltwater. (I'm using the Blue Treasure SPS salt since the beginning). The next day, 4 kg of Indonesian live rock was received and put in the tank. This batch of live rock was recieved about 4 weeks after importing by the distributor. The shipping of live rock took 2 days in pretty cold weather, but it was fine. 4 pieces of rock were just laid on the bottom of the tank. Installed a 50W heater set at 25.5C/78F, a cheap SOBO WP-50M wavemaker, and a Popbloom 16 Shannon light. I let the tank run without lights for 2 weeks. I was testing ammonia and nitrate every 2-3 days. I screwed up some ammonia tests that showed higher than real ammonia levels, which resulted in a few emergency water changes; I think the cycling was pretty instant: the highest ammonia I measured was 0.5 mg/l, and on day 7, I measured 0. In the next month, ammonia was about 0, and nitrate was around 10 mg/l. I saw bristleworms, feather duster worms, and a small grey blob that later turned out to be a tiny gorilla crab. On 20/12/2023, another 6 kg of Indonesian live rock arrived (again, shipped in pretty cold weather). This batch was shipped soon after importing and seemed to have more crabs and worms, some of which did not survive shipping. These rocks, however, had less coraline. Change of plan: the tank seemed pretty full with all the 10 kg of rock, so I decided to skip further additions. In the coming days, ammonia went up to 2 mg/l but went down to 0 in a week. The next month and a half was spent checking the critters that emerged from the live rock: bristleworms, peanut worms, Colonista snails, some macroalgae, etc.
Since the beginning, I have experienced some brown hair algae (I'm not sure about the ID), film algae, diatoms, and some green hair algae. None of these were overwhelming. During this time, I kept doing 10-30% weekly water changes.
Two Trochus snails purchased from the LFS were added on 5/1/2024. They definitely had stuff to munch on.
To be continued ...
 
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minisea

minisea

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The aquascape went through some iterations. After the second batch of rocks arrived I build a rock pile.

Later on I thought we might have fish at some point in the future, so I rebuilt the pile with some caves and passage ways.

This was later tuned to make it a bit more compact to create some free space on the sand.

Original "aquascape": the rocks from the first batch in the tank (1/12/2023):
20231201_182850.jpg


Subsequent rock pile aquascape (quite like it in retrospect, 8/1/2024):
20240108_164723.jpg
20240108_164742.jpg

Next aquascape with caves and crannies (31/1/2024):
20240131_112344.jpg
20240131_112408.jpg
 

Ben's Pico Reefing

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Looks like your moving along. You can do as many and as large of water change you want. Temp within 2 degrees and using same salt mix. I and others have run tanks with just air pump and light on round tanks. Square or cubed youll want wave maker. I see you already have setup this way as well.
 
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minisea

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Looks like your moving along. You can do as many and as large of water change you want. Temp within 2 degrees and using same salt mix. I and others have run tanks with just air pump and light on round tanks. Square or cubed youll want wave maker. I see you already have setup this way as well.
Actually, with the 2nd batch of rocks, I also got a 2nd wavemaker (same model, SOBO WP-50M - this is a cheap wm, the flow is adjustable by moving a sleeve/frame). They are mounted on the opposite sides of the tank, facing each other. I probably have to play with the flow though, there are definitely some dead spots.
 

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Actually, with the 2nd batch of rocks, I also got a 2nd wavemaker (same model, SOBO WP-50M - this is a cheap wm, the flow is adjustable by moving a sleeve/frame). They are mounted on the opposite sides of the tank, facing each other. I probably have to play with the flow though, there are definitely some dead spots.
Sounds like a plan. Getring them set how you want and avoid dead spaces can be challenging but fun as well.
 
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On Feb. 3. 2024, I couldn't resist buying a package of small frags from my LFS. There was a green Sinularia branching leather, a Sacrophyton ehrenbergi leather with green fluorescent polyps, a purple Gorgonian, an orange Echinophyllia chalice, a purple Caulastrea, a green Rhodactis (Rhodactis indosinensis) and 2 heads of green Discosoma. So the original plan to just have whatever grows out of the live rocks clearly changed...
IMG_20240131_091855.jpg

Only at home, I noticed that the guy at the LFS threw in some bonus: a hermit crab (Calcinus laevimanus), a broken branch of the Green sinularia and two pieces of rocks with some "mystery stuff" on them. Plus, I found an Asterina star in one of the bags. I dipped everything (not the hermit!) in Aquaforest protect dip. Some flatworms fell off the Discosomas. I haven't seen them in the thanks since, so probably I managed to wash all of them off in the dip.
I've put the Gorgonian, the Sacrophyton, and the Sinularia higher up on the rocks, the Caulastera on the substrate, and the Rhodactis, the Discosoma, the Echinophyllia, and the two "mystery items" lower on the rocks. I was hesitating to put the hermit crab in the tank together with the two Trochus snails, but at this point, the LFS was closed for the weekend. So I put it in.
20240203_151209.jpg
 
