Low Tech 10g Nano Reef-The beginnings

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Hey guys! Thought id just share an update

After posting an awful thread about "is my tank cycled in a week", I decided to turn off the lights and let everything chill. My last post was a couple months ago, and my tank should be cycled for sure. Confirmed with Salifert tests.

Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates- >100

Im not gonna lie. Keeping up with topping off in the desert is no joke. This beast drinks a vase full of water every week at least, and its hard to keep up with making rodi...I will admit, Ive been using regular drinking water instead of RODI for topoff but I havent had any mad algae blooms or anything questionable that is not normal to a normal cycle. I have a solution in mind:

Putting a glass lid on. This will conserve water the most but im concerned about how much light will get filtered out. I plan on buying a Nicrew Navareef 65w, and if i can use a glass lid and have minimal dropoff in PAR, that would be nice.

My second complaint is all the salt creep. I think putting a lid will mitigate this as well

Did a 50 percent WC and for that ill used rodi from a seahorse rodi filter

I understand people like tinkering with multiple gadgets and having skimmers and whatnot. But I literally have a cheap fluval internal filter rated for 30g in this build and a small current fan paired with a Nicrew Navareef 65w led light, and that's it. Take it or leave it, I believe you can keep a reef for the cheap and have it last a long time as long as you understand what you must buy and where you can skimp. Like, the aqueon 10s that are standard at petsmart are golden to me because of one thing: They don't leak like seamless aquariums might. Id rather have brackets than a leak, but that's just my cup of tea, Ive heard bad things about Red Sea seamless tanks...

Oh and no heater. My house stays at 75-76, and I think a 65w light will heat the aquarium to a couple more degrees, if at all

I plan on adding stock from my LFS, they have:

1x Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
1x Hermit Crab
2x Margarita snails

As for corals Im still undecided. I do want a green duncan coral cause they're cheap, but I need to read up more because i don't want coral warfare in this tank. Just a peaceful little 10 with some cool corals and some inverts is the plan. No fish, unless theres one that really fits 10 gallons.

Thanks for reading! All comments welcome. Any favorite corals for a 10g? Have a blessed day yall.

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Big shoutout to my dad for jerry rigging the Seahorse to a plank of wood and an old basket stand. I think it's a work of art, for rodi all I gotta do is attach it to our garden hose and run it, and we use the wastewater for our plants, so far so good, havent experienced anything negative on our plants yet.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you plan on running an ATO for your tank or just do it by hand?

You said there's no heater in your tank? Do you have a range of what you want your tank's temperature to be? I've seen some people run a tank without a heater, and I always find it interesting.

Following along, seems like a cool tank to watch as it progresses!

 

[Piotrek]

This will conserve water the most but im concerned about how much light will get filtered out.

Don't be. I have a glass lid and the light loss is negligible. Maybe 5%.
E.g Radion lights can be enhanced with a diffuser which is essential a cover as well.
The cover does need cleaning at least once a month. And if it's too close to water in will grow calcium overt it that would need to be scrubbed. And don't make it super tight, leave some space to breath.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I would remove that filter, honestly its unattractive and takes a lot of space and its totally pointless IMO, the rocks are the biofilter, and small weekly water changes will keep that tank in good shape.

I would add an auto-top off, if you don't want to sped $100 on an ATO system, at least get the bottle cap ATO from amazon for $20, that will save you the effort of topping off manually every day.

I would point that powerhead upwards to get some surface agitation going to help oxygenate the water, a flat water surface is not good.

Otherwise, it all looks good, good luck.

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Yeah, thats not a bad idea. I think instead of the box, ill add a powerhead to that side to agitate the surface more. As for ATO, ive been religiously doing that for months, its sort of been routine and is baked in my morning schedule, and Ive checked my salinity with a calibrated refractometer, its been at a stable 1.026. The only thing id change is topping off with RODI (as i should). I agree the box is an eyesore and yes a powerhead providing current to the surface will be better in the long term

As for the no heater, I live in the desert, and my house stays at 75-76 throughout the year. Im aiming for 76F, so I think a heater here would be negigible? Not too concerned about winter as it only reached like 44F last year, really balmy for the desert. If temperature is an issue I can always buy a heater. Im just super paranoid of them breaking all the time.

