New Nan Reefer Needs Advice Please

[The Great Zissou]

I am new to nano reefing. I have a 29 gal tank w/ 65 watt 10,000k compact florescent, actinic and led night lights. 30 gal Rena filter and 100 gal Prism skimmer. I am currently keeping a sun coral, mushroom leather,zoas,pagodo cup coral frag,galaxia frag, and star polyps. Fish: six line wrasse,red headed goby, and wheeler goby. I want to add a refugium for added water volume but mostly because i plan to have gorgonians, sponges and other high demand species I think I should have a refugium for added food sources. I cant decide where it needs to be in relation to the main tank and how I should move the water between tanks. I also cant decide if I should use a 10 or 20 gal tank to do this I want to use the 20 but I dont know if that will be too much? any comments/suggestions/theorys?



I'm planning to add- is this too much ???
1 catalina goby
1 green clown goby
1 royal gramma
1 lettuce sea slug
1 red fromia star
3 halloween hermit crabs
1 flame scallop
yellow and purple duster clusters
1 green duster
1 purple and gold duster
candy cane sponge
blueberry gorgonian
yellow gorgonian
blue tunicate
chili coral
more zoas
hairy mushrooms
frog spawn
blastomussa
pineapple leather
ricordias
clove ployps
candy coral
blue xenia

 

[xxBarneyxx]

In terms of stocking I will let someone else advise. I'm not sure how well so many gobies will get on with each other toi be honest.

In terms a fuge if you are planning on using another tank and for it to primariliy for a food source then I would recommend having the fuge above the main display tank.

This is how I have my fuge set up (though I still havent used it as a fuge yet and is just being used as a place for my skimmer and a frag tank right now).

Basically the fuge is just a cheap 10g tank that I drilled with an overflow to the main tank. Then there is a small pump in the main tank that pushes the water up to it.

The only issue I have with this setup (other then I never finished it off so it looks horrible) is that it tends to put bubbles into the display. You could probably fix this with some tweaking and I have had loads of life in the "fuge" even though its basically just a bare tank at the moment.

 

[The Great Zissou]

In terms of stocking I will let someone else advise. I'm not sure how well so many gobies will get on with each other toi be honest.

In terms a fuge if you are planning on using another tank and for it to primariliy for a food source then I would recommend having the fuge above the main display tank.

This is how I have my fuge set up (though I still havent used it as a fuge yet and is just being used as a place for my skimmer and a frag tank right now).

Basically the fuge is just a cheap 10g tank that I drilled with an overflow to the main tank. Then there is a small pump in the main tank that pushes the water up to it.

The only issue I have with this setup (other then I never finished it off so it looks horrible) is that it tends to put bubbles into the display. You could probably fix this with some tweaking and I have had loads of life in the "fuge" even though its basically just a bare tank at the moment.

Ok thank you I had read some things that expained the three different positions for a fuge but your pics helped alot.
As for gobies I did my homework on types and the catalina and red headed are happy to be in a group and the red head and wheeler seem to be getting on well and are often seen together in the sunpolyps cave around its feeding time with no signs of a aggression. as for the green goby it likes to stay around polyp and lps corals so it will be in the top of the tank in its own space.In theory lol

 

[BigC]

Any Pics
Regards
BigC

 

[The Great Zissou]

yea but Im not sure how to put them on here they are all reading as being too big how do I make them fit?

Sorry never been on a forum before.

