Long Shallow Nano Build

[V A R I A N T]

Any updates? How is this tank doing?

 

[Clownfishy]

Well it has been just over a year since starting this long shallow nano reef aquarium so I thought I would provide another update -

For someone like myself who has been in this hobby for decades, I am surprised this reef has been such a challenge for the first 12 months. I put this down to two key issues. Firstly the rock I used was loaded with phosphate so as I kept trying different methods to resolve this, I caused stability issues. Secondly, I had some kind of bacterial infestation which affected a lot of my corals and caused Slow Tissue Necrosis (STN).

First Issue - Phosphate
I tried all the usual phosphate reduction methods and the only thing that kept them under some kind of control was NOPOX. In my previous reef aquarium, I overdosed NOPOX and caused Dino’s. This was not the fault of the product, it was my stupidity. This time I slowly increased the dose and found that at the start, I had to dose 3-5ml a day just to keep my phosphate 0.1ppm - 0.2ppm. Although this worked, that much NOPOX dosing in a 75 litre reef aquarium caused other issues. Firstly, the massive increase in bacteria created a lot of white stringy bacteria growth on everything to the point where it impacted the effectiveness of pumps, skimmers and probes. Secondly, the pH dropped adding this much NOPOX. I tried to ignore the bacteria growth and focused on boosting the pH in an attempt to increase coral growth so the corals would take up more nutrients. I will not go into the detail on what I did in this post unless someone is interested but just to say that my water chemistry became unbalanced so I have ended up back where I started and now focus on stability and living with slightly higher NItrates and Phosphates. As I have added more corals, my phosphate has lowered slightly but I think I have come to a point where this aquarium will always have higher phosphate levels than most feel is acceptable.

Second Issue - Bacterial Infection
To this day I am not 100% what I had but I feel it was the 24 hour power cut that was the start of all my problems. During the powercut, the pH and temperature plummeted and although my battery backed up Tunzes kept the water moving, I believe this was enough to destabilise the ecosystem. I did not notice anything in the first week after the powercut but very soon afterwards, the corals started to lose their flesh and die over a long time. It was not until I started to dip the remaining corals in Red Sea’s DipX that I managed to save some of them. In some cases, it took several dips over several weeks to stop the die off. In addition to this, I started to dose Dr Tims eco balance. I cannot say for sure the Dr Timms dosing helped but I felt like it did some good and have continued dosing it. It also has a notable impact on the reduction of phosphate a day after dosing. I continue to be vigilant and I hope I do not go through this again and the last few corals I have purchased are not showing any signs of stress.

Aquarium Equipment​

Most of the equipment I used to setup the aquarium has worked out well and I have only made a couple of changes. My PowerWalker UPS which I used to power 1 heater in the event of a power cut failed so I have just purchased a X-Dragon lithium power station to run the a 100watt heater. This will hopefully buy me some time (approx 1.5 hours) and either the power would be restored or I will fire up the generator. I have only just ordered this so cannot comment yet how effective this will be. I have also added an Apex DOS for kalkwasser and NOPOX dosing and are now just using the Coralbox doser for Calcium, Alkalinity and Mineral dosing.

Lighting	2 x TMC Reef-Photon 84w
Pumps	2 x Tunze 9040
Pump Battery Backup	2 x Tunze Safety Connecter 2 x Lucas LSLA20-12 12V 20AH Sealed Rechargeable Battery 2 x Maypole 12v 7423A Battery Charger
Skimmer	Tunze 9004 DC (connected to a C02 scrubber)
Heater	2 x Aquael Ultra Heater 100w (I think these are branded Cobalt in the US)
Heater Battery Backup	X-DRAGON Portable Power Station 200Wh/54000mAh PowerWalker UPS
Dosers	Coralbox (Alkalinity, Calcium Minerals) Apex DOS (Kalkwasser, NOPOX)
Computer Controller	Neptune Apex 2016 2 x EB6 (UK energy bar)
Aqara Hub	Water sensor (detect if doser leaks)

Water Chemistry​

Water chemistry is far more balanced now and I dose equal amounts of Calcium, Alkalinity and Mineral dosing. I have also switched to Red Sea blue bucket salt. As I have added more corals, increased the lighting intensity and lowered my NOPOX dosing, I have seen a slight bump in my pH. With 3 people and two dogs in a relatively small house, I don't think I will see much more of an increase due to the C02 levels in the house.

