The 10 gallon makeshift nano

[Andrewalex11]

I'd like to formally introduce my 10 gallon makeshift reef, currently it's almost done with its cycle and I'm coming to R2R to guide me through the next exciting phase of life for this project.

The equipment used on this 10 gallon was going to be a medium tech. But I've found the low tech design I had made was much more efficient, so this design follows the keep it simple stupid rule.

Filtration: Modified Aqueon 20 with many years seeded bio-media from my LFS. And floss for polishing. (Have a sump but the HOB takes up less room including the heater)

Flow: I can't really make an argument on reliability or controllability, but using a SUNSUN circulation power head that was for 7 dollars you can't really beat it, but I hate the suctioncup model so I've upgraded to the magnetic for a few bucks extra. The flow provides 525 GPH which is a little much considering the filter alone puts out around 200 GPH from the specs I've gathered. In total the highest flow available for this 20 inch long tank is around 700 GPH. (Probably going to get a smaller Circ pump and move this one to my 29 gallon).

Media: 5.5 Lbs of LR directly from a system running for many years, as well as 4lbs of dry rock I've done this out of pure interest to watch corraline grow! Also I've used some fine sand that I can not find the brand of right now but it was not live at all so it greatly extended the cycling process with a 2" deep bed.

Lighting: The Current USA Orbit Marine PRO LED was probably the perfect choice, it was cheap and powerful enough to handle pretty much any type of coral I will want to put in the system.

Purposely let diatom bloom spread pretty good over my dry rock on purpose, just to get it going done and over with, and so I know that my CUC will have something to eat in their new home and the silica is being feasted upon.

The temperature is at a perfect constant 79 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cycle I'm anticipating should be done any moment now considering my data gathered:

And here is the setup:

More coming soon ! Any help with CUC ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Nice tank!
Emerald crabs, trochus snails and peppermint shrimp are my favorites

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Elegant and simple. I like it!

 

[Andrewalex11]

The cycle had ended on Saturday night, and I had allowed the system to run a full day with just the new bacteria on Sunday. For those who are wondering what a fully cycled aquarium looks like from start to water change here it is:

Approx: 27 Days to cycle with just 5lbs of live rock from the LFS uncured, sand and other rock was all completely dry.

First inhabitants:

1 Skunk Shrimp or "Cleaner Shrimp" (Juvenile)
1 Nassarus Snail (Adult Large)
1 Blue banded hermit (Juvenile)

The snail is doing work and enjoying the diatoms I had let go wild, meanwhile the hermit is super lazy just sunbathing on top of the rock work for most of the day. Meanwhile in his new home I can tell the Shrimp loves the hospitality I've provided for him, and he takes well to flake food which is pretty cool considering I have a ton of it left over from the cycle process.

Going to wait until after the next water change to add the first fish and possibly coral! Just want to be sure I have enough cash because spoiler alert: I will be dosing for my corals most likely off an auto dosing system of some sort.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Cool chart

 

[Andrewalex11]

Alright everyone it's been a little while since the last update mostly because my priorities are work, school, and actually managing my reef (as well as my other animals). A lot has happened since last week though!

We added some new livestock, and it's looking healthy and wonderful!

- Green Star Polyps
- BamBam Zoanthids
- Mocha Clown fish

Was a decent 20 minute drive away, so everything was closed up nice and tight by the time I got home especially after dipping them.
I used CoralRX to dip with in a small set of tupperwares. There was a crazy amount of crud that came off in the initial soak, and then I had proceeded to clean off with some freshly made saltwater and and oral syringe to blast every last crack I could get into on these corals.

I must be doing something right! Because the clownfish is super happy, my Shrimp and other life is doing amazing! Not to mention the colors and how fast the corals opened only 24 hours after glueing them in was amazing. More corals and possibly a new fish going in next week! Stay tuned.

 

[Andrewalex11]

So Monday was finally upon us and it was finally time to take a trip to the LFS for some new goodies! No pictures as of yet stay tuned for some tonight or possibly tomorrow my new additions are still being very shy and there's not much to show!

