Shallow Long Nano Build

[Clownfishy]

The Journey​

I have been reef keeping for nearly 30 years and like most people who have been in the hobby for a while, I have had all sorts of reef aquariums from nano’s to a big 8 foot aquariums and everything in between! This nano was based on a decision to downsize from a 200 litre (52.8 US Gallons) reef aquarium I had run for 8 years. Not a big aquarium by any stretch and although I had no problems growing corals, I never really got it to a point I was happy with this aquarium. In the end, I decided to give up the room where the aquarium was for my daughter to use as a dressing room/office and setup a new aquarium in the upstairs hallway where we could all see it as we move around the house. The end result is this (picture taken 4 weeks after setup)

To get to this point, I went from this aquarium, sold off a lot of my corals and gave away most of the rock.

Moved remaining livestock to this temporary tank!

Installed the new nano aquarium.

I got my water making system ready!

Installed my Apex probes, Tunze 6040 pumps and heaters.

Added my dosing lines from the cabinet up to the aquarium.

Added dosing cabinet

Installed my control panel.

What No Sump?​

As my aquarium is upstairs, I am paranoid about water leaks. Therefore, this aquarium does not have a sump so no water leaves the glass box. It also does not have a filtration compartment in the back of the aquarium as I believe these take up too much space for such little gain.

The Cabinet​

• The aquarium was built to fit the cabinet which was purchased from a reclamation business already painted in a modern colour. I sectioned the inside in half. Half for the aquarium equipment and half for storing family towels and bedding etc. Drilled 3 holes in the back of the cupboard to route cables and allow plenty of air flow. The top part of the cupboard contains the equipment including the control board and the bottom half for the doser, dosing containers and UPS battery backup for the heater heater.

Redundancy​

Why I hear you say would you add this level of redundancy to a nano? Well -

• They are animals so they deserve our best care.
• I sometimes have to travel abroad and you know what it is like, you walk out the door and something stops working! Therefore, I wanted it to be as failsafe as possible
• I do not want a man made disruption to kill my animals e.g. power outage
• Corals and fish are becoming more expensive so it would be expensive if I had to replace all the corals and fish
• I work in IT so I am always looking for ways to prevent single points of failure and that seems to have extended into my hobby!

With all this redundancy, hopefully, my nano reef would stay alive even if -

• Heater failed (second heater would take over)
• A heater stuck in the on position (the Apex would switch it off once it raised the temperature before reaching a high level and then other heater would continue when needed
• The UPS would run the heater for a while in the event of a power failure. I live in the UK so this is important if you have a power failure in the cold of winter
• A pump failure as the other pump would continue
• A battery failure as the other battery would power the other pump
• A battery charger failure as the other battery charger would charge the other battery
• Apex Energy Bar failure as my second equipment is powered by the second Energy Bar
• A light failure as the second light would still work. Although one side of the aquarium would be much dimmer, it would receive some light.

To better illustrate the redundancy, here is an example of ensuring there is flow in the nano reef regardless of failure. I have yet to do the math, but the reef aquarium would still have flow for approx 24-48 hours even if I lost a pump, a battery, a safety connector or a battery charger failure.

• Each Tunze 6040 power head is plugged into its own Energy Bar.
• Has its own 20AH battery and Tunze Safety Connector
• Each 20AH battery has its own charger

Future Plans​

• Investigate quieter doser or soundproof the doser cabinet so I do not hear it at night when it is dosing kalkwasser
• Investigate redundancy in dosing. Currently if my doser dies, my alk and calcium would plummet which would not be good.
• Power a 100w heater automatically for 24/48 hours in the event of a power outage. It can get cold in the UK during winter and I don't want to worry about heat when the power goes out. Thinking of purchasing a Jackery battery pack https://www.jackery.com/pages/portable-power-stations
• Investivage an algae reactor to run on reverse daylight to help support pH at night. The only issue with this would mean I am breaking one of my rules of sending water outside the glass box to go into the algae reactor!
• Consider moving from bare bottom to a thin layer of sand. I like the fact that I can easily clean the detritus from the tank each week but you gotta love a reef with sand!
• Switch out the last remaining pieces of my old rock. I received this rock from someone else's aquarium and even after 8 years, it appears to be leaching phosphate. Alternatively, start dosing NOPOX
• Sell off all the last remaining soft corals and replace with lps and some sps

Aquarium Dimensions​

	Width	Height	Depth	Volume
External	115cm (45.28")	30cm (11.81")	30cm (11.81")	103.5 liters (27.3 U.S. gallons)
Internal	113cm (44.49")	28cm (11.02")	28cm (11.02")	88.6 liters (23.4 U.S. gallons.)

