CoralDanimal
Active Member
I’ve been out of the hobby for quite some time! My last tank was 6 years ago when I had a 34 gallon Solana (20” cube), but unfortunately when I moved to SF I wasn’t able to have a tank (no car, no LFS = no tank). I kept following Reef forums and I would do Google Sketch-up drawings of dream tanks, make ideal equipment lists, stock lists, etc. and I even went as far as learning how to drill tanks, plumb them, etc. even though I knew I couldn’t have a tank. Recently, however, I settled down in a new place and the passion to get back into the hobby was back and my beautiful fiancee was supportive (she’s always appreciated my inner marine nerd).
Once I had the green light, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right tank. I’m still renting so I can’t go for anything big (I’d love to do a drop off tank or large shallow lagoon one day) and although the IM tanks look cool, I really wanted a sump this time around to obfuscate as much equipment as possible while making the equipment easily accessible to tinker/clean/etc. There are very limited options for nano-sized reef ready tanks that are already plumbed for a sump setup. Ultimately it came down to Red Sea Reefer Nano vs. Elos Mini. I couldn’t justify the Elos Mini cost vs. what it offered so I went with the Reefer Nano (loving my decision so far if you’re curious).
Tank
Lighting
Circulation
Filtration
Other
Some reflective thoughts early on:
There’s not much to see yet, but I posted a picture below of my current setup. I really wanted to implement a clean cable management system, but given the sump is the exact same size as the tank I’m really limited on my options.
Once I had the green light, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right tank. I’m still renting so I can’t go for anything big (I’d love to do a drop off tank or large shallow lagoon one day) and although the IM tanks look cool, I really wanted a sump this time around to obfuscate as much equipment as possible while making the equipment easily accessible to tinker/clean/etc. There are very limited options for nano-sized reef ready tanks that are already plumbed for a sump setup. Ultimately it came down to Red Sea Reefer Nano vs. Elos Mini. I couldn’t justify the Elos Mini cost vs. what it offered so I went with the Reefer Nano (loving my decision so far if you’re curious).
Tank
- Red Sea Reefer Nano
- 18”x18”x18”
- 28 gallons (21 in display, 7 in sump)
Lighting
- AI Hydra 26 w/ AI mounting kit
- Kessil H80 Tuna Flora (Refugium light)
Circulation
- Sicce Syncra 2.0 return pump
- (2x) Vortech MP10 w/ Reeflink
Filtration
- Eshopps X-120 Axium w/ co2 scrubber reactor for air intake
- In-sump refugium
Other
- Neptune Systems Apex controller
- Neo-therm 75W heater
- Trigger Systems Ruby 5g ATO reservoir (Tunze Nano Osmolater)
- ~18 pounds of dry reef rock seeded with a couple pounds of live rock
- ~25 pounds of CaribSea Dry Aragonite Special Grade Reef Sand
Some reflective thoughts early on:
- I’d say the only thing I’m missing from the Reefer Nano is that I’d love to have a bigger refugium. Sometimes staring into them is almost as interesting as looking at the display tank. My dream fish is a Mandarin and a healthy pod population is essential for them so this is one of the reasons why I’m particularly obsessed with refugiums.
- Loving my first sump, but the extra convenience of what you can do with your equipment comes at the price of worrying about leaks, power outages, and having multiple failure points (return pump, plumbing leak, etc.). I don’t think I’ll go back to AIO tanks, but sumps aren’t as dreamy as I made them out to be in my head.
- This is my first venture in LED light and I absolutely love my AI Hydra (especially the app / web interface). Same can be said for the Vortech/Reeflink setup although I’ve used Vortechs in the past as well. This is my first time with a top tier controller (I’ve had a AC JR in the past). The price jump to the Apex is steep, but I understand the ROI now and I don’t think I’d go back to a smaller controller again unless Neptune released other wifi ready controllers. The web/mobile interface is amazing and gives great piece of mind. I’m also loving having the probes (although I’ve struggled a bit with trusting the salinity probe) and being able to monitor the relationships of ORP vs. pH as well as temperature vs. perceived salinity. I have a couple of vacations this year and Apex gives me the confidence that my tank can run on auto-pilot in my absence (I lost a frag tank in college from an ATO nightmare).
- Patience is a virtue. I worked at a great LFS through all of college and was mentored by a number of passionate & wise reef hobbyists and still I fell victim to moving too fast with this tank. It’s so hard to fight that urge when you get excited. I’m not proud to say this, but I didn’t wait for my tank to fully cycle before adding in livestock. I really hope for future tanks I can be more mature about this and give into the urge for that instant gratification.
- I never had a pH probe before so I didn't obsess about it until now and since mine was low (mid 7s), I kept exploring ways to raise pH. Running my protein skimmer airline outside isn't an option since I rent. Then I looked into CO2 scrubbers by BulkReefSupply. It's essentially a reactor you run your protein skimmer tubing into that houses CO2 absorbing media balls that change color with use. The downside I read was it runs through the media quickly and it's fairly expensive to replace. $50 for the media and it does 7 refills and I've read the media last 2 weeks so ~$15 a month. Not ideal but I figured it was worth a try. I hooked it up to my Axium X-120 skimmer yesterday (I put the canister behind the stand with the air tubing running to it) and well, it definitely works. I stay between 7.8 - 8.0 now.
- All of my favorite tanks are SPS heavy and naturally I thought that’s the direction I would want to go with this tank. I’m having second thoughts after having set up the tank however. There’s definitely an allure to the low maintenance world of LPS, softies, zoas, etc. especially since they can deliver the color diversity to give the tank that look that pops. I’m not afraid of work - I plan to do weekly 10% water changes, clean the glass every other day, rigorously test my water, change out reactor media, clean pumps, probes, etc., but I like that I wouldn't have to stress constantly about my calcium, alk, etc. levels. It also kind of sucks that SPS is so expensive and grows so slowly. I would probably want to get small colonies, but having a $200 mini-colony creates that water quality stress. We’ll see how it evolves, right now I have a couple of acroporas, a small millepora colony, a montipora cap, a torch coral, two different zoanthids, and some ricordia.
- My thoughts on livestock with regards to the fish have also changed since tank conception. As I mentioned previously, my dream fish is a Mandarin. After my tank is more established and I’ve seeded a copepod population, I would consider getting a captive bred Algae Barn Mandarin that is already eats frozen foods. To do that responsibly, I wouldn’t want to get any other fish that also consumes pods such as a wrasse which was the next fish I was considering (six-line or leopard) or midas blenny (I’ve always found their personalities so fun). We’ll see - I’m open to suggestions, but I don’t want to overstock or introduce anything aggressive.
There’s not much to see yet, but I posted a picture below of my current setup. I really wanted to implement a clean cable management system, but given the sump is the exact same size as the tank I’m really limited on my options.
