Seeing as peeps on here like reading how people go about setting up their aquariums, I thought I'd make my own little journal with photos to show my upgrade from an 80ish litre hexagon nano to a 180L bullet aquarium. I'm as excited as a little kid doing this so you'll have to excuse my over enthusiasm! 
To start with a bit about the nano tank
I set it up at the start of the year around late January just with fish and LR, it was my first venture to marine after seeing a lovely marine tank with clownfish in my dentists and wanted to make my own!
Anyway after getting all the gear together I now have 2 percula clownfish, 1 fire fish, one skunk shrimp, and a coral beauty. My dad bought the coral beauty as a gift and although the tank size he's in now isn't recommended, he's been no trouble at all so hopefully he'll be the same in a bigger tank!
I do 20% water changes every week and one big mistake I've learned running this tank is to stick with RO water! I used to use it for the first two months then heard it's not needed if you haven't got coral and all it's done is create green growths all over my LR which looks horrible! I've had to resort to taking it off myself with a spare toothbrush and then using a net to get it out of the water. Definately sticking to RO water in the new tank and giving this LR a scrub up before I put it into the new water!
Some pics of the nano:
As you can see my sand is.. pink with coraline! But there is a lot of horrible green growth on the rock.
Coral Beauty
2 clowns with shrimp lurking behind!
So onto the new tank!
I was orignally looking at the fluval osaka 260, then the trigon 190... and didn't end up getting any of those! The osaka turned out to be too wide and the trigon I wanted in black which I couldn't get hold of locally. So after I quick look on ebay I bagged myself an absolutely lovely 180L tank by Elite Aquatics, I'd never even heard of them before but for just over £100 for it I can't complain! It's got a dark brown wood cabinet which is a lot more sturdy than the juwel ones I looked at and is bullet shaped which I would never have gone for but now I love it!
I picked the tank up the other day, took it out in the garden and gave it a good wash with the hose as it had tropical fish in before and was a bit smelly! Tested the lights and all but one is working, which I will be replacing anyway when it comes to getting coral.
The tank itself;
Foundation rock in, powerhead and aragonite testing the lights (need a nice marine blue one!);
I have a lot of smaller pieces of ocean rock on the bottom which will have LR on top once I do my transfer from the other tank, I've created an arch on the right side too Going to give the tank plently of flow and hopefully within a few months the ocean rock will also be covered in pink coraline!
At the moment I have the RO water in which is currently heating to the right temp, then I'm gradually going to start adding salt with two powerheads running to mix better.
My next picture post will be when I'm transferring everything from the old tank!
To start with a bit about the nano tank
I set it up at the start of the year around late January just with fish and LR, it was my first venture to marine after seeing a lovely marine tank with clownfish in my dentists and wanted to make my own!
Anyway after getting all the gear together I now have 2 percula clownfish, 1 fire fish, one skunk shrimp, and a coral beauty. My dad bought the coral beauty as a gift and although the tank size he's in now isn't recommended, he's been no trouble at all so hopefully he'll be the same in a bigger tank!
I do 20% water changes every week and one big mistake I've learned running this tank is to stick with RO water! I used to use it for the first two months then heard it's not needed if you haven't got coral and all it's done is create green growths all over my LR which looks horrible! I've had to resort to taking it off myself with a spare toothbrush and then using a net to get it out of the water. Definately sticking to RO water in the new tank and giving this LR a scrub up before I put it into the new water!
Some pics of the nano:
As you can see my sand is.. pink with coraline! But there is a lot of horrible green growth on the rock.
Coral Beauty
2 clowns with shrimp lurking behind!
So onto the new tank!
I was orignally looking at the fluval osaka 260, then the trigon 190... and didn't end up getting any of those! The osaka turned out to be too wide and the trigon I wanted in black which I couldn't get hold of locally. So after I quick look on ebay I bagged myself an absolutely lovely 180L tank by Elite Aquatics, I'd never even heard of them before but for just over £100 for it I can't complain! It's got a dark brown wood cabinet which is a lot more sturdy than the juwel ones I looked at and is bullet shaped which I would never have gone for but now I love it!
I picked the tank up the other day, took it out in the garden and gave it a good wash with the hose as it had tropical fish in before and was a bit smelly! Tested the lights and all but one is working, which I will be replacing anyway when it comes to getting coral.
The tank itself;
Foundation rock in, powerhead and aragonite testing the lights (need a nice marine blue one!);
I have a lot of smaller pieces of ocean rock on the bottom which will have LR on top once I do my transfer from the other tank, I've created an arch on the right side too
Going to give the tank plently of flow and hopefully within a few months the ocean rock will also be covered in pink coraline!
At the moment I have the RO water in which is currently heating to the right temp, then I'm gradually going to start adding salt with two powerheads running to mix better.
My next picture post will be when I'm transferring everything from the old tank!