Salt	Red Sea Blue Bucket Fritz Reef Pro Mix (blue box)
Temperature	25c (77f)
pH	7.95 - 8.15 (increased from 7.8 - 8.1)
Alkalinity	8.5 (increase from 8)
Calcium	450-460
Magnesium	1320 (decrease from1450)
Potassium	430
Nitrate	15 (increase from 5 - 10)
Phosphate	0.1 - 0.2 (now dosing NOPOX)
Water Changes	20% per week
Carbon	Replace 1 tablespoon weekly (placed in passive flow)
Rowaphos	Replace 3 teaspoons weekly (placed in passive flow)

Dosing​

Now I have resolved my water chemistry instability, I am now able to dos equal parts of Alkalinity, Calcium and Minerals. I have also added NOPOX and bacteria to my dosing schedule. If my phosphate ever comes down, I am hoping I can reduce or stop both of these but that seems some way off yet.

Alkalinity	Soda ash (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	10ml over 24 hours
Calcium	Calcium Chloride (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	10ml over 24 hours
Trace	Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt	10ml over 24 hours
Kalkwasser	Calcium hydroxide	160ml when lights are off.
NOPOX	Red Sea NOPOX	1.5ml during the peak lighting
Bacteria	Dr Tims Eco Balance Brightwell Microbacter Clean	2 capfuls twice a week 1 capful a week

Fish​

Azure Damselfish x 2	Chrysiptera hemicyanea
Six Line Wrasse x 1	Pseudocheilinus hexataenia
Common Clownfish x 2	Amphiprion ocellaris
Green Reef Chromis x 4	Chromis viridis

Summary​

On the whole, I have been happy with the setup and love the low maintenance that comes with a Nano. I love the Tunze equipment, especially the 9004 DC skimmer as it is easy to control and skims the surface of the water perfectly so I never suffer from that layer of oil film you see in nano tanks that do not have a back filter chamber. I will keep the battery backups and fully recommend everyone to have at least their pumps on some kind of backup. One of the next changes I am considering is moving the Tunze skimmer onto its own battery to provide skimming during a power outage and to ensure my pH is maintained.
Well that is it for another year and if I make any further changes, I will update this thread again.

Many thanks

 

[Clownfishy]

Some minor changes to the shallow long nano reef -

I have now connected the Tunze 9004DC to an 18ah lithium battery which should keep the skimmer powered for a few hours in the event of a power cut. Although my 2 Tunze pumps have been on battery backup, I noticed my pH really dropped quite a bit during power cuts . I appreciate the lights not being on would be the main cause but I would like a bit more oxygen during power cuts and with the Tunze kit, it is very easy adding battery backups.

The second change has been to take out my CoralBox doser and replace it with another Apex DOS. I have a love hate relationship with the Apex DOS but overall, there accuracy, maintaining calibration and control ability through the Apex won me over. The noise from them is very load so I sound proofed the cabinet to resolve this. Their biggest issue is they cannot work independent of Apex so if the Apex dies, all dosing stops. For this, I will be buying a second hand Apex as a spare once I see a good deal.

I am slowly adding corals and just sent away for another ICP test so will provide some more updates soon.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Well it has been just over a year since starting this long shallow nano reef aquarium so I thought I would provide another update -

For someone like myself who has been in this hobby for decades, I am surprised this reef has been such a challenge for the first 12 months. I put this down to two key issues. Firstly the rock I used was loaded with phosphate so as I kept trying different methods to resolve this, I caused stability issues. Secondly, I had some kind of bacterial infestation which affected a lot of my corals and caused Slow Tissue Necrosis (STN).

First Issue - Phosphate
I tried all the usual phosphate reduction methods and the only thing that kept them under some kind of control was NOPOX. In my previous reef aquarium, I overdosed NOPOX and caused Dino’s. This was not the fault of the product, it was my stupidity. This time I slowly increased the dose and found that at the start, I had to dose 3-5ml a day just to keep my phosphate 0.1ppm - 0.2ppm. Although this worked, that much NOPOX dosing in a 75 litre reef aquarium caused other issues. Firstly, the massive increase in bacteria created a lot of white stringy bacteria growth on everything to the point where it impacted the effectiveness of pumps, skimmers and probes. Secondly, the pH dropped adding this much NOPOX. I tried to ignore the bacteria growth and focused on boosting the pH in an attempt to increase coral growth so the corals would take up more nutrients. I will not go into the detail on what I did in this post unless someone is interested but just to say that my water chemistry became unbalanced so I have ended up back where I started and now focus on stability and living with slightly higher NItrates and Phosphates. As I have added more corals, my phosphate has lowered slightly but I think I have come to a point where this aquarium will always have higher phosphate levels than most feel is acceptable.