10mm glass opti-white (starphire) glass

​

Aquarium Equipment​

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	PowerWalker UPS
Doser	Coralbox
Computer Controller	Neptune Apex 2016 2 x EB6 (UK energy bar)
Aqara Hub	Water sensor (detect if doser leaks)

Water Chemistry​

Salt	Fritz Reef Pro Mix (blue box)
Temperature	25c (77f)
pH	7.8 - 8.1
Alkalinity	8
Calcium	450
Magnesium	1450
Potassium	430
Nitrate	5 - 10
Phosphate	0.1 - 0.2 (now dosing NOPOX)
Water Changes	20% per week

Dosing​

Alkalinity	Soda ash (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	15ml over 24 hours
Calcium	Calcium Chloride (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	6ml over 24 hours
Trace	Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt	3ml over 24 hours
Kalkwasser	Calcium hydroxide	125 - 300ml when lights are off.

Fish​

Azure Damselfish x 2	Chrysiptera hemicyanea
Six Line Wrasse	Pseudocheilinus hexataenia
Common Clownfish x 2	Amphiprion ocellaris
Green Reef Chromis x 7	Chromis viridis
Cleaner Shrimp x 2	Lysmata amboinensis

 

[blaxsun]

This is without a doubt the most tricked out nano tank I've seen...

 

[Clownfishy]

This is without a doubt the most tricked out nano tank I've seen...

Many thanks. I keen to continue to improve it ;-)

 

[TriggersAmuck]

Awesome looking tank and solid engineering by the looks of it! Got to love the mindset of somebody involved in high reliability computing!

 

[TriggersAmuck]

Great application of those Jackery power stations. I had come across those researching through hiking, and now I'm thinking these are perfect for hurricane proofing my tanks here in Florida!

 

[MillennialReefer]

This tank is brilliant! For the past few years I've been running my systems (a mixed reef and a fowlr) very simialr to yours, using exclusively all tunze! However, yours is grade A/sophisticated with the organization and precision to details! I wish more reefers could start implementing a similar approach to your way of running a reef. Its always either a system with a sump or and AIO with a chamber, but rarely the another way. Please show us updates would love to see how it goes!

 

[Clownfishy]

This tank is brilliant! For the past few years I've been running my systems (a mixed reef and a fowlr) very simialr to yours, using exclusively all tunze! However, yours is grade A/sophisticated with the organization and precision to details! I wish more reefers could start implementing a similar approach to your way of running a reef. Its always either a system with a sump or and AIO with a chamber, but rarely the another way. Please show us updates would love to see how it goes!

Thank you so much for the praise and yes, I will keep updating this thread with the progress. I am really pleased with the Tunze Safety Connectors. I had a power cut for 5 hours the other day and apart from wrapping the aquarium in a duvet to keep some heat in (it is Winter here in the UK!), the pumps did not miss a beat and they kept the water moving and oxygenated. The UPS was still going but I am not sure how much the heater was kicking in with the duvet wrapped round the tank!

I have never been a fan of AIO as I think the chambers take too much room in a nano. Granted, they can look a bit cleaner as you can hid more equipment but my rock and corals will end up hiding heaters, skimmer etc.

Glad you liked it.

 

[XLReefer525]

Love it. Sorry if I missed it but what tank is that you have and where did you buy it? I really like those dimensions!!

 

[Clownfishy]

Love it. Sorry if I missed it but what tank is that you have and where did you buy it? I really like those dimensions!!

I had it made by ND Aquatics in the UK to fit the cabinet it sits on. I love long low narrow tanks.

 

[XLReefer525]

I love it too. That is a great size you have there!

 

[Clownfishy]

I love it too. That is a great size you have there!

Thanks. I was going to have it build slightly deeper decided to go narrow. Although I cannot create as much depth to the corals, I kinda like small islands of corals along the tank. As you can see, I have a few places on the base to fit some more corals to hide the base glass as I will not be using any sand. Just on the look out for some acans.

 

[TroutWithLegs]

Awesome setup here! I love the very well thought out design for life support and redundancy.

 

[Clownfishy]

Awesome setup here! I love the very well thought out design for life support and redundancy.

Thanks, it has already saved me from a 5 hour power outage I had recently!

 

[Clownfishy]

It is exactly 1 month since I posted the setup and build of my shallow long nano reef. In that time, I have added some more fish and a few coral frags so I will be doing a separate post about the livestock in the near future. I wanted this update to be about water parameters and the general running of the reef. On the whole, I am really pleased with how the nano is running. The water flow, skimmer, heaters are working flawlessly and nothing on the equipment side has changed. I have had 2 power outages since setting up the aquarium and the reef did not miss a beat with both Tunze’s 6040 pumps switching to battery and the UPS taking over powering the 100 watt heater.

