Bobman's Custom Nano Build

bobman · Jul 30, 2015

Not new to saltwater but new to nanos. I have been out of the hobby for quite a while. And picked up a custom 32 gallon acrylic AIO tank, stand and canopy. The tank is setup now but I figure I will show as much of the build as I can.

First here is the tank

Here is a shot of the back it came with a built in skimmer and chiler.

It had some scratches on it but I was able to buff them out with a headlight restore kit and it came out way better than I expected.

bobman · Jul 30, 2015

After getting it all cleaned up I filled it with water and gave it a test run. I didnt like the skimmer so I removed it left the chiller but I dont have it plugged in as my tank is running just fine.

Then I moved over to the canopy while I decided what I was going to do with these back chambers. The canopy was a solid acrylic canopy. It was nice as is but had pc lighting. I wanted to do a little more than what pc is going to offer so I removed them. I decided I wanted to give LEDs a try. After some thought I realized that every time I open the canopy to feed the fish I am going to be blasted in the face with LEDs since it attached the the top latches on the top of the tank in the first pic. This was not what I wanted as I would rather have the light on the coral I am feeding instead of in my face. So I took out my trusty saw and cut the canopy about 1/3 of the way to the back and installed a hinge running the lenth of the canopy. This allows me to open the front of the hod and leave the lights (what ever I decided to get) pointed down in the water and not in my face.

I will try to gat a pic of the canopy sometime.

After some serious thought of what to do with the back chambers I decided to have the first chamber loaded with live rock rubble, second chamber with macro and of course the last chamber for a return pump. I went with a maxi jet 1200 for a return pump. Decided I wanted a skimmer but just could not find any that would fit back there that I liked so I went with a hob reef octo BH1000. This skimmer actually worked out better than I had planed as it has 2 chambers a skimmer chamber and a return chamber. This allows me to toss carbon and what ever I feel like in the return chamber of the skimmer and leaves more room for rock and macro in the back chamber of the tank.

bobman · Jul 30, 2015

For lighting I decided to go with a mars aqua LED fixture. I had to do some heave modifications to it as they are way to strong for my tank. So I removed all the optics to lower the intensity of the light. I also had to remove the plugs from the top of the fixture or it would not fit in my canopy then drilled holes through the canopy for the dimmers to fit through. Came out really nice but I have to make a acrylic top for the tank to hold down moisture from getting into the fixture. All in all I am happy so far.

Here are some shots of the tank.

FTS not to happy with the rock work but I am working on it. Probably going to remove that dead piece of brain coral I have in there. It will make a good piece of rock but I think its a little to much in there. Still good enough to kick off my cycle (notice the frozen shrimp at the bottom.

After my cycle was coming to an end I picked up some rubble rock from a local reefer and look what I found hitch hiking along.

Found out there where some more hiding in there. They are starting to open up.

Tanks been set up for about 6 weeks. Not really very long to be adding coral but hey I didnt expect to get them from a guy removing rock from his refugium. It is what it is I think they will be just fine though.

bobman · Aug 5, 2015

Here is a full tank shot with a hammer coral I picked up over the weekend. I broke it in 2. Also did a little rescaping.

Think I might try a couple sticks soon or maybe get a fish.

bobman · Aug 16, 2015

Well now I have in interesting issue. On all my other tanks I have had I have always used instant ocean salt as it was the cheapest salt locally and with big tanks cost of salt was always high. Now I have a small nano I decided to go with reef crystals and now I see a potential issue down the road using this salt.

Last weekend since my tank didnt show any signs of nitrates and is in a full diatom bloom. I decided I would skip a water change and let the diatoms do there thing. New tank uglies suck. Anyway I went ahead and picked up a reef foundation pro test kit by Red Sea and decided to test my waters a couple days ago.

ALK: 7 DKH
Cal: 350 PPM
MAG: 1350 PPM

Not bad numbers but I would like ALK and CAL a little higher. I always thought reef crystals would have had a higher concentration of ALK and CAL. I dont really have much in the tank to be consuming much. A couple trumpets and are making a comeback and about 8 heads of hammer coral. And with MAG up that high I cant really see precipitation being an issue. I also dont see any creep anywhere.

So being new to nanos I figured well I did skip a water change and maybe the corals are consuming it so I made a fresh bath of saltwater and tested it to see where I would stand after a water change. The change water is a little better at
ALK: 10.5 dkh
CAL: 400 PPM
MAG 1200 PPM

Seeing these numbers I would still like calcium a little higher at about 450 but I can live with it. Could it be the corals are actually consuming alk and cal this fast. I guess I could believe it. Would explain how my Mag is higher in the tank than the change water since coral dont really consume MAG. Problem here is its a 32 gallon tank with a hob skimmer that hold about 1.5 gallons. So I figure after rock and sand displacement I have about 30 gallons. If I do a water change of 5 gallon thats 16%. So after doing a 5 gallon water change it will not actually do much to the tanks parameters. According to the numbers I crunched after my change tonight I should be at
ALK: 7.5 DKH
CAL 358 PPM
MAG 1325 PPM

At that rate the tank can not sustain much more unless I either change up salts but to what? Or start dosing. Dosing is always an option but would rather go the salt route at this time I just cant see the need to dose with such small coral load. Any ideas and sorry no pics today new tank uglies are in full swing lol. will try to get some when I clean it up a bit. I also won an auction and got about 50 head of some type of Zoa the girl friend wanted doing well in the tank.

Tahoe61 · Aug 16, 2015

What SG did you mix it to?

I used RC on my nano, alk was pretty consistently 10-11, too high for my liking. Ca around 400 fine by me, but mag eventually crept up to around 1600 after about 6 months. I went back to IO. I would rather make my own adjustments to the alk and ca then rely on a mix, if I start lower I can always go up, the same can not be said for going down in values.
You might need to mix the bag or container up, just a thought.

bobman · Aug 28, 2015

I mixed it to 1.025. Yeah someone told me to try to mix it up and I did but have not tested since. The numbers are not bad just not where I would like them so I think after this bucket I will go back to IO.

Here is a picture of the Zoa I picked up a while back not sure what kind it is.

powers2001 · Aug 31, 2015

What brand is that tank?

bobman · Sep 1, 2015

Not sure it seems to be custom made. All the searches I have done have not found anything like this tank. I got it off craigslist

LivinTheSwreefLife · Sep 2, 2015

Great tank, love your aquascaping!

bobman · Sep 3, 2015

Thanks was going for simple and easy only 3 rocks so if I have to remove them I can.

Gt some crappy pics from my phone of some new arrivals. I also picked up my first couple fish but they are in hiding. One is a yellow headed goby and of course the kids had to have nemo.

powers2001 · Sep 5, 2015

bobman said:
Not sure it seems to be custom made. All the searches I have done have not found anything like this tank. I got it off craigslist

Could it be from myfishtank.com? That's the site LA Fishguy of Youtube advertises.

Ahruk · Sep 5, 2015

Those zoas look like radioactive dragon eyes, also nice coco-worm I've been really wanting one! Nice tank set up, excited to see it develop.

bobman · Sep 17, 2015

Picked up a long tentacle nem yesterday along with a torch coral and a rock flower nem. Seem to be doing fine. The dang long tentacle decided to attach to my biggest hermit crab's shell

On my hermit (not fully open but we will see in a few days)

Torch

Rock Flower

FTS

Sorry for the crappy pics I will invest in a camera someday. Its just hard spending every pay check on coral it dont leave much in the budget for unnecessary stuff like food and water lol