17g (70L) "Filterless" nano cube build.

[i cant think]

Thats cool! Im planning to add a lucky bamboo to the bunch since people believe it brings good luck! If the plants do start to deteriorate due to lack of sunlight I'd opt for a less demanding plant and relocate these outdoors then. I've heard some plants can tolerate really low light. Like REALLY low hahah

A common one that is amazing for low light is a spider plant, I would’ve used mine to hide the tank a bit more however it’s a bright enough area for a Monstera to work and they have slightly bulkier leaves.

 

[Uzair Aiman]

13/9/22; Update!

Code name: OPERATION SHRIMPY!
Here is the boost of ammonia that I’m gonna need to cycle it! Will be placing it near the wave maker for maybe 3-5 days before I remove it. Then I’ll test the waters to see if ammonia is present or not.

 

[Uzair Aiman]

One thing to remember is that BRS is a business, and as a business they want/need to sell you things (like bottled bacteria). Bottled bac is fine for a specific application, but in no way can supply or substitute for the hundreds of different genera and thousands of different species of microbes that inhabit a reef.

From what I see lately, this 'fear of pests' is getting overblown to the point where people are scared of adding anything that isn't produced by a company somewhere and has a short list of ingredients . That's not what a reef community is about...

A true reef aquarium is one that has a diverse assemblage of all kinds of animals. Yes, some animals can become pests and are undesirable from a reef keepers perspective and should be excluded if possible, and removed if already added, but most are harmless or even beneficial.

'Bottled bacteria' are a teeny tiny subset of the microbes that live in the reef environment (the vast majority of reef associated microbes can't even be produce in a lab). The ones you are adding with a bottle do a specific job (such as nitrogen cycling), but that's just a small part of the complex system that is a reef aquarium (or the much more complex natural reef).

Obtaining 'live' rock and sand from clean and known healthy sources has been done for decades. Those frag plugs you will be adding have just as much potential to add 'pests' (often more so because what we call pests are often specifically associated with their food source, coral in this case) than a few pieces of live rock or live sand.

So don't fear the biology, embrace it! :)

Hi there. Ive got a question in regards to adding a live mature rock into my new system. Since it’s technically seeding the stagnant and new system with no food source whatsoever, what should I do to ensure the microbiomes thrive instead of dying? Do they use ammonia? Should I ghost feed if I were to add the rock? Should I wait for algae to start growing?

 

[Ghost25]

13/9/22; Update!

Code name: OPERATION SHRIMPY!
Here is the boost of ammonia that I’m gonna need to cycle it! Will be placing it near the wave maker for maybe 3-5 days before I remove it. Then I’ll test the waters to see if ammonia is present or not.

That's too much shrimp in my opinion. I know you said you're going to remove it in a few days, but I'd recommend just adding a smaller piece. A chunk as big as a pinky fingernail should be fine.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Hi there. Ive got a question in regards to adding a live mature rock into my new system. Since it’s technically seeding the stagnant and new system with no food source whatsoever, what should I do to ensure the microbiomes thrive instead of dying? Do they use ammonia? Should I ghost feed if I were to add the rock? Should I wait for algae to start growing?

Not to worry, bacteria are very resilient. If there's nothing suitable for them to consume, they'll typically just go slow down and go dormant until conditions improve.

There are multiple genera and species of bacteria that can and do consume ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

 

[Uzair Aiman]

That's too much shrimp in my opinion. I know you said you're going to remove it in a few days, but I'd recommend just adding a smaller piece. A chunk as big as a pinky fingernail should be fine.

Alright I'll cut it down when I get home. Is it bad as in I'm going to get too much of an ammonia spike? - resulting in a longer nitrifying process?

 

[Uzair Aiman]

Not to worry, bacteria are very resilient. If there's nothing suitable for them to consume, they'll typically just go slow down and go dormant until conditions improve.

There are multiple genera and species of bacteria that can and do consume ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

Gotcha! Thanks alot

 

[Ghost25]

Alright I'll cut it down when I get home. Is it bad as in I'm going to get too much of an ammonia spike? - resulting in a longer nitrifying process?

Yes, too much protein (nitrogen) and phosphates. Your bacterial ecosystem is just getting established, it just can't handle that kind of load yet. Feed a small piece, give it a few days, and check again. You can always add more.

 

[Ranjib]

following along. I run couple of picos without any hob filter, but i still use some filter floss in back chamber (no carbon or any other chemical media). I think its particularly hard to run it without any filter in the first year. If you are planning to keep fish, things will get even harder. Lets see how things unfold. Love the tank size and choice of light. Keep the intensity low to avoid unneeded algae.