Next buys:
-Small powerhead
-Nicrew Navareef 65w
-Glass lid
-more Salifert tests (Cal, Mag, phosphorus, pH)

Thanks for the replies peeps. Really helps my scattered brain organize itself. Anything else I should buy before I get corals? Im confused as heck about dosing nutrients. I get that corals will uptake certain nutrients like nitrate, calcium, magnesium, and phosphate, and that has to be tested for and replenished as needed. Question is what do I buy?

I have these three that i was able to get on clearance in the photos below.

The reef pack fundamentals comes with three bottles: Reef Complete, Reef Carbonate, and Reef Plus. The back says Reef Complete provides calcium, magnesium, and strontium, Reef Carbonate maintains alkalinity, Reef Plus adds trace elements, vitamins, and amino acids.

The Reef Trace bottle seems to provide the same thing as Reef Plus, but looking at the bottle it provides things like boron, cobalt, and copper? I thought copper was toxic to shrimp, wouldnt this kill a scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp?

And the marine snow I believe is for target/broadcast feeding the corals, I dont intend to rely on just one type of food, I intend to cycle different offerings to my corals

Do I have nutrients covered or is there something better out there/ something I'm missing for dosing? Thanks again

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

I replaced the internal filter with a second circulation fan. The current at the surface is much more stronger, like 2x to 3x stronger than just the left circularion fan+internal. Unfortunately, removing the box has the side effect of the water column not clearing up. Even though the internal filter wasnt producing a lot of current. It was indeed, filtering out particulates in the water. I like the look of the 2 fans and no box, so I decided to run the internal filter in the middle until the water column clears up, then I will remove it

Kind of a ***** though because I have some green algae growing and it does not want to be sucked up in the vaccum. It just stays in the sand and when broken up, it grows wherever it lands. I am mitigating this problem by breaking up clumps of algae with a toothbrush wherever I can, and letting the wisps of algae get sucked into the filter, before I remove the filter altogether.

Ive added sort of a cleanup crew

Margarita snail x2
Blue leg hermit x1
Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp x1

Thinking of adding 3x trochus snails
The cleaner shrimp will be fed with mysis and bloodworms, if i read correctly they are more carnivorous than actual scavengers

I am considering adding a canister filter to solve the ugly internal filter problem while still having mechanical filtration. Its not too hard to setup the box in the tank and remove it, so this is low on the list of things I need.

My Nicrew Navareef is coming soon, and my lfs has some nice looking dragons breath algae. Excited! Think I might grab one because I think it'll look sick next to corals, but I dont know if theres any interaction with macroalgae and corals, so that's something ill be trying to learn as I study more

Cheers again

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Found this for sale and have seen success stories using Chemiclean. I intend to give this a try. Time to hook up the airstone

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

One thing I learned while using Chemiclean is you must agitate and remove persistent colonies of cyano with a brush, whether thats on the rocks or in the sandbed. Before, this practice would just cause the cyano to grow in spots where it broke up, but after dosing Chemiclean there is a noticible difference in the lack of regrowth of the cyano. This is at like the 30 hour mark.

It didnt seem like things were going to get better until i agitated everything in the sand and went to work with a toothbrush on the rocks.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

One thing I learned while using Chemiclean is you must agitate and remove persistent colonies of cyano with a brush, whether thats on the rocks or in the sandbed. Before, this practice would just cause the cyano to grow in spots where it broke up, but after dosing Chemiclean there is a noticible difference in the lack of regrowth of the cyano. This is at like the 30 hour mark.

It didnt seem like things were going to get better until i agitated everything in the sand and went to work with a toothbrush on the rocks.

What are you using to clean up the sandbed?

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

What are you using to clean up the sandbed?

I am manually agitating the sand bed with fingers and toothbrush and plan to siphon what ever is left out at post treatment water change

The cyano is barely regenerating at all so this time I think the siphon will do its job, vs spreading it around everywhere

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

After post treatment water change

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Tank 24hrs after the 48 hr treatment. Everything looking good and my animals are lively and ok. Now onto fixing the problem

I suspect it has something to do with my nitrates being too high and my phosphate being too out of wack but I'm still waiting on my Salifert calcium test kit to come in. I think the nitrates remained high even after a water change because of the recent treatments, the cyano died in my tank and caused a spike in nutrients.

