Talh's Office Reef

[talh]

Intro
Hi Everyone. It has been awhile since I posted here, so hello again! I am starting a little project to downsize my current tank, which you can see here: link. I want to downsize to an all-in-one that will sit on my desk here:

Backstory (Skip if you do not care)
The reason for downsizing is I want more room in my office for a small corner bookcase and reading chair. Admittedly, I almost decided to get out of the hobby, but I love my clown fish pair that I had since the beginning (almost 8 years ago!). I do not want to re-home them because I do not know anyone I trust enough to keep them healthy & happy and no way am I sending them to LFS. I also do enjoy having a reef tank; it certainly makes for an easy conversation starter on WebEx & Teams calls.

My plan is to have a mixed coral reef with the only fish being the three I have today (1 blue chromis, 2 designer clownfish). I may pick up another shrimp of some kind and will also be transferring all the snails and hermit crabs from my current tank.

Current Hardware List
Waterbox Cube 25 Peninsula - the dimensions of this thing PERFECTLY match up with the length of my side desk and width of the file cabinet underneath, so it will be tough to go with another all in one option, but open to suggestions.
AI Hydra 26 HD+ - Coming from current tank. I expect this will provide enough light for whatever coral I want, but let me know if it does limit me. I do want to get into some acropora.
Fluval E300? - Coming from current tank. I don't think this heater will fit, but we will see. If not, I have a few other heaters laying around or it will be a quick amazon purchase.
MP10QD? - Coming from current tank. We will see how much it hurts aesthetically.
Nero 3 - This is what I will probably end of getting for flow since I can put it on back of tank, unlike the MP10.
Protein Skimmer - I do not run a protein skimmer anymore because I could never get the Eshopps hang on back that I have dialed in. Since the waterbox will have an area for a submersible protein skimmer, I would like to give it another go. However, I have no idea what the best nano skimmers are. Looking for suggestions here!

Livestock List
Coming from current tank:
Clownfish Pair
Blue Chromis
Hermit Crabs
Various Snails
Red Bubble Tip Anemone - I bought one and it has split so many times. I have 5-6 of them in my current tank (can't tell if one is split or not). I plan to move just one over and sell the others.
Utter Chaos Zoa colony - Very small colony. I never put it on a rock in my main tank, it just grew on the frag rack.
Devil's Hand Coral - Never knew what this coral was called until today. I used to think it was toadstool, then someone told me it was finger leather coral, but I have several large pieces. It grows like a weed, so undecided if I will move a piece of it over or just sell it all.

Filtration
Still researching what I want to do; open to suggestions here. Just use what comes with Waterbox? Add protein skimmer? Switch out filter sock for floss?
Live/Dry Rock - I have a bunch of live rock in brute trash cans in the basement. Also bunch of dry rock in basement. I am going to hobble an aquascape together over the next week.
Live Sand - Looking for recommendations here.

Any of you nano tank owners have tips for me?

 

[ShaunMc]

Hard to beat this for sand for nano imo

CaribSea Ocean Direct Caribbean Live Sand

Im only 7 weeks in on nano. I’m using a Bubble Magnus MiniQ skimmer. Seems decent for a nano skimmer.



lots of people recommend this:
Tunze Skimmer

 

[KrisReef]

Huge mistake to downsize but I'm not gonna win that arguement.
Tunze makes a nice small skimmer, I for get what they call it but I know it has a great reputation.
Can't wait to see the pictures. Thanks for supporting your clowns!

 

[talh]

Huge mistake to downsize but I'm not gonna win that arguement.
Tunze makes a nice small skimmer, I for get what they call it but I know it has a great reputation.
Can't wait to see the pictures. Thanks for supporting your clowns!

I reread my build thread from few years ago and I said when I bought a house I was going BIG. Well, I ended up buying a duplex (live in one side, rent other). Only about 1k sq ft each side. Not practical yet to do my big tank dream build, but maybe in my next home... I know all the other reasons to not downsize and you are right. You win the argument, but for now I think this is the right call for me.

 

[talh]

Delivery today...

 

[NemanVtc]

Delivery today...

Approved by the cat ?

 

[talh]

More stuff today. Another shot of tank and the other things.

Slim cardboard box is a stainless steel scraper. My current scraper is no good. The brown square is a piece of acrylic I am using for a little something something on the aquascape.

More to come.

The other cat also approves.

Calico from last post is Agatha "Aggie" and she's a perfectly behaved angel.
Gray kitten is Alfred "Alfie" and is devil incarnate. We will see how he behaves with the tank being on my desk.... little worried.

 

[talh]

Well, it has been some time since I posted on this.

I took my sweet time doing the aquascape. Due to a lot of procrastination and a little bit of life/work, I did not end up getting the tank wet until February of this year, haha. I did a "floating" aquascape. I used the same method used by "The Nano Reef Tank of Dave from Switzerland"

Steps to create the base for the aquascape:
1. Mark out holes on acrylic to allow water & fish to flow through scape.
2. Cut holes, mark a bend line.
3. Put on some oven mitts and held the acrylic over stovetop; I tried to keep the bend line over the flame and moved it back and forth slowly to try to heat the entire bend line evenly. (I watched this video and used the same method as her)
4. Bent acrylic using a few planks of wood to keep the bend straight.
5. Used a knife and sandpaper to rough up back of acrylic to help silicon bind to it better.
6. I then centered it to the back of the tank and used a liberal amount of silicon on it (I don't recall which specific silicon I used -- I did check to make sure it was safe for aquariums).