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To control the algal growth on the substrate, I ordered 5 Cerithium snails over the internet (my LFS doesn't carry them). Unfortunately, the package got stuck at customs for 3 days, so I only got them after 5 days, on 12 February 2024. I was expecting DOA, but they all were alive and buried themselves when added to the tank. Unfortunately, in the coming weeks, two of them died. One of them left its shell, sat on a nearby rock for 2 days, and then disappeared... I guess another one went through the same thing; I found its shell on top of the substrate.
IMG_20240221_193038.jpg

Both the Sinularia and the Sacrophyton were fragged using wooden toothpicks. I managed to remove one from the Sinularia when I added it to the tank, but it was really stuck in the base of the Sacrophyton frag. After a few weeks, I noticed a tiny hole in the stalk of the Sacrophyton. It turned out that the tissue was rotting around the toothpick. I managed to pull the toothpick out with a plyer and cleaned the dead tissue off by blasting the stalk.
This is how it looked after the "treatment", the brown clumps of tissue remains were reovend by further blasting:
IMG_20240221_193100.jpg

It definitely released some toxins in the water, and some of the corals were not keen to open up in the following days. I did 25% water changes three times every two to three days, and that seemed to sort things out. The Sacrophyton has nicely recovered since then.
 
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One of the mystery frags I got in the frag pack looked like tiny brow-grey sticks with a fluorescent red/orange tip. It took a week for them to open up, and they turned out to be zoas (5 heads). Unfortunately, there were some tiny clove polyp-like organisms over the stone they were attached to. Even saw one clove on the side of the zoa... I tried to scrape the cloves off the stone, but they reappeared after a few days in increased numbers. So I decided to cut off most part of the stone around the zoas. It clearly didn't go well with the Dreme, and I was left with 2 heads on a small piece of rock. I glued it to a larger piece of rubble and put it in the tank. They looked OK after 2-3 days, but since then they are shrinking. I have no idea why. I have some tiny bugs crawling around on their stone, but I haven't seen those or anything else munching on the zoas... My nutrients bottomed in the tank lately, I don't know if it has something to do with it...
zoa1.JPG

The other mystery frag seems like some SPS. When I got it, it was just two small white bumps on a stone (or a piece of old skeleton). In a week or so, brown tissue covered the white bumps, and a week later, I could see tiny polyps appearing. The polyps grew and have fluorescent green tips. Can you help with the ID?
hofm1_.JPG

I'm guessing it is a Montipora hoffmeisteri. Unfortunately, this frag also had some tiny clove polyps, so I chopped the stone off. The frak snapped off, but I could glue the skeleton back to a piece of rubble. This frag recovered and started to grow. It is still small, though. I put it high on the aquascape.
 
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I have these bugs crawling around the tank, and I'm wondering if they bother the tiny zoa heads I have. They seem to have a shell that resembles a slightly open bivalve. The shell has a grey-white dot pattern. Their black hair-like legs/appendages come out through this slit, and the sell seems to stand on its edge as they walk around. I've seen them walking on the zoas but haven't seen them munching on them. Does anyone have some info on them?
IMG_20240418_220007.jpg

 
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In this post, I'm going to catch up with the present state of the tank. So, after putting the corals in at the beginning of February, nutrients started to slowly decrease. Phosphate went from 0.1 ppm to 0.03 ppm then 0 now. Nitrates went from 10 mg/l to 5mg/l and then 0 today. Alk went down from 10.5 to 8.6. This happened in the course of about 2 months, and I have the nutrients bottomed out in the last 4 weeks or so. When I first saw the nutrients zero out, I started to dose phyto in order to feed the corals, pods, and filter feeders. The pod population slowly but noticeably increased, and a bunch of filter feeders, sponges, and tunicates grew and reproduced. Some algae started to grow too, but not at a crazy speed. I manually weed some of it out once a week. There are plenty of them, but they are not out of control. Mostly, there is a thin branching type, that can grow to 2 inches, wawing in the flow. These are easier to pull out when larger, using a tweezer and grabbing them at the stem, close to the rock. There is a smaller, fan-shaped algae that can cover the rocks, which is easy to pull out. Then Bryopsis started to appear here and there but doesn't seem bad. I pull them out when I notice. One of the Trochus
snails seem to grow them on their shells, too...
I'm not freaking out about the algae at the moment. I let them compete with each other (I do see some of them melting away from time to time), and it's possible to pull them out if I want to. I want them to compete with Lobophora, which is slowly spreading from a considerable-sized patch on one rock. That beast is impossible to scrape off...
It may be that the nutrients are not completely zero due to the algae uptake.
 