I have started to increase the white led intensity 1% every 2 weeks, just to take some of the blue (which I run at 100%) out of the display. The white is currently at 16% and I will take it to either 20% - 25% depending how the corals look. As I have mainly lps, they tend not to like too much white light. I have also increased my light duration from 6am to 9pm. This may seem a long light duration however, as you can see, the lights take a long time to ramp up and remain just blue at 65% between 6am - 9am and 18:00 to 21:00, starting and ending at 1%. I did this as I was finding the pH was dropping a bit too low at night so this has helped keep the pH a little higher for a little longer.

Water quality is OK but I am still balancing the parameters as you can see below. Too early for an ICP test so I will wait around the 6 month and then 12 month mark to see how things are going and if I keep with the Fritz salt which I am currently very pleased with.

I am thinking of installing my Apex DOS to start dosing NOPOX rather than doing this manually each evening. It looks like I will need to continue dosing NOPOX rather than it being a short term fix to keep my phosphates in check. As the nano is heavily stocked, NOPOX looks like the answer to maintain Phosphates and Nitrates

I plan to hunt out a few more lps coral frags over the next few weeks and as mentioned, I will follow up shortly on a post about the livestock. What I can say at the moment is that I am loving the new nano. In fact I prefer this to some of the larger reef aquariums I have kept in the past! Ask me again in a few months when my corals are growing too big and I may feel differently but at the moment, I am very pleased with the setup.

Dosing​

Dosing	Type	Last Months Dosage	Todays Dosage
Alkalinity	Soda ash (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	15ml over 24 hours	*14.5ml over 24 hours
Calcium	Calcium Chloride (Randy Holmes-Farley recipe)	6ml over 24 hours	10.5ml over 24 hours
Trace	Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt	3ml over 24 hours	**10.5ml over 24 hours
Kalkwasser	Calcium hydroxide	125 - 300ml when lights are off	200 - 225ml When lights are off

*Please see this thread regarding my temporary increased Alkalinity consumption https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/high-alk-consumption.875041/
**I stopped dosing the trace elements for approximately 2 weeks as I thought that was driving my Magnesium too high but that does not seem to have been the case.

Alkalinity
I wanted to push my alk up to 9 which matches the Fritz salt thus avoiding any alk changes during the 20% weekly water changes. As you can see, since mid December, I have slowly been increasing the dosage and I am now at that level. The peak around the 4th December occurred when my alkalinity consumption was going through the roof for some reason. For those that are interested in this, here is the post that I tried to work out why this was the case
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/high-alk-consumption.875041/

Calcium
My calcium has remained quite high so I have been bringing this down a little. Anecdotally, I have noticed my Magnesium stays high when I have high Calcium so maybe someone with far more knowledge than I could confirm if there is a relationship there.

Magnesium
Remains high but I am not going to make any drastic changes yet and see if this slowly drops.

Nitrate
On the 28th November I started measuring Nitrates with the new Hanna High Nitrate checker to give me a more accurate reading. I was previously using Salifert Nitrate test kit hence the sudden jump.

pH
pH is a not as high as I would like so I am still thinking about how I could increase this especially at night. I have noticed the new location where the nano reef is now situated, there are no windows near by and the C02 is higher in that part of the house. I have a C02 scrubber on the Tunze 9004 DC but will be investigating what else I can do.

Temperature
The heaters are amazingly accurate and as you can see, the temperature only moves by point of a degree. The only drifts are when I take the acrylic cover off the nano which lets the heat drop a small amount.

Well that is it for now but I will follow up with further updates over the coming weeks/months.

 

[Fatrip]

Great looking tank. Nice documentation as well.

 

[Clownfishy]

Great looking tank. Nice documentation as well.

Many thanks, I try and provide a lot of information in the hope it will help others and prompt questions. I hope to provide an update on the livestock in the coming weeks.

 

[Clownfishy]

Just added my Apex DOS to automatically dose NOPOX. I thought dosing NOPOX would be a temporary solution but as I am now up to 2ml a day consistently, I wanted to automate it and with a spare Apex DOS gathering dust, I decided to connect it back up to the Apex. I have not used it for my main dosing as I find the Apex DOS soooooooo loud so have been using the CoralBox for Alk, Cal, Trace and Kalk.
With my stocking levels as high as they are, NOPOX seems to be keeping the Phosphate and Nitrates at reasonable levels.

 

[MillennialReefer]

This is all so brilliant!!

 

[akau]

You can definitely tell you work in IT! Your system looks incredible!

 

[Clownfishy]

Another addition to the cabinet. Moved my Awair air monitor into the actual cabinet to monitor the C02 and temperature. I am going to install a couple of fans in the back of the cabinet to kick in when the Awair detects the temperature getting too high.