Hi All,
I'm excited to share my nano reef build with everyone. I have been doing freshwater aquariums for quite a while now so I have a good bit of previous experience with aquariums, but I have been dying to have a marine aquarium.
My goal for this aquarium was to see if I could create a decent reef environment on a small scale using the basics just to keep things simple as possible and still have something nice to look at. I have always wanted a mandarin dragonet and I'm not sure yet if one will go in here. If this tank is successful I plan to set up a 40g breeder soon.
Aquarium:
The aquarium is just a regular 10 gallon aquarium with aragonite substrate 2-6'' deep. A piece of caribsea life rock, and some lava rock make up the hardscape. I use a plastic top made from a green house panel that's cut to fit tight to prevent evaporation.
Filtration:
I am using what I am calling an internal nano refugium as additional filtration which is a box filter with sea lettuce and lava rock with aragonite and clay substrate. Also 1 hydor koralia circulation fan rated for about 500 gph I believe.
Light:
Light is the 18'' nicrew marine led from amazon.
Salt mix is instant ocean using dechlorinated tap water.
Process:
I started this aquarium on 11/2/2020. I seeded with ecopods from algae barn a few days after setup along with 3 peppermint shrimp. I dosed with seachem stability for about a week to start it off. Since starting I've done a small water change to lower my salinity as I over shot it a bit at the start at 1.030 although I'm still sitting at 1.028 everything seems to be fine. I top off with declorinated tap water or salt water as needed so far which has been one time each for this first month. I'm not planning on doing large nor many water changes, that's the goal. I added the corals in 3 separate batches about a week apart and they have done fine. The first batch took a beating though, I didn't do the best acclimation so not sure if that was the issue or if it was just due to new tank syndrome, but they have all recovered and doing extremely well IMO.
Feeding:
I've been feeding the tank with oceanmagik phytoplankton, vinegar eels w/ the vinegar, and live baby brine shrimp.
Thoughts:
I'm extremely happy with this aquarium so far, parameters seem to stay pretty stable, and I haven't dosed anything yet. This week the water has cleared up and I'm absolutely in love with it. I was expecting hair algae to start coming in now but instead I have this thick leaf like algae growing out of my rocks and some of the substrate. This is unexpected and I'm not really sure what to do about it, though i'll probably just let it go and see how it works out. I would really appreciate it if anyone has any idea on what type of algae this is.
I'm interested to know what opinions would be on adding a mandarin dragonet to this tank. I have a lot of copepods so far and will supplement with baby brine and frozen foods.
I'm excited to share my nano reef build with everyone. I have been doing freshwater aquariums for quite a while now so I have a good bit of previous experience with aquariums, but I have been dying to have a marine aquarium.
My goal for this aquarium was to see if I could create a decent reef environment on a small scale using the basics just to keep things simple as possible and still have something nice to look at. I have always wanted a mandarin dragonet and I'm not sure yet if one will go in here. If this tank is successful I plan to set up a 40g breeder soon.
Aquarium:
The aquarium is just a regular 10 gallon aquarium with aragonite substrate 2-6'' deep. A piece of caribsea life rock, and some lava rock make up the hardscape. I use a plastic top made from a green house panel that's cut to fit tight to prevent evaporation.
Filtration:
I am using what I am calling an internal nano refugium as additional filtration which is a box filter with sea lettuce and lava rock with aragonite and clay substrate. Also 1 hydor koralia circulation fan rated for about 500 gph I believe.
Light:
Light is the 18'' nicrew marine led from amazon.
Salt mix is instant ocean using dechlorinated tap water.
Process:
I started this aquarium on 11/2/2020. I seeded with ecopods from algae barn a few days after setup along with 3 peppermint shrimp. I dosed with seachem stability for about a week to start it off. Since starting I've done a small water change to lower my salinity as I over shot it a bit at the start at 1.030 although I'm still sitting at 1.028 everything seems to be fine. I top off with declorinated tap water or salt water as needed so far which has been one time each for this first month. I'm not planning on doing large nor many water changes, that's the goal. I added the corals in 3 separate batches about a week apart and they have done fine. The first batch took a beating though, I didn't do the best acclimation so not sure if that was the issue or if it was just due to new tank syndrome, but they have all recovered and doing extremely well IMO.
Feeding:
I've been feeding the tank with oceanmagik phytoplankton, vinegar eels w/ the vinegar, and live baby brine shrimp.
Thoughts:
I'm extremely happy with this aquarium so far, parameters seem to stay pretty stable, and I haven't dosed anything yet. This week the water has cleared up and I'm absolutely in love with it. I was expecting hair algae to start coming in now but instead I have this thick leaf like algae growing out of my rocks and some of the substrate. This is unexpected and I'm not really sure what to do about it, though i'll probably just let it go and see how it works out. I would really appreciate it if anyone has any idea on what type of algae this is.
I'm interested to know what opinions would be on adding a mandarin dragonet to this tank. I have a lot of copepods so far and will supplement with baby brine and frozen foods.