New Nano-Reef

Its been awhile since I posted, but I feel its time I do so. Last weekend, I began putting together a nano-reef, and I felt I should write about it.

Before you decide to undertake such a project, let me first say, I spent a couple of weeks reading about doing this. A reef tank is a fair amount more complicated to set up than a freshwater tank, but its not overwhelming. Anyone CAN set one up, but I would recommend reading up on the topic before you start. Reef tanks are very expensive compared to a freshwater tank. So far, my meager aquarium I have about $150 invested, and I'm far from finished, and this is only a little 10 gallon tank! As you can see, I dont have enough rock yet. What you see here is 3 pounds of live rock and 15 pounds of live sand. They recommend a minimum of 10 pounds (one pound per gallon) for this tank, and more is ok.

This aquarium as I write this is only 4 days old. The first day, I poured the sand in, then I mixed the sea salt with tap water which I used Tetra Aquasafe to remove the chlorine. Purists would have used reverse osmosis water for the water. Then I mixed the water in a 2 gallon bucket, using a hydrometer to weigh the water and got it close, but on the "light" side, in case I mess up. When the tank was filled, the salinity was a little light, so I added some salt to the filter to let it dissolve and feed into the tank. I checked it about an hour later, now it was too salty. I removed some water and replaced with fresh unsalted water, a cup at a time until I got it right. I was able to get the water at 1.021 specific gravity.

After pouring the water, it mixed with the sand, and when it was completely filled, it looked like I had poured milk in the tank it was so cloudy. I let the water sit overnight, but the next morning it was still VERY cloudy. It had cleared up substantially, but I still couldnt see thru the tank. I put my Marineland Penguin 150 biowheel filter in to clean the tank up, which did a real nice job. I measured the weight of the water again with the water cleared, and the reading did not change. I then went to the fish store and bought the 2 live rocks, a Strawberry Basslet (Pseudochromis porphyreus), and a Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni).

The livestock has been in the tank now for about 30 hours as I write this. The fish seems happy, and the shrimp was out this morning. Mr. Leggs (The name I came up for him) likes to hide during the day. I dont know where he goes when the light comes on, but I assume its under one of the rocks. He stayed out for about 10 minutes after I turned the light on this morning and was able to capture this shot of him in the front right corner of the aquarium.




The rundown on all of the equipment used at this point in time in this setup is as follows:

• Unknown name aquarium (Purchased at a flea market).
• Penguin 150 Biowheel filter. This is recommended for a 20 -30 gal tank, I believe.
• Tetra submersible heater, 20 gal size (this heater keeps the tank at 76 degrees, even when the room temp drops to below 60 degrees during the day when no one is home).
• Tetra incandescent hood with bulbs replaced with CFL's

The sand, live rock and fish round out the setup. As you can see, most of the hardware you probably already have if you have a 10 gal setup. I used the oversize filter for this tank because I dont have a powerhead, and this filter seems to provide a good amount of circulation. The heater is oversize as well, as the room temperature varies wildly. The tank temp is a very stable 76 degrees no matter what the room temp is.

I am at a standstill right now, as I'm waiting for the tank to go through its nitrogen cycle. I want to get a clown and perhaps a tang, but I'm going to hold off until the cycle is complete. I am measuring salinity and ammonia daily, so far the salinity is stable, and the ammonia is at about 1 ppm, and rising slowly.

So there you have it, an easy to assemble nano-reef. If you wish to try this, I suggest you do as much reading on the subject that you can, and go SLOWLY, check EVERYTHING and do your best to get everything RIGHT before you introduce fish.