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!
- 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.
- 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.) |
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 |
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