 

[TopClamSkoo]

11/9/2022 ; Hi everyone. Starting off a new adventure with a new technique. Im building a cubic 16 inch tank starting from dry rock and sand. I will try my best to not use any MECHANICAL filtration (ie filter sponges etc) as much as possible (inspired by Dannys Aquarium from YouTube). The most I might do will be adding a carbon bag and/or a skimmer temporarily if things get out of hand.

I will be using:
-Microbacter7 for the cycling process
-Dry Rock
-Dry Sand
-Jebao/Jecod SW4 wavemaker
-RO/DI water
-Instant Ocean Salt (which will be at 1.025 salinity)
-Aqua Spectra Lights
-Bubble Magus QQ protein skimmer if needed

Stocking plans:
-Pair of clowns (designer or normals)
-Inverts (snails, crabs and maybe a sand star/urchin
-at most if I cannot control myself, I would really want to add a goby pistol shrimp pair

The cube tank will be filled with mixed corals SPS and LPS. Wish me luck in this journey!
I am also updating my progress in short YouTube videos soon.

Update pictures below!

The tank will be mounted on an Ikea Kallax by the window (I know it might be unwise to put a tank by a window but we'll see how it progresses near natural sunlight)

I did the rockscape with small dry rocks and superglued+epoxy-ied it together.

Another angle of the rockscape

In goes the sand!

Filled with water now.

Lights on! (for aesthetic purposes only. Will turn it off for the cycling process).

Now just need to wait for the water to clear up.

Then I'll does Microbacter7 and maybe throw in a dead shrimp to kickstart the cycling process!

Im thinking of naming this build something, any ideas would be nice!!

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you'll follow me through this journey.

Following! Been successful with something similar in the past.
A dedicated zoa 10 gallon nano!
Do it up!!!!

 

[Uzair Aiman]

following along. I run couple of picos without any hob filter, but i still use some filter floss in back chamber (no carbon or any other chemical media). I think its particularly hard to run it without any filter in the first year. If you are planning to keep fish, things will get even harder. Lets see how things unfold. Love the tank size and choice of light. Keep the intensity low to avoid unneeded algae.

Are you saying that I should put in corals first instead of fish? Aren't corals more sensitive to change in a new system?
And yes I do turn off the lights, I just turn it on when I take photos of the tank so its more clear.
Whats your biggest obstacle in running those picos? Do you keep fish in those picos?

 

[Uzair Aiman]

Following! Been successful with something similar in the past.
A dedicated zoa 10 gallon nano!
Do it up!!!!

Nice! What was your procedure in successfully making this tank? Did you have any fish? Did you add fish first or the zoas first?

 

[TopClamSkoo]

Nice! What was your procedure in successfully making this tank? Did you have any fish? Did you add fish first or the zoas first?

I had no fish for about almost a year. I then added a dottyback and that was it .

I ran no mechanical filtration. Just a bag of carbon and did a 1-2 gallon water change every week. Coraline exploded and zoa's did very very well! No crabs just a serpent star and snails. No dosing since I was religious about water changes and top offs. Plus I don't think I needed to dose mainly cuz of water changes but I had only zoas which don't consume much elements and such..

My lighting was power compacts. For flow I had 2 nano rio powerheads. My tank was a 10 gallon jbj cube with 7 pounds of Fiji live rock. This was back In 2006. Had it running for almost 3 years until I transferred everything over to a 40 mixed sps and lps cube. My prior tank before nano and 40 gallon was a 80 Gallon with sump setup which included: lps, corceas, and lotta sps. Had this tank in early to mid 2000s in college. Tank was up for 2 years until I tore it down when I moved back home after graduation. Had metal halides.. man that was a while ago..

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

This tank gets two hours of direct sun (avg) every morning and indirect sun for the rest of the day. The tank is less than a foot from the window. As well as running a Prime HD on Bixby (slightly reduced) I get the same amount of algae on the sunlit glass as the far side glass, so sunlight is not a problem.

 

[Uzair Aiman]

I had no fish for about almost a year. I then added a dottyback and that was it .

I ran no mechanical filtration. Just a bag of carbon and did a 1-2 gallon water change every week. Coraline exploded and zoa's did very very well! No crabs just a serpent star and snails. No dosing since I was religious about water changes and top offs. Plus I don't think I needed to dose mainly cuz of water changes but I had only zoas which don't consume much elements and such..