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Okay, a milestone has been reached: fish in the tank! For weeks, I kept getting readings of zero nitrate and phosphate in the tank, so I decided to get some fish to solve this problem. Two weeks ago, I got two small Ocellaris clownfish and a BTA from my LFS. So far, all of them are doing good. The fish were fed frozen at the LFS, so I also started feeding them various frozen foods. I started introducing pellets (Hikari Marine S) to prepare for traveling when an auto feeder is needed. They are accepting it more and more. I still give them some frozen food every now and then. The BTA was nice and fluffy, with nice bubbles taken from the LFS. It did deflate after the lights out but came back in the mornings. Apparently, it did the same at the LFS. After about a week, the bubbles shrunk/disappeared. Then, the BTA started moving a bit. It wandered about 3-4 inches in 2-3 days. It is stationary for 3-4 days now. The bubbles did not return yet.
The thing is, the nitrate and phosphate still read 0 (my LFS did a test on my water, too, before putting the fish in; they read 0 for nitrate and 0.1 for phosphate, so my phosphate test (Salifert) may not be accurate...). I'm suspecting the algae in the tank to suck up all nitrate. There's not a lot, but a decent amount of algae. Most of it is the thin branching type that can grow several inches long, and the short fan-shaped branching type. I weed these about once or twice a week (removing about a quarter of them). Then there are some macroalgae, like a few small sprouts of dragon's breath, and some Caulerpa chemnitzia which is probably the fastest grower. There are some Bryopsis too, but not at an infestation level. So, I'm not sure what to do about the nitrate at the moment. Everything is doing decent, but there is not much growth. One zoa head seems to recover well after a dip and a relocation. The Caulastrea doesn't seem as fluffy as before and does not show its feeding tentacles in the evening. BTW, a week before the fish I got a small Blastomussa wellsi head and a small frag of Jasmine Clove polyps (4-5 heads) with a fluorescent green center and radial orange stripes.
IMG_20240520_191011.jpg
 

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Try and get 2-3 Mexican turbo snails. They are very good at eating a wide variety of algaes and films, and won’t cause any harm. Also a couple nassarius snails will help keep the sandbed clean and they will eat leftover food that lands on the bottom.

How’s the full tank looking at the moment? I feel tour scape kept getting better and better, more interesting and natural. I like it!
 

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Okay, a milestone has been reached: fish in the tank! For weeks, I kept getting readings of zero nitrate and phosphate in the tank, so I decided to get some fish to solve this problem. Two weeks ago, I got two small Ocellaris clownfish and a BTA from my LFS. So far, all of them are doing good. The fish were fed frozen at the LFS, so I also started feeding them various frozen foods. I started introducing pellets (Hikari Marine S) to prepare for traveling when an auto feeder is needed. They are accepting it more and more. I still give them some frozen food every now and then. The BTA was nice and fluffy, with nice bubbles taken from the LFS. It did deflate after the lights out but came back in the mornings. Apparently, it did the same at the LFS. After about a week, the bubbles shrunk/disappeared. Then, the BTA started moving a bit. It wandered about 3-4 inches in 2-3 days. It is stationary for 3-4 days now. The bubbles did not return yet.
The thing is, the nitrate and phosphate still read 0 (my LFS did a test on my water, too, before putting the fish in; they read 0 for nitrate and 0.1 for phosphate, so my phosphate test (Salifert) may not be accurate...). I'm suspecting the algae in the tank to suck up all nitrate. There's not a lot, but a decent amount of algae. Most of it is the thin branching type that can grow several inches long, and the short fan-shaped branching type. I weed these about once or twice a week (removing about a quarter of them). Then there are some macroalgae, like a few small sprouts of dragon's breath, and some Caulerpa chemnitzia which is probably the fastest grower. There are some Bryopsis too, but not at an infestation level. So, I'm not sure what to do about the nitrate at the moment. Everything is doing decent, but there is not much growth. One zoa head seems to recover well after a dip and a relocation. The Caulastrea doesn't seem as fluffy as before and does not show its feeding tentacles in the evening. BTW, a week before the fish I got a small Blastomussa wellsi head and a small frag of Jasmine Clove polyps (4-5 heads) with a fluorescent green center and radial orange stripes.
IMG_20240520_191011.jpg
Your anemone is doing great!
 

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Nice tank!!!! Love that picture of the nems and the clowns! trying to do that in my 10, hope it works, if not, ill just sell the nem :D
 

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