For the passed 3 weeks since the ecosystem has been cycled and running with life inside of it my Nitrates seem to cruise at a steady 10ppm no matter what, I'm sure they would rise but we do a 20% water change every Monday. With that being said I want that level at 0ppm at least for the first portion of the week after a water change. We upgraded our filtration system to run with Chemi-pure Blue in hopes for better water parameters.

The zoanthids have been half-open for the passed week as well and the clownfish showed some struggle moving about the aquarium he mostly hid in the rockwork out of the flow from the powerhead. To me this seemed to be an issue with too much water-movement considering the GSP is thriving hard under the lighting system that I have creating about 4 new noticeable polyps last week alone. So we bought a Hydor Koralia 240 GPH power head to replace the 525 eBay power head that we thought we could get away with. We went with the Koralia because it's not only popular, reliable, and affordable, but the controller add-on is a great goal to set for a future upgrade with an adjacent 240 (or smaller) to simulate natural changing currents. Also the Hydor system will probably be upgraded and put on our big tank project which is in the planning phase right now and then swapped for a Tunze Nano stream on this tank.

So with new filtration, good lighting, and upgraded flow, the only thing left was to increase our Calcium, Mg, and Alk, we don't dose on this small tank since water changes are weekly, the instant ocean reef crystals contain enough nutrients for now. The salinity has been raised for 1.024 to 1.026 giving our corals plenty of food to thrive.

As for new life we dipped ourselves a nice Clove polyp frag. It actually was hanging by a thread and was actually 2 frags so I just took a knife and cut the cord. Can't beat 2 for the price of 1.

We also introduced a simple fire fish to brighten up our reef, he is absolutely scared right now but he seems to be peeking up a bit since the cleaner Shrimp found him in a hold and began cleaning off his scales, after that he hasn't been so shy. I have to say my cleaner Shrimp is the nicest most friendly creature he climbed all over my hand during tank matinance, he absolutely loves me for some reason. So with him showing the way for the fire fish I'm sure by the time I return tonight he will be out with the clownfish playing in the current.

New update coming soon with some pictures and probably a test of water parameters.

 

[Andrewalex11]

Oh and an update: The zoanthids enjoy the upgraded circulation pump as well, they are fully stretched open all the way, it took some trial and error with the placement of the new pump but we got it! Can't wait to see that colony begin to grow!

 

[Andrewalex11]

Here we go after some lighting adjustments (the orbit marine pro was too powerful) I didn't want to re-arrange my corals and stress them out so instead I decided to come to them instead and re-adjust my lighting position as well as power.

At 40% White light (Ch 1)
& 70% Blue light (Ch 2)

I've managed to put the corals under the following par levels (These are not exact as I used a cheap luxmeter)

Cloves - 200 PAR
GSP - 300 PAR
BB Zoas - 300 PAR

Here's some pictures as an update to my last post sorry it took so long, the Clove polyps were not liking the new lighting which is why I went through a major adjustment it was difficult to tend to their needs and keep to the needs of the thriving Star Polyp at the same time.

Those are only a few new heads on the GSP that you can see, the picture does no justice to how many new polyps have really grown. And if you see in the bottom right corner of the zoas a new head is beginning to form! Hopefully soon with these better parameters for them to live under it won't take long!

Definitely much cleaner look with the wirehiders in place now as well for my no-background based aquarium. The absence of a background gives it a nice feeling that is bigger than a 10 gallon which is why I chose to go that path!

 

[Andrewalex11]

So last night I had come home to a Clown who wasn't looking so good, after placing him in QT I've pretty much come to the conclusion he caught Brooklyn. Without any formaldehyde on hand and it being about 12am there was really not much I could do except wait until the morning. He didn't make it through the night in his hospital tank unfortunately.