My lighting was power compacts. For flow I had 2 nano rio powerheads. My tank was a 10 gallon jbj cube with 7 pounds of Fiji live rock. This was back In 2006. Had it running for almost 3 years until I transferred everything over to a 40 mixed sps and lps cube. My prior tank before nano and 40 gallon was a 80 Gallon with sump setup which included: lps, corceas, and lotta sps. Had this tank in early to mid 2000s in college. Tank was up for 2 years until I tore it down when I moved back home after graduation. Had metal halides.. man that was a while ago..

Ah I see! Did the coralline come with the zoas? I wonder how you got corralline so fast though! Must've been a very good ecosystem that you achieved. Do you think adding fish after the cycle would be detrimental? Or make it harder for me? Resilient corals might be a good start too, though

 

[Uzair Aiman]

This tank gets two hours of direct sun (avg) every morning and indirect sun for the rest of the day. The tank is less than a foot from the window. As well as running a Prime HD on Bixby (slightly reduced) I get the same amount of algae on the sunlit glass as the far side glass, so sunlight is not a problem.

Do you scrape the glass daily? Or do you have any mechanical/chemical filtration thats helping with the algae? Because I can see you have an overflow box on the top left of you system.
Btw, whats that beside your toadstool coral? It looks like something I've never seen

 

[Uzair Aiman]

16/9/22 ; Already cut down my shrimp to a pinky size yesterday, will be removing it in a few days from now. I just keep on dosing MB7 everyday now. Im planning to go to my LFS to see if they have any small live rock/rubble that I can take home for me to seed my tank with microbiomes

 

[TopClamSkoo]

Ah I see! Did the coralline come with the zoas? I wonder how you got corralline so fast though! Must've been a very good ecosystem that you achieved. Do you think adding fish after the cycle would be detrimental? Or make it harder for me? Resilient corals might be a good start too, though

Coraline came from my live rock. It was Dr fosters and Smith Fiji live rock. I don't think they import them anymore.
The cycle was really fast. Almost no cycling from what I can remember.. in about 3-4 months .. everything was covered with Coraline. The Fiji rocks I bought came from my friend's mature tank who owned an lfs called rare fish back in the day located next to cal poly Pomona. Anyone remember that store??!!?? He carried the most exotic freshwater fish! His reef selection wasn't bad either!
Best alternative is Solomon island rocks or Gulf rock these days. But beware... Esp Gulf rock comes with a lot of awesome life but also pests...
I've never done dry rock setup... So no feedback on my end.

 

[TopClamSkoo]

Ah I see! Did the coralline come with the zoas? I wonder how you got corralline so fast though! Must've been a very good ecosystem that you achieved. Do you think adding fish after the cycle would be detrimental? Or make it harder for me? Resilient corals might be a good start too, though

Hmm.. gotta test water right after cycle.. anything u put in esp if it's a lot can cause mini cycle. It's best to go lil by lil.. like I put in 3 snails after cycle.. waited 2 weeks.. then out in serpent... Waited 2 more weeks.. put in more snails... 2 -3 weeks later I put in a small colony of zoas ( no such thing as frags back then.. only colonies we're available.. only frags available we're sps) You get what I mean. Just go slow right after cycle. That's what I did. I then got my first and only fish in there after almost a year of being setup.

Most important thing for me was water changes and changing out the carbon every single dang week. It was like me never skipping church every Sunday.. was very religious about that task. Lol!

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Do you scrape the glass daily? Or do you have any mechanical/chemical filtration thats helping with the algae? Because I can see you have an overflow box on the top left of you system.
Btw, whats that beside your toadstool coral? It looks like something I've never seen

Yes, this is a FijiCube 10 it is a AIO. Mechanical filtration is some floss and a nano skimmer. Yes I have one of those magnet glass cleaners in there that I use every couple of days. But I clean the glass no more than most of my tanks. Except for one nano 6g I never clean the glass on that anymore, maybe once a month. I guess my point is, you are not going to get any more or less algae in a properly balanced system because it gets hit by the sun. What you do have to watch out for is temperature fluctuations if the sun is too intense for too long of a period of time. Also with any tank but especially with a Nano, an ATO is your best friend, it will go a long way toward the stability of your system.
You have to tell me which Toadstool you are talking about. The big one has a mushroom next to it. The two on the frag rack the tiny one has the Toxic hammer net to it and the one in the middle has some clove polyps on the end, unless you mean my lawnmower Blenny who is sitting up there also.