Hog of War
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- Mar 28, 2018
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Hey Everyone! Just starting a new Red Sea Max Nano tank and wanted to keep a journal of my experience. I had a 90g setup 5 years ago that I sold after hurting my back and having surgery, I just couldn’t keep up with it any more. I got the itch a few months ago and now it is happening! I went with the Max Nano hoping that it would be “easier” on my back. Smaller water changes and easier cleanings was my goal. I understand that Nanos are a little harder to keep since there is less water volume but I believe I’m up to the challenge. Enough about me! Onto the tank pics
Just setup and getting into position. Compared to my 90 gallon that took me a few weeks of setup and DIY projects this AIO was 100x easier. Everything worked and fit as expected. It was nice not to have to make 100 trips to Lowes for more plumbing supplies.
FTS with the heater still in the display to make the adjustments easy.
Cycling started using Red Sea’s Mature Reef and some additional Ammonia since I’m using dry rock and the kit calls for live.
Hardware:
Lighting -The AI Prime HD is amazing compared to my DIY solution last time. I am still a little worried about the customization part of it which seems to be a huge problem with LED lighting according to BRS. I’m using their recommended settings for now but with some “clouds” added to mix it up a little bit. I plan to use the Acclimation settings at 50% over 2 weeks for my first coral and keep a close eye on them to make sure I’m not burning them. I’m curious to see other user’s settings for these lights.
MP10WQD – I love this thing already. It’s the quietest pump in the whole tank. Seems about 60% is the highest it can go without blowing sand, but I love the randomness to it in the lagoon mode and the feed mode will be nice since it prevents me from forgetting to turn it back on. I’m not sure where to mount the controls for it right now. I don’t like having to bend over and get into the bottom every day so I may mount it on the wall next to the tank.
Finnex 75w heater. I’m not pleased with the settings on it but now that I’ve dialed it in it seems to work well. More about this in future plans.
live stock plans:
Goby & Pistol Shrimp - I really enjoyed my last pair and it was a lot of fun watching them work together. Still. I’m thinking a Orange Stripe Prawn Goby or a Tangaroa Goby or something similar that will pair with a pistol shrimp
2 x frostbite clown fish - the wife saw these at the LFS and loved them. They looked awesome and I decided I wanted them as well.
Anemone - I never successfully kept an anemone so I'm going to try this again once the tank is a little more established. I'm hoping having real LED kit meant for reef tanks will help provide the perfect lighting for it. Not sure what kinds ,LFS has a bunch of bubble tips but IDK yet.
Clam – Had one in my last tank and I loved it. Scaring him a little by waving my hand over the tank was fun to see and visitors loved it. It was also really cool seeing the new ridges on his shell as he grew was amazing and the colors are always great!
LPS and SPS coral – my last adventure ended up being mostly softies and some NPS coral, which were awesome to watch them grow quickly and thrive but this time I want something different. The GSP, xenia, and Kenya trees felt like weeds after a little bit and didn’t really scream coral reef to me. I’m hoping for some SPS in the upper sections and LPS more towards the bottom and on the sand.
Some Zoas – Wife likes them and I can’t just say no. so ill let her pick a few small frags of zoas to put in the rockwork.
CuC
Future plans:
Digital temp controller. I'm not happy with the settings on this heater and I'd like to get something to more accurately set the temperature in my tank. Currently I have it set to 69 and its reading 77.8 most times on my laser temp checker on the surface of the water, I really don’t like the large discrepancies in my temperature checking/controlling equipment. 69 set on heater, 77 on my laser indicator, 74 on the digital gauge I bought and 76 on a food temp checker. I’m currently using my laser gauge as the most accurate since I know it’s good for when reading my body temp. I'm open to suggestions!
More live rock. I want to get some small piece of live rock to add to the sand bed for a future clam. I also want to put a few small pieces in the sump.
Add RO water directly to ATO. The manual says that the ATO should last 3 days but it's currently only lasting 2, if that. I'd like to fully automate the ATO with some redundancies. I'm thinking the mini tunze kit installed inside the current ATO reservoir and plumbed straight to my ATO. But that doesn't really add the redundancy I want, if it fails on it will still flood my tank. Open to suggestions or to see what others have done for ATO in thier Max Nano
Automatic feeder for my planned vacations. I plan on having people come every other day to take care of skimmer and ATO but I would like to automate feeding for the days people don't come.