Second Issue - Bacterial Infection
To this day I am not 100% what I had but I feel it was the 24 hour power cut that was the start of all my problems. During the powercut, the pH and temperature plummeted and although my battery backed up Tunzes kept the water moving, I believe this was enough to destabilise the ecosystem. I did not notice anything in the first week after the powercut but very soon afterwards, the corals started to lose their flesh and die over a long time. It was not until I started to dip the remaining corals in Red Sea’s DipX that I managed to save some of them. In some cases, it took several dips over several weeks to stop the die off. In addition to this, I started to dose Dr Tims eco balance. I cannot say for sure the Dr Timms dosing helped but I felt like it did some good and have continued dosing it. It also has a notable impact on the reduction of phosphate a day after dosing. I continue to be vigilant and I hope I do not go through this again and the last few corals I have purchased are not showing any signs of stress.

Aquarium Equipment​

Most of the equipment I used to setup the aquarium has worked out well and I have only made a couple of changes. My PowerWalker UPS which I used to power 1 heater in the event of a power cut failed so I have just purchased a X-Dragon lithium power station to run the a 100watt heater. This will hopefully buy me some time (approx 1.5 hours) and either the power would be restored or I will fire up the generator. I have only just ordered this so cannot comment yet how effective this will be. I have also added an Apex DOS for kalkwasser and NOPOX dosing and are now just using the Coralbox doser for Calcium, Alkalinity and Mineral dosing.

Lighting	2 x TMC Reef-Photon 84w
Pumps	2 x Tunze 9040
Pump Battery Backup	2 x Tunze Safety Connecter 2 x Lucas LSLA20-12 12V 20AH Sealed Rechargeable Battery 2 x Maypole 12v 7423A Battery Charger
Skimmer	Tunze 9004 DC (connected to a C02 scrubber)
Heater	2 x Aquael Ultra Heater 100w (I think these are branded Cobalt in the US)
Heater Battery Backup	X-DRAGON Portable Power Station 200Wh/54000mAh PowerWalker UPS
Dosers	Coralbox (Alkalinity, Calcium Minerals) Apex DOS (Kalkwasser, NOPOX)
Computer Controller	Neptune Apex 2016 2 x EB6 (UK energy bar)
Aqara Hub	Water sensor (detect if doser leaks)

Water Chemistry​

Water chemistry is far more balanced now and I dose equal amounts of Calcium, Alkalinity and Mineral dosing. I have also switched to Red Sea blue bucket salt. As I have added more corals, increased the lighting intensity and lowered my NOPOX dosing, I have seen a slight bump in my pH. With 3 people and two dogs in a relatively small house, I don't think I will see much more of an increase due to the C02 levels in the house.

Salt	Red Sea Blue Bucket Fritz Reef Pro Mix (blue box)
Temperature	25c (77f)
pH	7.95 - 8.15 (increased from 7.8 - 8.1)
Alkalinity	8.5 (increase from 8)
Calcium	450-460
Magnesium	1320 (decrease from1450)
Potassium	430
Nitrate	15 (increase from 5 - 10)
Phosphate	0.1 - 0.2 (now dosing NOPOX)
Water Changes	20% per week
Carbon	Replace 1 tablespoon weekly (placed in passive flow)
Rowaphos	Replace 3 teaspoons weekly (placed in passive flow)

Dosing​

Now I have resolved my water chemistry instability, I am now able to dos equal parts of Alkalinity, Calcium and Minerals. I have also added NOPOX and bacteria to my dosing schedule. If my phosphate ever comes down, I am hoping I can reduce or stop both of these but that seems some way off yet.

Alkalinity	Soda ash (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	10ml over 24 hours
Calcium	Calcium Chloride (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	10ml over 24 hours
Trace	Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt	10ml over 24 hours
Kalkwasser	Calcium hydroxide	160ml when lights are off.
NOPOX	Red Sea NOPOX	1.5ml during the peak lighting
Bacteria	Dr Tims Eco Balance Brightwell Microbacter Clean	2 capfuls twice a week 1 capful a week

Fish​

Azure Damselfish x 2	Chrysiptera hemicyanea
Six Line Wrasse x 1	Pseudocheilinus hexataenia
Common Clownfish x 2	Amphiprion ocellaris
Green Reef Chromis x 4	Chromis viridis

Summary​

On the whole, I have been happy with the setup and love the low maintenance that comes with a Nano. I love the Tunze equipment, especially the 9004 DC skimmer as it is easy to control and skims the surface of the water perfectly so I never suffer from that layer of oil film you see in nano tanks that do not have a back filter chamber. I will keep the battery backups and fully recommend everyone to have at least their pumps on some kind of backup. One of the next changes I am considering is moving the Tunze skimmer onto its own battery to provide skimming during a power outage and to ensure my pH is maintained.
Well that is it for another year and if I make any further changes, I will update this thread again.

Many thanks

Tank looks great!!

