Reef Casa Studio 12

[CaseyWagner]

I ordered my Studio 12 Tsunami back in October, just before I moved and didn't have the all clear to set it up at my new location until now.
Finally!

The Tsunami upgrade includes a Sicce Syncra Silent pump and dual head random flow generator, as well as three bags of carbon.

It's a really nice little tank. Glass body, leveling pad already attached to the bottom, acrylic weir for the overflow, refugium, and return pump.

Got started today by adding a 3lb container of dry sand, and a 5lb bag of Carib Sea live sand.

A friend in another city has been looking after my clowns and coral and crew, so I'll be able to throw some live rock in shortly with no prolonged wait for cycling or bacterial treatment.
Though I'm tempted to get Reef Stax rock just to create a prettier aquascape in the small space.

Lighting is currently a Hipargero Aqua Knight. Eventually hoping to put an AI Prime 16HD on it when I have the funds.

Will be repopulating it with various zoas, blue mushrooms, red monti cap, dorito chalice, duncan, BTA, xenia, gsp, pipe organ, and maybe a couple of others.
Ooh, can't forget my little orange plate coral. It'll be a while before it needs a bigger tank than this

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Hey there, you are off to a great start. What are your plans for the tank?

 

[CaseyWagner]

Putting a bunch of stuff that I had before I moved back into it
Not everything though, since I had a 40g before.
A friend is looking after my clowns, BTA, halloween urchin, and tiger serpent star. He'll probably keep the urchin and star.
I had candy canes, a duncan, a few zoas (king midas and some other unidentifieds), xenia, gsp, kenya tree, flaming dorito chalice, a blue/green chalice, blue mushrooms, favia, cyphastrea, orange plate coral, red monti cap, and pipe organ. I think that's everything.
It was a huge pile of candy cane, so I'll probably just start with a frag in this tank. Told my friend whose been holding on to everything to frag everything he wants and I'll take the smaller pieces for starting over.
Plus he's got some leathers and stuff that I don't have

So it's pretty much going to be an instant garden, but need to fill in over time.

 

[CaseyWagner]

Bio Media being used is the standard fare included in an Eheim canister filter.
I just rebagged it to use in the fuge.
I've also got a large bio-brick that I can cut down to size but, seeing as it was used in my previous sump, it's probably loaded with nutrients at the moment, so I'll probably stick it outside to cure in a bucket when the weather becomes warmer before I use it.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank looks great so far!!! Best of luck with it!

 

[saltnut]

Any updates?

 

[CaseyWagner]

Had to wait to the end of the month to make an order for new rock
Have some Stax rock coming this week, and 2 Little Fishies shaped frag mounts.

 

[CaseyWagner]

Today's update:

I got the Sicce Syncra 1.0 nano pump as an upgrade on the tank, and it has great flow but it's ridiculously noisy. This isn't at all usual for them from how I've seen others rave about their quietness and build quality, so I contacted Sicce about it just to see if I needed to fiddle with / or replace the impeller or something. They're sending me a new pump instead. Stellar service!

Also received a box of FragStax rock from @Fragbox Corals, and some Two Little Fishies 'Little Feet", smaller pieces of cut rock suitable for mounting large frags, colonies, or building up the FragStax rock.

Here's two possible scapes I've looked at. There's enough rock to scape another nano (tempting!)

Both have a shade shelf for the nem or other colonies that might need it.

Which ones would you all go with.

Tank will be largely zoas, mushrooms, maybe leathers, duncans, xena, GSP, pipe organ, some small encrusting corals, and a BTA. There's enough small rock to make islands for GSP/Xenia

 

[CaseyWagner]

 

[CaseyWagner]

I did ammonia tests on this cycle the last couple of days using a Red Sea test, and consistently got BLUE as a result.
Not light green, not dark green.
It went from a beautiful transparent blue to a deep sapphire blue over the 15 minute test window.
That was... weird.
In the past I got the normal shades of green results with it, when cycling, and then no detectable ammonia at all once stable.

So I threw a seachem Alert tag in today just to see if my ammonia value is some crazy level. Nope! It's right where it should be (.02 ppm) . Cycling's going well.

I've found other posts across forums by people whose results gave a surprising blue color.
In this case my test kit was discounted because it was past the sell-by date when I got it. (Pandemic led to a lot of discounted older products). And it's been consistently accurate until now. So I'm going to assume something oxidized or changed in some other way.

And I don't need to be freaked out that something weird was suddenly happening in the tank after throwing in the rock with StoneFix on it.

Whew! So for anyone setting up a tank for the first time, if you get a wildly unexpected result on a test - don't panic.
Double check it another way. Contamination, oxidation, or other factors might skew your results. So don't undo your existing work to start over unless you've got at least one second opinion.

 

[CaseyWagner]

Nitrite is 0, Nitrate is 50.
Time for a water change!
Bacteria gobbled up the ammonia and nitrite quickly. Woot!

Can go pick up my clowns and corals shortly from my friend who's been looking after them

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Nice looking aquascape!!

 

[CaseyWagner]

I got the new pump from Sicce the other day, and it's dead quiet. Very happy with it.
Their customer service is top notch.

Hoping to be able to make the trip to Toronto this weekend to pick up my clowns and coral and get this tank live.

 

[CaseyWagner]

New occupants:

 

[CaseyWagner]

 

[CaseyWagner]

 

[saltnut]

Looks great. You have a nice selection of corals. Should be even better as they grow. Did you start adding corals in February or did you just put all of those in yesterday?

 

[CaseyWagner]

Looks great. You have a nice selection of corals. Should be even better as they grow. Did you start adding corals in February or did you just put all of those in yesterday?

I put the Duncan in back in Feb. Most of the rest were being held by me for a friend, because when I moved across country I got here and got told "no aquarium" and had to find a safe place for my coral fast.
So a Twitter friend 3 hours away took them, my clowns, anemone, urchin, serpent star, etc. in for me.
This tank is a lot smaller so couldn't get it all back, but this is a nice collection to work from.
Corals have been in this tank two weeks now and I'm seeing noticeable growth all over, so yay!

 

[CaseyWagner]

I haven't seen the emerald crab since the clowns went in. He had a bunch of hiding spots so I'm assuming he's tucked away somewhere. I liked seeing him out and about before.

 

[saltnut]

Coral growth already, that's great. So, your happy for now with the Hipargero. I have an A29 that grew softies and LPS fine. In a nano I like growth but not too fast. I have the halo light on a studio 12. It also grows softies and LPS fine. I have a test SPS in the middle of the tank right under the light.
Mack at Fragbox is great.