GUnit's Nano

[gunit]

This is my first saltwater foray and has successfully gotten me addicted as I already am planning a 50g + 20g sump setup for my home office.

Started the tank on 2/8/2014 with a 12"x12"x12" Glass Cube

Basic Equipment List:

* Cobalt Neo-Therm 25W Heater (dual for backup)
* Hydor Koralia Nano Controllable w/ Wavemaker
* Hagen Fluval Sea Nano Marine LED
* Marineland Penguin Power Filter 100
* Reefkeeper Lite Controller

Current Parameters:

Temperature: 77F
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.2
Alk: 12 dKH (slightly overdosed so I'm letting this come down to my target of 10)
Calcium: 484 ppm
Mg: 1280ppm
PO4: .25pm (running Purigen to help drive this down to 0 and getting better at feeding)

Picture as of 4/2/2014:

 

[tr1gger]

Sweet start! Looking forward to this tank maturing

 

[gunit]

Not to flood this thread even more, but I'm planning on moving everything from my current 7 gallon tank to a 13.5 gallon AIO unit I'll be picking up from Mike at Micro-Reef's this Friday. This is mainly due to wanting something that fits slightly better in the space I have and to have it be a bit neater.

My question is how people would recommend I go about doing the transfer. My plan is to get new sand, but to reuse all the live rock as-is. How likely am I to get a mini-cycle if I'm using the same rock/water?

Also I know that I'll need to add more live rock. Right now I have an order for Dry Fiji rock from BRS and was thinking that I'd just rinse that and place it in the new tank and let it cure with all my livestock in the tank.

Does this sound like a sane plan or should I just be a bit more patient and just cycle the new tank separately and move everything over once it has been cycled?

 

[denzil]

Seems fine to me... if anything, just do a 5 gallon water change.

 

[Kmooresf]

Beautiful tank man. I'm not sure I would add the dry rock to the tank before curing it. Yes, the live rock and water you have will make for an easy transition, however, in such a small tank curing rock (even dry rock) could really mess things up IMO. If you had a larger tank........say 40 gallons and up, it would be a bit safer. Tanks that small have a hard time keeping up with the bio load. Even over feeding can really mess with the params. Especially without a good skimmer. Hope that makes sense.
I would recommend curing in a bucket (or the old tank) for 4-6 weeks, or at least until the rocks smell really clean and you don't have high nitrates in the water. Just drop in a heater and a power head (a strong one if you got it) to keep the water moving...........Do a water change every week or so (I would add any water you take out of the tank as well......won't be much, but will likely have some good bacteria to help the cleaning).
I would also recommend getting a GFO (granulated Ferric oxide) reactor. The dry rock I got was fantastic (pukani from BRS) however seemed to really cause high phosphates in the tank for the first year or so. It is a fairly low cost item, but could really help you out in the long run.
Congrats on the tank, and good luck on the 50!! Should be fun to watch these play out.

 

[gunit]

Thanks KMoore. Makes total sense. Do you recommend holding off moving from my 12" cube to my new nano tank until I have the new rock all cured? Or do you think it is fine to run with a little less than ideal live rock as long as I don't stock the tank any more?

I'm hoping to have my 50 gallon setup in a hand in 3 weeks so will probably be starting the cycle right around the time the dry rock has cured and will be moving some of my stock to that tank once it has cycled.

 

[tr1gger]

I would just wait till the 50 is cycled and ready and move everything over to that and skip the 13.5 gallon AIO.

If you are talking about starting the 50 in just 3 weeks I would just hold off. My .02

 

[neuro]

I can't stress kris' recommendation any further. I've done curing in a small tank that was lightly stocked, and it was a disaster.

Much better when you can cure it just the way kris suggested, which is what I've been doing with any rock i plan to put in my tank.

 

[gunit]

Thanks guys. Definitely going to cure all the rock before placing it in any of my tanks now. Now to figure out if I'm really going to wait out my 50g before trying to get stuff into my 13.5 AIO. Thinking I might just set it up with new cured rock from a LFS and new live sand, let it cycle and then move stuff over to it and turn down the 12" cube.