 

[Clownfishy]

A small improvement on the way I dose Kalkwasser. I felt I needed to ensure the Kalk was well mixed everyday before dosing and had considered purchasing a Kalk Stirrer. However, I decided to make my own by purchasing a second hand acrylic container and ordering a cheap magnetic stirrer I place the the acrylic container onto of the magnetic stirrer and every morning at 9am after the dosing has finished, the magnetic stirrer mixes the Kalk that has previously settled out for 15 minutes. This then has the rest of the day to settle ready for when the dosing starts again at 7:30pm. You will notice in one of the pictures that I have a water leak detector at the base of the magnetic stirrer just in case the acrylic cylinder leaks.

Magnetic Stirrer Schedule

Magnetic Stirrer

Acrylic Container

Kalkwasser (after stirring)

 

[moreef]

Simply beautiful tank congratulations!

Any chance you can take some pics of equipment in back especially
Tunze 9004 DC
(connected to a C02 scrubber)

Wanting to start a nano and not sure if it will be AIO, sump, or like yours with all equipment, filtration in the display.

 

[Clownfishy]

Hi, here is a picture of the skimmer connected to the C02 scrubber. I simple bypass the air silencer on the skimmer and connect the air intake directly into an on DI canister from an old RO unit. I fill the canister up with Soda lime which I brought from a dive shop. I change the soda lime every 2 weeks.

I love the Tunze 9004 DC, it skims all the film off the surface of the water and as you can see from the third picture, it is hardly noticeable behind the corals.

Hope that helps but if you want to see anything else, just let me know.

Good luck on with your nano.

Skimmer Connection To C02 Scrubber

Soda Lime

In Tank Skimmer

 

[Clownfishy]

The latest picture of the equipment in the cabinet

 

[Clownfishy]

A few coral additions. Ignore the diatoms on the sand, I recently added this sand to an established reef so I am just waiting for them to burn themselves out.

 

[kevgib67]

I don’t think that you thought out this build, ha. Great looking tank, you IT guys make your systems hands off!

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

 

[vTango888]

Is this still running? An update would be awesome!

 

[Flameback Pair]

@Clownfishy great start!!! I almost went with two Tunze 6040s (and still might) but trying AI Orbit 2s instead. Subscribed.

- Mitchell.

 

[Clownfishy]

Thanks. I do need to write up an update and I will in the next few weeks. Yes it is still going and it is really maturing now. Since last update the aquarium has moved to a new location in the house and everything is going well. A few changes in corals as I move over to SPS so will update this thread soon.

@Flameback Pair, I do not know those pumps but I have to say, I love the Tunze's ability to fail over to backup power and switch to main power as soon as it is available. The Tunze Safety Connector ensure your pumps do not mix a beat during a power failure :)

As mentioned, update coming soon.

 

[Clownfishy]

As it has been 3 years since this aquarium was first set up, so it is that time of year to provide another lengthy update and to let you all know the shallow long nano reef is still going strong. So buckle up, here goes.

Temporarily Moved
The one major change to the long shallow nano I have made since the last update is that it has been moved to a new location, albeit temporarily. We decided to refresh our house by decorating it from top to bottom and this meant laying new carpet. Obviously, I therefore needed the aquarium moved off the cabinet and out of the way so the carpet fitters could lay the new carpet. Although it is a nano, I did not want the hassle of draining it and moving it around on the day they came. Luckily, living in a house that is well over 200 years old, most of the window seals are over 2 feet thick and made of solid stone, just long enough to fit my long shallow nano reef :) So one morning, I took out all the livestock and housed them in a few salt buckets, moved the aquarium onto the windows seal, filled it up and put everything back. It has been in this location for the last few months and everything seems fine. The hardest part of the move was not the corals but routing and untangling all the cables as I have so much equipment connected to this nano, it highlighted to me that I need to simplify things when I move it back onto the aquarium stand.