If you can point me in the right direction I will gladly put some pics on here of the 29 gal nano I'm working on and more of

all my other tanks in the post your tank section.We have 6 tanks all but the nano are fresh.Our T.miurus Congo puffer is

particularly cool I just watched it eat a snail off the glass

Does this forum have room for videos? I have cool salty and freshie videos too

 

[BigC]

Open an account with Photobucket it's free.
http/photobucket.com/
Upload your pics and vids
copy the .img file
and paste it into your thread.
Hope that helps
Regards
BigC

 

[kj23502]

With all that you would like to do, any chance you'd be able to upgrade? That'd give you lots more room and you could incorporate a refugium into the sump below. Just a thought

 

[The Great Zissou]

No upgrades I want a small tank I am thinking about putting on more than one fuge I want one 20 gal underneath for extra filteraton/sump and one 10 gal above for food sources. I plan on putting my hoses out of the upper fuge into the tank around my sponge, gorgonians and chilli coral that will need the extra food the most. I am adding very slowly this tank has been running for three months. I dont think it will be crowded just look at all my empy space youll see what I mean

I plan on having 5 nonphotosynthetic corals along the bottom, zoas on the lace rock in the middle /bottom,cloves with the zoas and stars I already have and I have room for a small rock w/ xenias behind them. I will put thr frog spawn so it hangs over the top legde away from everything else. On the lt side I want a pineapple leather, ricordias in the middle, and blastomussas in the rt most corner. Correct me if Im wrong be I think i will have enough space

thanx to BigC for the swell pic advice

 

[BigC]

No Problem GZ.
Neat looking little tank there M8
What way do you propose to plumb the fuge. overflow box.....
Regards
BigC

 

[The Great Zissou]

See this how I'm gonna place the coral I think it will look filled in but not too much for comfort

As far as plumbing I want the ten gallon to have an intake behind one gorgonian to pull food past it
Out put 1 behind the chili coral to give it fresh food and the second one behind the sponge and gorgonian to feed them extra too
For the 20 gal I plan to have an intake toward to top of the tank and the out put in the very back also so the out coming flow can supplement the nonphotosynthetics as it flows out of the caves. I will use a pump to bring water into the 10 gal and let gravity push water back into the show tank to keep food sources intact and I will do the opposite with the 20 gal fuge allowing gravity to pull water down out of the show tank and pumping it back in via a pump

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Nice tank and I like the plan for the corals.

For the fuge above the tank this will be ok as you can drill the top tank for the overflow.

For the sump underneath the tank though Im afraid you wont be able to use a syphon to get the water from the display to the sump (which I think is what you are planning).

The main reasons this wont work is that A) you will never be able to match the flow rate of the return pump to the flow rate of the syphone and B) if the syphon breaks you will end up with an empty sump and flooded display.

When you want to get the water from one tank to another in this way basically you only have two choices (if anyone can think of a third please let me know ). You can either drill the tank or add an overflow box. Both in effect work the same way, the pump in the bottom tank pushes water up to the top tank, when the water level in the top tank goes above the over flow it goes back to the bottom tank. In this way (assuming your overflow is big enough to match the flow from your pump) the same amount of water going into the top tank is also draining out of it.

Image below demonstrates how it works and is taken from www.melevsreef.com which is a great source of information on sumps.

Drilling a full display tank probably isnt an option so you will most likely want to go for an overflow box. Personally though if you could empty the tank and get it drilled this is the best option.

 

[Donya]

By "lettuce sea slug" I'm assuming you're meaning one of the photosynthetic speices like Elysia crispata and its relatives. Unless you're planning on a heafty amount of algae in the display tank (or unless you're going to put in an algae-filled sump/fuge) the lettuce sea slug probably isn't a good choice. Having kept those in the past, in addition to the fact that most species aren't very long-lived and tend to be sold when they're already well into being adults, they need a steady supply of macro to suck on to stay healthy. Different species can also be very finicky about which macro species they're willing to accept. Although lettuce slugs are really cool animals to watch, they just dont' do well in most nanos.

 

[The Great Zissou]

So this set up would be better

awsome thank you so much for your advice

As for the nudi or lettuce sea slug I was skepticle so to you I say thanx too I think I may get a pink urchin and a red fromia star they should do just fine.I would hate to experiment with its life. I joined this form to avoid making those mistakes because it hurts me to have a pet die. I AM responsible.