 

[talh]

I then did a mixture of building with dry rock outside of the tank and directly in the tank. I also broke apart the aquascape multiple times because I wasn't impressed. Doing aquascape is my least favorite part of the hobby and what I think is my weakest skill. I ended up with this structure. I still think it may be too many rocks, but I do like the aesthetic.

I then used crushed up rock/sand and super glue to try to cover up the epoxy. I could not ever get that to stick enough but it will be hidden eventually, so do not care too much.

 

[talh]

I filled tank with live sand that was way past its shelf life (I think I bought the sand about 15 months before using. Got it wet and then also used Brightwell aquatics bacteria starter kit to get the cycle going. It definitely did take much longer than it said on the kit, but this is because I used live sand I am sure. It says right on the package they advise not to do that. I followed their instructions otherwise and watched it do its thing with periodic testing. Beyond it taking longer than advertised, it still eventually cycled.

After the cycle, I transferred my clownfish pair and blue chromis into their new home. I will upload a video walkaround of the tank tomorrow morning.

My old tank is still up and has some corals in it. Debating whether I will transfer any of that into new tank or just start completely over with the corals. Might take what I have into LFS.

 

[talh]

Oh -- I also am culturing phytoplankton and copepods. I have done this once before, but let what I had crash. I restarted both and just harvested first batch tonight. Got three 16oz bottles full of phytoplankton and, impossible to count, but a healthy amount of copepods added to tank.

 

[Coralogy_]

Following along, this looks like an awesome tank! I currently am culturing phyto and pods in the same exact ikea containers They work well!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I then did a mixture of building with dry rock outside of the tank and directly in the tank. I also broke apart the aquascape multiple times because I wasn't impressed. Doing aquascape is my least favorite part of the hobby and what I think is my weakest skill. I ended up with this structure. I still think it may be too many rocks, but I do like the aesthetic.

I then used crushed up rock/sand and super glue to try to cover up the epoxy. I could not ever get that to stick enough but it will be hidden eventually, so do not care too much.

I love the idea of doing floating aquascapes!

 

[talh]

Update on this. I finally took down my old tank and did some work on the new one.

1. Added mp10 power head from old tank at the bottom and set to lowest power setting continuous mode to keep things from settling on the sand.
2. Moved nero3 power head to higher point in tank, left of center and angled it so it hits rock work.
3. 50% water change and scrubbed rocks of a small cyano outbreak — going to be watching this closely.
5. Installed hydra26hd from old tank and lit it up! Using David Saxby’s settings.
6. Cable managed and mounted various controllers and power supplies to side of desk drawers or under desk.
7. Added 5 Nassarius snails and 1 conch.

Next steps:
1. Renting a PAR meter from LFS later this week to map out my entire tank.
2. Want to juice up the CUC more now that lights are on. Thinking 5 blue legged hermits, 5 lightning dove snails, 2 bumble bee snails (to control doves and they’re cool), 2 banded trochus snails, and a peppermint shrimp.
3. Add an anemone now before corals, let it pick its spot while I start to plan for coral additions. This is going to be a mixed reef don’t want to be restricted on what I add too much.

 

[talh]

Here's a walk around the tank just showing where everything is at.

 

[talh]

08-06-2024 Test Results
Ca 350ppm
Mg 2250ppm (this must be a bad test -- need to redo)
Ammonia < 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 14.4ppm
Alkalinity 6.2
Phosphate 0.58ppm

Will do a 10gal water change tomorrow.

 

[talh]

PAR Readings for the schedule I'm currently rocking. This is at peak. Lighting schedule is a modification of David Saxby's. Peak period is from 2:00 - 6:00p, with the lights decreasing and re-increasing by about 20% every 20 minutes. Total light schedule goes from 9:30a to 12:00a.

 

[talh]

I did my water change on Thursday like I said I would.

Test results from tonight:

• Salinity: 1.026
• Calcium: 450ppm
• Magnesium: 1530ppm
• Ammonia: 0ppm
• Nitrate: 25.8ppm
• Phosphate: 0.1ppm
• Alkalinity: 7.0dKH

Nitrates have gone up considerably since just Wednesday. I suppose I'll need another water change, but also a change in my feeding. Seems like I am overfeeding. Any successful mixed nano reef keepers viewing this? If so, where do you like to see your nitrates? I have seen some people starting to keep tanks with higher nitrate levels now.

 

[talh]

Lights come on, nitrates go up, ugly phase is here. Need to figure out a nitrate export. Right now just have live rock for filtration. Anyone have a cool refugium setup for a nano AIO?

Added more clean up crew today too; we will see how much work they can do.

6x lightning dove snails
3x dwarf trochus snails
2x trochus snails
2x bumble bee snails
~20x blue leg hermits (I ordered 6 but they sent me around 20, lol)

 

[talh]

Oh and I also added 1x peppermint shrimp but I’m 99% sure he committed suicide into a powerhead already.

I acclimated it and added into tank. It was moving around exploring for an hour or so. I turned to go back to work and heard a “zzzzz” noise from the tank. Turned around and there wasn’t chunks of shrimp or anything in water but I haven’t seen the shrimp since.