Stupid Mistake
The long shallow nano has been coasting along nicely and I have been happy with water parameters. Because I have increased the lighting intensity and added more corals, I got to the point where I no longer needed to dose NOPOX to keep my Phosphate under control. Although I still have to dose more Alkalinity than Calcium and more Magnesium which I still cannot work out why. I will go into water chemistry later but as the Alkalinity is on a doser, I just adjusted the Neptune DOS to increase the Alkalinity dosage. Although I add Magnesium to my 3 part (more on this later), it was not enough to meet demand. I therefore increased the Magnesium levels 3 times their normal amounts to the 3 part but still my Magnesium levels dropped. Therefore, I made up some Magnesium and put this into a bottle and dose it manually once a week. The bottle I mixed the Magnesium into was an old NOPOX bottle and I put a white label on the bottle with MAGNESIUM printed on it. At this point in time, I was no longer dosing NOPOX but I did keep the old bottle of NOPOX at the back of the cupboard just in case. As we had to move all the contents of cupboards and wardrobes out of the way ready for the carpets to be laid, things were a little messy in the house. One morning, I was just running out of the door when I thought I should add some Magnesium. This is the point you are thinking to yourself, “no, you didn’t did you?”. Well, yes I did. Rushing around, I rummaged through the many boxes of aquarium equipment, grabbed what I thought was my old NOPOX bottle with Magnesium in it and dosed 20ml of pure NOPOX instead of 20ml of Magnesium. The second I did it, the spell from the NOPOX hit me and that fear of dread went through me as I realised what I had done. I had no choice but leave the aquarium as I was needed to be somewhere so I left thinking through what the heck was going to happen next. Monitoring the aquarium via my Apex, I immediately saw a massive drop in Ph(7.94 to 7.71) and then a slow continuous drop in ORP.

Note the drastic drop in pH (6th Oct before 12:00 on timeline)

When I got back home, I did consider a water change but the damage was already done and I was concerned that there would be too much of a drastic difference in the pH of the new water (8.3) and the current level 7.71. I also knew that it was morning and the lights had come on and the pH would obviously rise on its own. One other thing I knew was I would see one mother of all bacteria blooms. Therefore, I decided to leave everything and ride it out. At first corals looked OK. I increased water flow and increased skimming to allow for a wet skim ready for the bacteria bloom and provide more oxygen. It took just over 24 hours before things starting to take a turn for the worse. Corals started to close up and some bleaching occurred around the edges of some corals. Then 2 days of bacteria bloom and almost hourly emptying of the skimmer. Corals looked in a bad way. Water change day came and went as I decided my nutrient levels would have dropped through the floor so I needed to get them back up and a water change would not help with that. I fed more heavily than usual, which obviously fed the bacteria bloom but having suffered Dino’s in the past having allowed my nutrients to bottom out, I would rather fight the bloom for a few days than Dino’s for months. Within a week, everything started opening up albeit not as happily as before so I started to do 20% water changes twice a week. After 3 weeks on a twice a week 20% water change schedule, things looked fine and I am pleased to say everything now looks amazing and growing crazy again. I made an uneducated but calculated risk not to rush and act in a panic and on the whole, it paid off. I was very lucky. I lost one very small acropora frag which had previously been struggling to grow and the bleaching of some corals stopped and I am seeing growth over the bleaching. Lesson learnt, stop rushing, focus on what you are doing and maybe do not use two bottles that look the same but have completely different things in them!

Water Chemistry
Temp 25.3c (77.5f)

Alkalinity
I am dosing 42ml a day of Soda Ash (baked baking soda) and the alkalinity level is 7.5. I will increase dosage further to get to 8 to 8.5 but as you can see from my calcium dosage, this out of balance for some reason

Calcium
I dose 28ml of calcium chloride giving me a calcium level of 430. I am just switching over to Aquaforest Calcium Chloride so it will be interesting to see if this is a better balance with the Soda Ash.

Minerals & Magnesium
I dose 28ml of Aquaforest Mineral salt to keep the salts balanced as a 3 part. As mentioned, I also add Aquaforest Magnesium to this dose as they suggest but 3 times their recommended strength as my reef loves Magnesium for some reason. I also dose an extra approx 30ml of pure Magnesium by hand each 1 to 2 weeks. My Magnesium level is 1320.

Trace
I use Aquaforest Component Strong which you split across each 3 part dosing. I “believe” I have seen an improvement in growth and health but this is very subjective. It is an easy system to use so will continue with this trace dosing.

As you can see, I have kept the dosage of Mineral Salt in line with the Calcium rather than the Alkalinity. I am not sure this is right but then I do not know why I am getting through so much Alkalinity than Calcium. I do not see much precipitation on the pumps or heaters so I am very confused as to why. I may lower the dosage of Components Strong into the Alkalinity dosing as I am clearly dosing more of those as well.

Potassium
420-430

Kalkwasser
I dose 250ml during the night in the winter and 500ml-1litre during the summer. My kalkwasser container sits on top of a magnetic stirrer (please see a previous post of mine) and it stirs the kalk each day for 15mins. I am not dosing enough for it to do much for the pH and could increase evaporation a bit more which would help. I just dont think I can produce enough evaporation though, to maintain a good pH at night.

pH
As low as 7.84 at night and 8.30 during the day. Its not awful and it seems it does not matter what I do, I struggle to keep the pH of this, or previous reef aquariums at higher levels at night. I have come to live with this now and it does not seem to affect growth. Although I always keep my windows cracked open, the C02 levels in my house hit 900 on a regular occurrence. These old houses are built of 3 foot thick solid stone walls with very small windows so I think this is why C02 is always higher than the average home.

