- Joined
- Mar 4, 2018
- Messages
- 134
- Reaction score
- 110
holy moly a soccer ball?!?
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holy moly a soccer ball?!?
Your thread has been quiet for quite a while. I found it searching for ideas to improve my refugium on my 170. Did you actually add an H160? I have been thinking about this for the area you are lighting with the H380.
Thanks for the reply. Would like to seen an updated pic.
I need better refugium growth to compete against display algae. My current h80 doesn’t get the job done. I have hesitated to get the H380 due to heat and general overkill. I’ve been hoping the H160 could be the seeet spot.
Hey, nice tank! Im setting up a reefer nano and im trying to decide on flow. I was thinking of picking up an mp10 and running it on the back wall. Do you think if i only run one that i would need to place it on the side of tank for proper flow? Idealy I would like to hide the dry side on the back of the tank however function is more important for me in this case...
Beautiful tank!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
- Red Sea Reefer Nano
- 18”x18”x18”
- 28 gallons (21 in display, 7 in sump)
Circulation
- AI Hydra 26 w/ AI mounting kit
- Kessil H80 Tuna Flora (Refugium light)
Filtration
- Sicce Syncra 2.0 return pump
- (2x) Vortech MP10 w/ Reeflink
- 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.
Right now i only have a few pieces that will be moving into the tank and i will be stocking once its up and running. Mainly sps. I ordered an mp10 today actually. I can only afford one right now so hopefully if i play will placement it will be enough until i have some extra cash!Nice - love the RSR Nano and hope you like yours. I run two at around 50% max during the day, 30% lagoon during the night. Most of my coral is SPS and I think the two MP10s on the back wall are sufficient. What kind of corals do you have in your tank?
Tank looks great. Adding 4 more T5s to that nano sounds a little nutty to me. You’ve overkilled the PAR already!Long overdue update! Solid growth continues and I'm really happy with the tank (although I almost bought a 170 to upgrade slightly on Black Friday ;Greedy). Updates:
Recently my big acropora tenuis colony became dislodged from the rock work. I tried to chip off the frag puck it came on because it's big and cumbersome to mount, but that was a mistake. One whack with the hammer and chisel and one of the biggest branches of the acro just fell off. I didn't know what to do with the accidental frags and I really really don't like having anything on the sandbed (would sell the acan in a heartbeat) so I decided to buy one of those magnet rocks as a way to make more out of my tiny tank without the sandbed clutter. I've honestly never had real success with 2-part epoxy even when combining with super glue, but I bought the Ecotech Marine coral mounting gel and it is amazing!
Before:
After:
This is also the second time in as many months that I've had to move the rockwork to the left to make space for the big green blue-rimmed monti cap on the right hand side. I have one of those magfloats and when it starts to make contact with the monti, that's when I move it. Here's a better picture of the beast:
Also, here's a side profile picture of the magnet rock:
Last update: I did buy the 24" Aquatic Life T5 w/ LED retrofit so I could toss 4x24" T5s alongside the Radion XR30, but I'm not sure how to mount it. The screws for the mount are huge, but the Red Sea stand is fairly thin. Anyway - unclear if I'm going to go through with it or not (plus I don't think I actually need more PAR output anyway).