As far as the DT the firefish goby looks excellent but I want this parasite problem gone. So today I'm going to probably set up a 1.5 gallon pico FOWLR just for him to hangout in for the next 6 weeks. Everything else is looking excellent the tank is just slightly a mess due to moving things around to handle the disease outbreak last night.

Very upset I lost that clown definitely probably going to stay away from that store for a while. But I will be contacting them today letting them know what had happened so they can keep an eye out for anything weird happening.

The corals are looking excellent though! So we will just focus on those for a while to take our mind off a tragic loss !

Cloves exploding with 3 new heads!

 

[Andrewalex11]

Update since the terrible incident with a sick fish that couldn't be saved:

Another incident had occurred with my filter motor burning out! Literally the same day I had preformed the most unsatisfying early water change ever after my clownfish but the dust! So as I wait for a new AquaClear 50 to roam on through I made a really on the spot DIY HOB "filter" it really is just a pump that flows water down underneath a baffle I made out of some spare acrylic and flows up through two nano chemi-pure blues and one phosphate / silicate bag from purigen. And I have to say it is working perfectly! It must be suffocating the diatoms silicate source because my sand is clear as the day I had put it in. And as for the chemi-pure that's working great too. My nitrates have dropped from an avg. of 10ppm to 5ppm.

Wanted to experiment with different temperatures as well so I bought a Hydor 100w heater which fits perfectly against the side panel as it lays parallel to the base of the tank which saves me a ton of space. It's set at 81 degrees right now from its original 78 and the evaporation has picked up hardcore, my SL was at 1.028 this morning with a very low water line. I managed to patch that up with my distilled water jug (took about 1/4 a gal) and swung it down to 1.026. I don't really have anything in there that I think would care if I shot the salinity down like that it would be devastating so don't worry. But this does mean I will be ordering an ATO system as well to maintain this now as well.

After all this was said and done I can say we are back to a lovely reef that is responding great to it's surroundings!

 

[Andrewalex11]

I know the zoanthids are placed a bit high but I've acclimated them to these lights and they are responding a lot better up there for some reason. I'm not enjoying this frag that much though and will be getting some different more colorful and responsive zoas soon. I know they are happy because they grew 3 heads in the passed 2 weeks and open up nice and wide! Hopefully they respond better and I don't get rid of them now that they are glued down they hate getting knocked into by my Shrimp, crab, and really everything.. they really like beating up my zoas by just paying no attention that they are there and bumping into them.

Snails out! He comes right up when it's time for a mysis Shrimp feeding.

 

[Andrewalex11]

Those ugly cords are all tucked away now into the wire hiders sorry for a crappy shot of that

 

[Andrewalex11]

So I figured with the bareness of whats been going on in my tank I'd share with you all which pieces of equipment I swapped out for different brands and why. Also an inside look on the future of this tank. So let's get started.

#1 The SunSun Ebay powerhead - My god this thing was garbage, though thought to be effective after the 35th day or so when I finally introduced my clown he was getting blown all over the place like crazy. My Zoa's HATED the flow this thing put out. The magnetic backing on it was so powerful that it literally would slam against my glass if I had ever put it back after a cleaning which seriously scared the hell out of me thinking it was going to bust the glass. STAY AWAY from these very cost effective stunt doubles for powerhead's on eBay. NOT WORTH IT, Literally 15 - 20 dollars more and you have yourself a Hydor.

Picture of the crappy eBay powerhead:

#2 Tetra pre-set heater - Very cost efficient, actually pretty reliable as long as you use it correctly and let the thermostat set in the water for a while before switching it on. Also very durable and slim. So why didn't I like this product? Well in the reefing world it's important to experiment with water parameters to find that just right spot for everything in your tank and temperature is one of the biggest factors in that! So a pre-set heater really doesn't do it that well. And again for around the same price Hydor's got your back with some quality heaters for almost the same price.