Nitrate & Phosphate
These are 2 parameters that have come down a lot over the last year and if it was not for my recent mishap with the NOPOX overdose, would be fairly stable at Nitrate 1ppm and Phosphate 1ppm. I have always had higher phosphate and have assumed this has been leaching from the rocks but these rocks are now 8 years old so maybe not. I believe the levels have dropped as I have increased the lighting intensity so my peak lighting is now on for 5 hours from 1 hour. I also started off with frags which have grown out a lot so my corals are sucking up way more nutrients than they were a year or two back.

Salt & Water Changes
I now use H2Ocean Dosing Formula salt. Mixes quick, clean and chemistry matches my water parameters. I still perform a 15% to 20% water change a week which may sound a lot but its so easy on a Nano as that equates to approximately 15-20 litres(4 - 5.2 US gallons).

Livestock
I gave away all my Kenyan tree and Palythoa corals and added a few more acroporas. Well, I thought I have gotten rid of the Kenyen tree but it has sprung up from what must have been a tiny fragment left on a rock so will let it grow out a bit more and give that away as well. I am getting more into acropora corals so expect more coral changes in the future. My wrasse jumped out of my aquarium before the move so that was not good especially since owning him for years. My green Chromis were getting bullied so I gave them away leaving the pair of clowns and a pair of yellow tailed damsels. I will not be buying any more livestock until the aquarium is moved back onto the stand (see below).

Equipment
The only change I have made to equipment is that I have removed two lead iron batteries and chargers and replaced with a much bigger lithium battery for backup. I now run my Tunze 9004 and my 2 Tunze 9040 pumps off this single battery in the event of a power outage. I have unfortunately had a few power cuts and the Tunze Safety connectors cutover to the battery in a heartbeat and you would never know they are running on battery, I believe I can get well over 30 hours on this battery.
Finally and talking of power cuts, as part of the refresh to the house, we have had some electrical work done where we needed the power out for 12 hours. I have a very small generator which I fired up and ran the entire aquarium off the generator for the entire day. This included heaters, lights and the battery charger charging the aquarium battery back, Apex and my home router. The wonders of having a nano reef with very little power usage!

General
In my previous tank, I struggled to grow coralline algae for some reason. Never had this problem in all the reef aquariums I have kept over the many years I have been in the hobby. At first, I had the same problem with this shallow long nano but I am pleased to say, this is no longer a problem and it grows everywhere now with the exception of one rock. What with my high phosphate levels, I assume this had something to do with the rock as the rock I am using in this aquarium came from my previous aquarium. I believe the phosphate leaching has finally stopped or slowed to a level where algae cannot take hold. As mentioned, one rock does have green algae but a coral is slowly covering that rock so I am just letting nature take its course and it will disappear once the coral or coralline algae take over.

Finally & Next Steps
I think that is all there is to say and well done if you got this far. In the next few weeks, I will be moving the aquarium off the window seal and back onto its stands. While doing this, I am going to make some tweaks to the aquarium, stand and equipment access to improve on a few things that I have found frustrating with its previous configuration. I will write this up, take some pictures and update this thread soon.

Many thanks for reading and good luck with your own reef aquarium

 

[Clownfishy]

In my last update I mentioned I was planning to move the Long Shallow Nano from its temporary window seal location back onto its stand along with making some changes to the setup. The plan is to move it this weekend so I will update this build thread shortly. However, I also mentioned in the previous update that my 3 part dosing was out of balance and I could not track down why. Well, I think I have found the issue so thought it would be useful to document that here just in case others are having the same issue as this may also be the cause. Just as a reminder, I was dosing -
Alk 42ml
Cal 28ml
Mineral Salt / Magnesium 28ml (magnesium was also 3 times the recommended strength)

Previous Alkalinity Additive
I was using Arm & Hammer Baking Soda for Alkalinity where I mixed 99g per 1 litre of RO/DO water. I have since learnt this is on the high side however, this in theory would make the solution stronger not weaker, yet as you can see from the above, I was having to add more Alkalinity than Calcium.

Previous Calcium Additive
I previously purchased 5kg of food unbranded Calcium Chloride and mixed 132g per 1 litre of RO/DO water. I suspect this was also over the amount required and as it was unbranded, I had no way of knowing.

New Additives
As my 5kg of Calcium was running out and as I have been using Aquaforest as part of my 3 part, I decided to purchase Aquaforest Calcium so I would be using their Calcium, Mineral Salt (Part 3) but stayed with Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. I kept with Baking Soda as it is cheap to make and gives me a much needed pH boost. I reached out to Randy to confirm how much of the Baking Soda I should use with the Aqua Forest products (see here) and this is where I learnt the quantities of my previous mixing had been wrong which could well have been the cause of my unbalanced dosing.