Temp: 75F
Salinity: 1.026
pH: 7.8
kH: 7
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: >100
Phosphate: 0

Now I think here in order to reduce my nitrates I have to water change. But my lack of phosphates is also no bueno. How do I add phosphates to the tank? Is this where dosing comes in? I use RODI to make fresh saltwater, do I dose it and then add to tank? This is the part that confuses me about reefing, as I dont know what to give the tank in order to raise things like phosphate. Should I dose instead of water change? My mind is going to explode

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Decided to do a 90% water change. I figure this would bring down my nitrates from 100 ppm to around 10 ppm.

Indeed, the water change did bring down the nitrates, it tested to be around 15ppm-25ppm.

I bought AF Lab PO4+. A tiny dose every water change should give me the tiny bit of phosphate my system needs

I added dragons breath algae, as I like the look and it should keep nitrates lowered

My kH went down after the water change, so I dosed with a half cap of Reef Carbonate to compensate. This had the effect of raising it from 4.4 kH to 6.2 kH. Still on the low side. Strangely, my pH has went up from 7.8 to around 8.4, but this test isnt accurate. Sigh. Time to buy Salifert pH and kH tests...for a 10 gallon aquarium this is becoming a money sink. How the hell yall keep up with any reef tank over 30 gallons is beyond my thinking.

Trying to be as minimal as possible but realizing the things I need cost $$$ is putting a dent financially...

Anyways off with the rant, the strategy is this
-Keep bioload low and dose nitrates and phosphates during water change (if needed)
-Dose Reef Carbonate twice a week, half capful until my kH is around 8
-When I get corals I will monitor calcium and dose when needed
-Weekly 10%-20% water changes

As for corals, I am doing my best to study on what works and what doesnt. Seems like every coral engages in some sort of coral warfare. I have to avoid ones with sweeper tentacles as I have absolutely no room in a 10g to **** around with. One misplaced coral and its game over for one or both of them. Some of the ones I am planning on are:

-Green Duncan Corals. Needs some room but no sweeper tentacles. And green is my fave color anyways
-Pulsing Xenia. Uses fast growth to shade out competition. Ive personally seen tanks overrun with xenia but I think I can manage this with pruning
-Kenya Tree Coral. Uses chemical warfare to stunt coral growth around it. My weekly water changes should mitigate this
-Discosoma mushrooms. No sweepers and is considered peaceful
-Dendrophylla sun corals. Again, no sweepers and definitely like the color of these
-Zoanthids. A no brainer here.

 

[Subsea]

Advil,
Consider starting a tank journal in members tank forum.

With respect to heavy metals like copper & zinc, they are trace elements and are necessary. Partial water changes should maintain them.

With respect to phosphate at zero, that’s not a good thing. However, I doubt you have zero. Most likely is your test kit lower detection limit is not sensitive enough. In general, the food that you feed the tank will bring up nutrients required to grow ornamental macro algae.

What objection do you have to fish in your 10G display? Because fish poop is good nutrients for your Dragons Breath.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Here is a link to the section where you can make a build thread! You also get a badge next to your name that people can click, and it takes them straight to your build thread!

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/member-tanks.52/

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Here is a link to the section where you can make a build thread! You also get a badge next to your name that people can click, and it takes them straight to your build thread!

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/member-tanks.52/

Thanks. How exactly do I go about this? Can I copy and paste everything here into it? Or do I start a new thread over there? Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Subsea]

Start a new thread. Copy & paste what you choose.

On a separate note, why did you use chemiclean?

Thanks. How exactly do I go about this? Can I copy and paste everything here into it? Or do I start a new thread over there? Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Advil_LiquiGLs]

Start a new thread. Copy & paste what you choose.

On a separate note, why did you use chemiclean?

I had blue green cyano and was trying to break it up and siphon it out of the sand. Every time I tried siphoning it, the clumps would stick to the sand and be too heavy to siphon. These broken up clumps would then regen and it was starting to blanket the entire bed.

I started to freak out and asked my local lfs to help. He suggested chemiclean, and told me it would work, but the underlying factors would need to be addressed. I guess he sold me on it and I left with the Chemiclean in hand.

Going back and thinking, maybe I should have addressed the root of the problem first and then maybe the cyano would have gone away naturally? It was kind of a case of my inability to be patient, and the cyano was just spreading rapidly. Im not going to rely on Chemiclean. Hopefully that was one and done, and hopefully fixing my parameters will keep it away.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Thanks. How exactly do I go about this? Can I copy and paste everything here into it? Or do I start a new thread over there? Thanks for the help guys!

I actually can convert this into a build thread for you and link it to your profile! No big deal and you won't have to start a new thread!