Hi all, I set up my Red Sea Max Nano about a year ago (in 2022) and thought I would finally start a build thread to keep track of its progress and to create another outlet for this hobby so I don't bore the wife anymore.
I was brand new to the hobby, my dad had Tropical Freshwater tanks whilst I was growing up but other then that this is my first tank, so please go easy on me I am still learning.
Recent Photo(s)
Current Equipment
Red Sea Reef LED 50
NooPsyche k7 v3
Red Sea Reef Dose 4
Red Sea ATO+
Aquel 150W heater + Inkbird
Skimmer supplied with the Red Sea Max Nano
Jecod SOW-4
Jecod MCP-90
Jecod SOW-8
Currently Dosing
AquaForest Component 123+
Phyto (every other day)
Red Sea AB+ (once per week)
Red Sea NOOX
Weekly water changes (10%) using AquaForest Reef Salt
Current Stocking
2x Clownfish (1x Percula and 1x Occelaris I believe)
Springer Damsel
Yellow Watchman Goby
Tiger Pistol Shrimp
Mandarin (tank bred and happily eating TDO chromaboost pellets)
It all started September 2022 with the tank arriving and the rock scape being built. It went through a few iterations:
But I settled on this design, trying to find inspiration BRV TVs NSA videos.
Excitedly, I then added a bottle of bacteria and a pair of juvenile Occelaris clowns from my LFS.
Around the same time, I added another section at the front to create space ready for a "micromusa island".
I had also added the frogspawn and hammer coral (RIP, I accidentally dropped my Syphon on it which ripped a lot of the flesh from the skeleton) which can be seen on the right.
Unfortunately, the clownfish became riddled with Ich.
I quickly scrambled to set up a quarentine tank as neither of them were doing well. I bout a cheap 40 litre tank from Amazon, heater, ceramic media and two regular aquarium heaters. By the time the tank was setup the fish where in bad shape; I gave them a hydrogen peroxide bath and mixed up some copper solution using Copper solution following Randy Holmes-Farly's guide. I treat them for just over 30 days at the recommended amount and then quarentine them for about 50 to leave the tank fallow. Unfortunately, I lost one of the clownfish a few days in, however, the other one is going strong to this day.
That was my first reefing disaster and the lesson was learnt to always quarentine fish going forward.
After the fallow period I reset the QT tank and got a second clownfish. Except, this time I unknowingly bought Percula clown instead; this doesn't of seem to have caused an issue upto now and they're are happily paired and hosting the frogspawn. This time the clown was immediately put into QT and given a copper treatment following the same method.
Over time, I bought quarentined a yellow Watchman Goby and Springeri Damsel. I also got a Tiger Pistol Shrimp and added that to the tank. Unfortunately, I lost this first yellow Watchman Goby, it was eating fine but suddenly lost its colour and disappeared. I never found it and don't know what happened.
After that I ordered another yellow Watchman Goby and a Mandarin, both tank bred. These have settled into the tank great and have thrived over the last few months. The Mandarin also happily eats TDO chromaboost pellets. Although, I do add pods every three weeks.
Somewhere in this timeline I added some Micromussas and a Mint Shimmer Stylophora; this was before I was dosing. Here are some recent photos of them corals.
In March, we welcomed out beautiful daughter to the world. Unfortunately, it wasn't a smooth start and was quite traumatic. On the other side, they are both doing great now and I am slowly brainwashing her to be a reefer so we out number the wife and there is no limit to the number of size of tanks we can have.
This meant that I neglected the tank for the a couple of months, Nitrates over 40ppm, Phosphates over 0.4ppm and Alkalinity all the way down to 5.4dKH.
In the months that followed I got the tank back on track doing regular water changes, adding KH buffer and added the doser; which I started dosing small amounts of AquaForest Component 123+ and Red Sea NOOX.
My parameters have now been fairly stable, with Nitrates around 5ppm, Phospate around 0.07ppm and KH around 9.6dKH (I was aiming to run high KH but have decided to let it slowly drop to the salt mix level).
A few months ago I added my first acropora, a cheap browned out Bali Green Slimer from my LFS.
Whilst it doesn't look the best it and most people wouldn't of picked it up I really wanted to challenge the tank and see how it would do with its first Acropora before I took the plunge to get some more expensive frags. It seems to be fairly happy and has based out loads and started to colour up; I will post an update this weekend when I get chance to take some more photos.