Balanced Again
Since mixing the quantities below, I now dose the same quantities of each component albeit higher quantities (58ml per day). Some of the increase is due to the coral growth I have observed over the last few months. I have also now reduced the Magnesium concentration down from 3 times the recommended quantity to 1.5 times but will see if this maintains levels or not.

Additive	Water Volume	Weight	AF Strong
Calcium Chloride	1 Litre	50g	5ml Strong A 5ml Strong B
Baking Soda	1 Litre	80g	5ml Strong C
Mineral Salt Magnesium	1 Litre	25g 15g	5ml Strong K

A big shout out to Randy for his continuous support to people like me where chemistry is not a strength! His DIY recipes have helped thousands of people and his advice is second to none.

Hope the above is of use and as mentioned, I will soon be posting my update on the move of the Long Shallow Nano Build.

 

[Clownfishy]

Well the day had come to move the Long Shallow Nano from its temporary window seal location back onto its original stand along with a few changes. Before moving it, I had the opportunity for a bigger aquarium but I kinda got attached to the look of this long shallow aquarium and I find managing a Nano nice and easy so I decided to keep it but improve it. So here goes with the changes I have made along with the move itself.

Cabinet
First job was to sand down the cabinet and repaint the exterior and interior of the cabinet. That turned out to be far more of an epic than first thought, The inside took 6 coats to paint over the original dark varnish. The last picture makes the cabinet look pink but trust me it is white! The lights from the aquarium behind me affected the camera…honest!

Now install the first set of plugs

Change 1 - Dosing Delivery
One of my biggest frustrations with the previous setup was delivery of the dosing into the aquarium. As there is no sump, I originally came up with the idea of attaching acrylic tubing to the dosing tubing. This specific acrylic tubing had a 180 degree bend so I could hook it over the aquarium glass rim. This allowed me to locate the dosers within the cabinet below the aquarium and pump the additives up to the aquarium and over the top of the glass.

This worked well except for two key issues.

1. As the tube hooked over the glass rim, it remained touching the glass which was obviously always damp from the humidity and therefore, the liquid from the dosing acrylic tube ran down the glass first before entering the water. This created a build up of deposits on the glass itself. Not only was this unsightly, it was obviously having an effect on the dosing efficiency.
   
   
2. As my Tunze 6040’s wave pumps ramped up, the water would sometimes touch or slash onto the acrylic tubing so I had to lower the water level in the aquarium to prevent this occurring. This meant I could never raise the water level closer to the top of the aquarium as I would have liked.

Therefore, I decided to use the dosing tube cutouts within the probe holder I had installed for the Apex probes. Luckily, the holder had 4 cutouts for dosing tubes which was perfect as I use 3 part dosing and kalkwasser dosing. The only issue using the probe holder is that it still did not solve the second issue however, that was fixed with Change 2!

Change 2 - Probe Holder
I was already using a magnetic probe holder but as with most of these holders, they are quite large and really meant for sumps where there is a big gap between the water level and the top of the aquarium. Although I located the probe holder at the highest point possible in the aquarium, it would always be submersed slightly causing salt creep on the top of the probe holder. By fixing an acrylic bracket to the back of the glass, I could place the magnetic probe holder above the top of the glass rim. This should not only resolve the salt creep problem as the holder was nowhere near the top of the water level, it ensured the dosing tubing was well above the water level, not touching the aquarium glass and would allow me to raise the water level in the aquarium. I also labelled each tube and tidied them up a little. Well not quite yet as I needed to resolve one last issue to raise the water level and there was one other thing I needed to eliminate before achieving that which leads us on to Change 3.

Change 3 Lighting Mounting
I have used the mounting bracket that came with the lights which are well built and functional. However, they need to sit quite far onto the glass which prevents me from keeping the water level to where I want. To try and resolve this, I raised the mounts as high up on the glass as possible but this makes them unsteady so not ideal. Also, as mentioned with Change 1, and as the dosing tubes rest right next to them, they also receive a build up of deposits from the dosing tubes and salt creep from the water.

To fix this, I cut out some basic wooden mounts and screwed them to the back of the cabinet so the lights will now not sit on the glass but outside of the aquarium itself.

Change 4 - Aquarium Lid Cutouts
As you have read already, I had a lot of things attached to the glass and as I use an acrylic lid, this meant there were a lot of cutouts needed in the lid itself. This is not a problem once I have made the lid but it was never easy to fit back onto the aquarium after removing it as a dosing tube or a cable would get in the way and I would have to fiddle around with the lids every time I put it back.