Dosing – My last tank I had some dosing equipment but it was all manual. Once the tank is started id like to look into an automated doser but that’s not for a while.
That’s it for now! Thanks for checking it out and I can’t wait to finish my cycle and get some livestock in there! Let me know what you think and I’ll keep you posted on the progress!
Just setup and getting into position. Compared to my 90 gallon that took me a few weeks of setup and DIY projects this AIO was 100x easier. Everything worked and fit as expected. It was nice not to have to make 100 trips to Lowes for more plumbing supplies.
FTS with the heater still in the display to make the adjustments easy.
Cycling started using Red Sea’s Mature Reef and some additional Ammonia since I’m using dry rock and the kit calls for live.
Hardware:
Lighting -The AI Prime HD is amazing compared to my DIY solution last time. I am still a little worried about the customization part of it which seems to be a huge problem with LED lighting according to BRS. I’m using their recommended settings for now but with some “clouds” added to mix it up a little bit. I plan to use the Acclimation settings at 50% over 2 weeks for my first coral and keep a close eye on them to make sure I’m not burning them. I’m curious to see other user’s settings for these lights.
MP10WQD – I love this thing already. It’s the quietest pump in the whole tank. Seems about 60% is the highest it can go without blowing sand, but I love the randomness to it in the lagoon mode and the feed mode will be nice since it prevents me from forgetting to turn it back on. I’m not sure where to mount the controls for it right now. I don’t like having to bend over and get into the bottom every day so I may mount it on the wall next to the tank.
Finnex 75w heater. I’m not pleased with the settings on it but now that I’ve dialed it in it seems to work well. More about this in future plans.
live stock plans:
Goby & Pistol Shrimp - I really enjoyed my last pair and it was a lot of fun watching them work together. Still. I’m thinking a Orange Stripe Prawn Goby or a Tangaroa Goby or something similar that will pair with a pistol shrimp
2 x frostbite clown fish - the wife saw these at the LFS and loved them. They looked awesome and I decided I wanted them as well.
Anemone - I never successfully kept an anemone so I'm going to try this again once the tank is a little more established. I'm hoping having real LED kit meant for reef tanks will help provide the perfect lighting for it. Not sure what kinds ,LFS has a bunch of bubble tips but IDK yet.
Clam – Had one in my last tank and I loved it. Scaring him a little by waving my hand over the tank was fun to see and visitors loved it. It was also really cool seeing the new ridges on his shell as he grew was amazing and the colors are always great!
LPS and SPS coral – my last adventure ended up being mostly softies and some NPS coral, which were awesome to watch them grow quickly and thrive but this time I want something different. The GSP, xenia, and Kenya trees felt like weeds after a little bit and didn’t really scream coral reef to me. I’m hoping for some SPS in the upper sections and LPS more towards the bottom and on the sand.
Some Zoas – Wife likes them and I can’t just say no. so ill let her pick a few small frags of zoas to put in the rockwork.
CuC
Future plans:
Digital temp controller. I'm not happy with the settings on this heater and I'd like to get something to more accurately set the temperature in my tank. Currently I have it set to 69 and its reading 77.8 most times on my laser temp checker on the surface of the water, I really don’t like the large discrepancies in my temperature checking/controlling equipment. 69 set on heater, 77 on my laser indicator, 74 on the digital gauge I bought and 76 on a food temp checker. I’m currently using my laser gauge as the most accurate since I know it’s good for when reading my body temp. I'm open to suggestions!
More live rock. I want to get some small piece of live rock to add to the sand bed for a future clam. I also want to put a few small pieces in the sump.
Add RO water directly to ATO. The manual says that the ATO should last 3 days but it's currently only lasting 2, if that. I'd like to fully automate the ATO with some redundancies. I'm thinking the mini tunze kit installed inside the current ATO reservoir and plumbed straight to my ATO. But that doesn't really add the redundancy I want, if it fails on it will still flood my tank. Open to suggestions or to see what others have done for ATO in thier Max Nano
Automatic feeder for my planned vacations. I plan on having people come every other day to take care of skimmer and ATO but I would like to automate feeding for the days people don't come.
Dosing – My last tank I had some dosing equipment but it was all manual. Once the tank is started id like to look into an automated doser but that’s not for a while.
That’s it for now! Thanks for checking it out and I can’t wait to finish my cycle and get some livestock in there! Let me know what you think and I’ll keep you posted on the progress!