My long term plan for the tank is to create an Acropora dominated tank and grow them to (mini) colonies over the next couple of years whilst I save for a 5ft tank. It is safe to say I have rapidly developed an addiction.
Thanks for reading this far. More to follow.
I was brand new to the hobby, my dad had Tropical Freshwater tanks whilst I was growing up but other then that this is my first tank, so please go easy on me I am still learning.
Recent Photo(s)
Current Equipment
NooPsyche k7 v3
Red Sea Reef Dose 4
Red Sea ATO+
Aquel 150W heater + Inkbird
Skimmer supplied with the Red Sea Max Nano
Jecod MCP-90
Jecod SOW-8
Currently Dosing
AquaForest Component 123+
Phyto (every other day)
Red Sea NOOX
Weekly water changes (10%) using AquaForest Reef Salt
Current Stocking
2x Clownfish (1x Percula and 1x Occelaris I believe)
Springer Damsel
Yellow Watchman Goby
Tiger Pistol Shrimp
Mandarin (tank bred and happily eating TDO chromaboost pellets)
It all started September 2022 with the tank arriving and the rock scape being built. It went through a few iterations:
But I settled on this design, trying to find inspiration BRV TVs NSA videos.
Excitedly, I then added a bottle of bacteria and a pair of juvenile Occelaris clowns from my LFS.
Around the same time, I added another section at the front to create space ready for a "micromusa island".
I had also added the frogspawn and hammer coral (RIP, I accidentally dropped my Syphon on it which ripped a lot of the flesh from the skeleton) which can be seen on the right.
Unfortunately, the clownfish became riddled with Ich.
I quickly scrambled to set up a quarentine tank as neither of them were doing well. I bout a cheap 40 litre tank from Amazon, heater, ceramic media and two regular aquarium heaters. By the time the tank was setup the fish where in bad shape; I gave them a hydrogen peroxide bath and mixed up some copper solution using Copper solution following Randy Holmes-Farly's guide. I treat them for just over 30 days at the recommended amount and then quarentine them for about 50 to leave the tank fallow. Unfortunately, I lost one of the clownfish a few days in, however, the other one is going strong to this day.
That was my first reefing disaster and the lesson was learnt to always quarentine fish going forward.
After the fallow period I reset the QT tank and got a second clownfish. Except, this time I unknowingly bought Percula clown instead; this doesn't of seem to have caused an issue upto now and they're are happily paired and hosting the frogspawn. This time the clown was immediately put into QT and given a copper treatment following the same method.
Over time, I bought quarentined a yellow Watchman Goby and Springeri Damsel. I also got a Tiger Pistol Shrimp and added that to the tank. Unfortunately, I lost this first yellow Watchman Goby, it was eating fine but suddenly lost its colour and disappeared. I never found it and don't know what happened.
After that I ordered another yellow Watchman Goby and a Mandarin, both tank bred. These have settled into the tank great and have thrived over the last few months. The Mandarin also happily eats TDO chromaboost pellets. Although, I do add pods every three weeks.
Somewhere in this timeline I added some Micromussas and a Mint Shimmer Stylophora; this was before I was dosing. Here are some recent photos of them corals.
In March, we welcomed out beautiful daughter to the world. Unfortunately, it wasn't a smooth start and was quite traumatic. On the other side, they are both doing great now and I am slowly brainwashing her to be a reefer so we out number the wife and there is no limit to the number of size of tanks we can have.
This meant that I neglected the tank for the a couple of months, Nitrates over 40ppm, Phosphates over 0.4ppm and Alkalinity all the way down to 5.4dKH.
In the months that followed I got the tank back on track doing regular water changes, adding KH buffer and added the doser; which I started dosing small amounts of AquaForest Component 123+ and Red Sea NOOX.
My parameters have now been fairly stable, with Nitrates around 5ppm, Phospate around 0.07ppm and KH around 9.6dKH (I was aiming to run high KH but have decided to let it slowly drop to the salt mix level).
A few months ago I added my first acropora, a cheap browned out Bali Green Slimer from my LFS.
Whilst it doesn't look the best it and most people wouldn't of picked it up I really wanted to challenge the tank and see how it would do with its first Acropora before I took the plunge to get some more expensive frags. It seems to be fairly happy and has based out loads and started to colour up; I will post an update this weekend when I get chance to take some more photos.
My long term plan for the tank is to create an Acropora dominated tank and grow them to (mini) colonies over the next couple of years whilst I save for a 5ft tank. It is safe to say I have rapidly developed an addiction.
Thanks for reading this far. More to follow.
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