Eliminating the lights, dosing tubes and the probe holder meant I just needed a single cut out for in Tunze 9004 skimmer, a single cutout for both the probes and dosing tubes and another cutout for feeding. The cables from the Tunze 6040 wave pumps and the heaters would now be routed next to the skimmer. As mentioned, not a huge issue, just a nice change to make life a little easier lifting the lid on and off the aquarium.

Change 5 - Aquarium Cabinet Lighting
There were times where I wanted to get something out of the aquarium cabinet or just check something in the evening/night and would use the torch on the phone to light things up without turning on the room lights on and shocking the fish. As I was making some changes I thought I would install smart lighting in the aquarium cabinet to make life easy and to also use it for visual warnings. I therefore took the opportunity after painting the entire cabinet to install stick on strip lighting and a motion detector. Then setup the following Alexa routines -

• If motion detector detects motion, turn on strip lighting to 100% white color
• If motion detector does not detect motion for 2 minutes, turn off lighting
• If Aqara water detectors detect water (leak from DOS tubing or dosing containers) send my phone a message and turn on strip lighting color blue

I have also used the lighting for the aquarium cabinet for heat warning which leads us on to Change 6.

Change 6 - Aquarium Cabinet Air Monitoring & Ventilation
The UK is not known for its hot weather but just on some occasions, things start to warm up over here. Normally its just a few insanely hot days a year where I throw a fan over the aquarium to keep the aquarium cool. This is something I have on hand so happy with that setup and most of the year it stays packed away with me hoping for some hot weather! However, what happens on a more regular basis is the heat in the aquarium cabinet raises due to the equipment. Previously, I just left the doors of the cabinet open a bit but this looks unsightly and odd. Therefore, I have now installed an Amazon Smart Air Quality monitor in the cabinet and placed a USB fan over a cutout in the back of the cabinet. The USB fan is plugged into a smart plug and I have set up the following Alexa Routines. What is interesting is that the Amazon Smart Air Quality monitor also monitors VOC levels and I see a raised level in the morning for some reason.

• Air quality monitor detects aquarium cabinet at 25, USB fan off
• Air quality monitor detects aquarium cabinet at 30c, send my phone a message, USB fan on and aquarium cabinet lights 25% on orange color.
• Air quality monitor detects aquarium cabinet at 35c, send my phone a message, USB fan on and aquarium cabinet lights 100% on orange color.

The reason for the lights turning on is that I can see a visual representation of the problem as the USB fan is very quiet and as my desk is right next to the aquarium, I can see what is wrong without picking up my phone. I may adjust the phone message notification if it starts to notify me too often!

Moving
Then I moved everything out of the aquarium, untangled the electrical mess, moved it onto the cabinet, filled it all back up and put everything back in the aquarium.

The Finished Product

What Next
If you managed to get this far, then thank you for your time reading my thread. You may, like me, be thinking now it is moved, what next! Having kept corals for decades now, I never really got into SPS in a big way. Well that has changed and I would like to convert this to a SPS only or SPS majority nano. My problem in doing this is that nice colorful corals here in the UK are a little expensive and as I am quite careful with money, I struggle to spend a lot of money on corals. Therefore, although I love the colours you see with some SPS, I wonder if I can bring myself to spend the money! Hopefully, I will find a few bargains or frag swaps. This leaves the question on what to do with all the non SPS corals I have. I was thinking of setting up another nano but not having as much equipment attached to it but I know I would struggle not having dosing setup correctly, battery backup etc! Talking of equipment, I have been keeping an eye on the Tunze HUB equipment just coming out now. Although I do not need to replace the Tunze 9004 or the Tunze 6040 pumps, I like the idea of cloud connected and controllable equipment. If I setup another Nano aquarium, I could move my existing Tunze equipment over to that which would justify me purchasing the new Tunze HUB equipment for the Long Shallow Nano!

Whatever I do next, I will update this thread for those that are interested in following along.

 

[Clownfishy]

Just received the new Tunze 6040 HUB pumps to replace the older version currently running on the Long Shallow Nano aquarium :cool: Will provide an update once they are installed

 

[Huskereef]

Just received the new Tunze 6040 HUB pumps to replace the older version currently running on the Long Shallow Nano aquarium :cool: Will provide an update once they are installed

So how are they? Really thinking about replacing mp40 with these new hub version pumps

 

[neel]

This is a great record of you tank build. I am looking to do the same with a similar sized tank (opti clear 120). However I am new to the reefing world. I see you didn’t use a tuner filter p, just the skimmer. Is it enough just to have this skimmer. I am planning a more lps dominated tank with fish.

Your advice is greatly appreciated