Picture of Tetra preset heater

#3 Aqueon LED HOB filter - These guys are really easy to clean and take apart, as well as to modify for custom filtration media. But they have one serious fault: Them motor LOVES to burn out, I've had two of these burn out on me in the passed few months and I'm done with it. You'll pay more in the end buying these things constantly I'm not even sure if there is any replacement motors for sale? I think you have to replace to whole unit. The only points I'll give to this filter is the fact that it is dead silent and pretty sleek looking.

Picture of the Aqueon filter

As you can read from above and follow the build thread I've replaced all of these with the following:

#1 Hydor Koralia 240GPH - Provides great flow evenly, doesn't try to break my glass either when I stick it back on after a cleaning. I can keep the flow going during feedings and no one seems to mind it at all.

#2 Hydor 100watt adjustable heater - I now have the opportunity to crank up the heat a bit which I did to find the best temperatures to provide for my sea-life. One down side to this heater though it is not as stable as the preset but nothing that swings so hard I couldn't keep an acro or something in there.

Future plans:

AquaClear 50 - 70.
HydroFill ATO
More Zoa's
Cynarina
Ricordea Shrooms
Pink tipped torch coral
Possibly a leather / could be a bubble coral it all depends on how things look.
Royal Gramma
Clownfish (But in the way future) Can't just jump back into that boat after what had recently occurred.

I plan to add another piece of small dry rock to dedicate to zoa's.

Once I leave this apartment complex and get into a house again I will also be starting a new build on an IM 25 NUVO Lagoon. The only reason why I have a 10 gallon nano is because I'm not allowed to have an aquarium that 10gallons and over, so with sand, rock, glass, and equipment I'm averaging about 9 gallons of water.

 

[Andrewalex11]

Well it's been some time since my last post things have been moving slow as I try to create a beautiful reef on a budget here but the passed three weeks have truly been a big pickup!

So what's new here we have new fish and new coral! As well as a new slightly altered aquascape!

How have my other corals been doing?

GSP: What do you think? They're in a medium light area of the tank and have pretty much the whole top rock to themselves, so they are doing what GSP does best and SPREADING!

Green Cloves: we started with 4 heads, and from what I was counting I saw 12 (about a months time) but when I moved to scape today I was pleased to find there was actually 16 heads in total!

Zoas: I saved my zoas as they still sit delicately on a frag plug I plan on making a very small sized zoa dedicated rock.

What's new?

As for coral we have a beautiful new torch coral, happy healthy and staying nice and fat with a 2x a week mysis Shrimp diet!

For livestock it's been long enough to where I was willing to call it safe and take the plunge into another clownfish, I didn't just toss him in here don't worry I've made sure I've done all I can to rid the system from whatever virus might have been left behind. I played it safe and got a standard tank raised o. Clownfish.

My marine animals are not very photogenic but this was a great shot I got of the fish and the Shrimp. The corals arnt open due to the fact that I just did a water change, while re-aquascape got, and acclimating this new clownfish. I guess I can give myself a pat on the back for completing all of that smoothly.

Here's a picture of the zoas I rescued from my powerhead! All 3 heads are actually open wide now and I can see a new one forming!

 

[Andrewalex11]

Everything has changed around recently, pretty much the same inhabitants, but it's been over a month since a last update. My clownfish is getting big quick, and all the corals seem to be getting pretty large in numbers as well so I decided to change to a perspective view type aquascape that allowed room for more corals which I plan on hopefully acquiring either tonight or tomorrow night! There will be another update on that but here's a few snaps of the old corals that have grown and the new scape.

Moved the GSP to their own rock I just straight smashed the rock with a hammer to break the colony off and it worked perfectly

 

[Andrewalex11]

Got some new members the other day going to be getting some more coral today too!!

 

[DavidMc]

Love the way your tanks has turned out. Great Job

 

[Andrewalex11]

My LFS has taken in a large shipment fromWWC and it looks like this is their new ritual so I am now going coral crazy for this reason.

Here's some nice Acans from wwc corals that I picked up the other day!

 

[kanders87]

Everything is looking good! I really like your new 'scape.