 

[gunit]

For those interested, here is the new setup.

Switched over to a 13.5 AIO from Micro-Reefs which is pretty sweet, but unfortunately doesn't fit my old spot on my shelf because of the media basket. I'm still deciding what I'll do with this guy after I get my 50g build up and running, but given that the tank is a 3 weeks out and I'm not ordering the stand until I get the tank this will likely be my setup for the next few months.

New additions:

* "Wyatt" (Yellow Watchman Goby) and "Pete" (Pistol Shrimp)
* Idaho Grape Monti (Thanks to whoever donated it to the New Hobbyist event!)
* Hammer Coral (Again thank you to anonymous donor)
* Red Monti Cap (Thanks Felicia!)

On the way (in the mail as of tomorrow)...my new Nano Box Reef Mini Tide! Sooo excited for this as I hope that it really helps amp up the growth on my corals.

 

[gunit]

Oh and for the record, I ended up getting a few pounds of cured live rock from Aqua Exotic and used that instead of just pure dry rock. When I dropped it in, I added some Tim's bacteria and left the lights off for a 48 hours. Its been about 2 weeks since then and every thing has settled in pretty nicely so far.

 

[FeliciaLynn]

Looking good!

 

[gunit]

Good news! I've convinced my girlfriend has finally agreed that we should have two tanks

My nano will be moving back to its old spot, but will be getting an upgrade in form factor. Yes I'm doing another tank swap for this "tank"... I feel a bit silly swapping tanks so much, but given that I'll be moving to a slightly bigger tank (Nuvo 16) and it'll fit the space better I'm all for it.

Also over the weekend I stopped by Aquatic Collection and picked up a pair of juvenile clownfish. They'll either go in the Nano or my bigger tank once that is cycled. Pretty excited about them as I love their coloring. For now I have them in quarantine:

Hopefully they pair up and I'll have a mating pair sometime in the future if I ever want to try my hand at breeding clownfish.

 

[gunit]

Parting shots before I transfer everything over to my new Nuvo 16 setup and accept my big frag shipment from AquaSD!

FTS

Candy Apple Red and Gold Maul Zoas

Neon Green Palua Nepthea

 

[Spoon]

I can't wait to see all of this plus more in a Nuvo 16! Nice tank choice!

 

[gunit]

Ha indeed. Your's is coming along nicely from what I've seen. Actually made me willing to put a Kessil above my nano.

 

[gunit]

Well it's official...I have a problem I ended up deciding to participate in AquaSD's live sale on Reef2Reef while on vacation a couple weeks ago and knew I got a bit carried away. However, it wasn't until I accepted the shipment today that I realized how ridiculous I am.

Here is a shot of the shipment straight outta the box.

And here is everything post dips and plug swap in my "quarantine" tank.

At this point I think I'll almost have to start calling it my frag tank Needless to say any extra space I'm getting due to my shift to the Nuvo 16 this weekend will quickly be taken up.

 

[Spoon]

Wow! That's a good problem to have!

 

[gunit]

I completed my transfer to the Nuvo 16. Everything went fairly smoothly and everyone is starting to settle in. Somehow my Randall's Pistol Shrimp almost didn't make it since he found a way to get into my return pump section (guessing maybe when I was lifting out a piece of live rock?) and it wasn't until almost everything was transferred over that I was able to find him.

Here is my new tank all aquascaped and most of the corals back in the tank from the transfer. I'm still trying to figure out a way to raise my Kessil up a bit more so I don't get such bad shadowing since a A360W should be able to easily cover the 24" IMO.

I'll also be putting up my 13.5g Micro-Reefs AIO Tank for sale shortly if there is any early interest.

 

[Spoon]

Looks really nice man! I love the Zoa gardens on each end.

You have the gooseneck for the A360W, correct? With 90 degree fitting? As far as the shadowing goes, that can be partially remedied by raising the height of the light of course, as you already know. If you can't get it high enough, I might suggest you investing in the Le Russo Designs mount. You can get tubes that will raise your light up to 24", or even higher if you tell them you want something custom.

At that point, you may want to look into an A360N if you're going to mount the light that high.