Phoenixfish
Fishaholic
Hello People
Well where to start, after spending months watching and reading other peoples journals, i decided to take the big jump and start a nano tank.
The tank itself is a butchered Cayman 60 which holds roughly 70 ltr/ 18.5 ish US gal. With a 12 ltr/ 3 US gal sump.
The lighting for the tank is 2 x 15 watt T6's which are part of the hood (1 Actinic/ 1 daylight) and a 24 watt PC (daylight), now the lighting isn’t ideal but due to the fact of having a cat that likes to investigate the tank a luminator or metal halide were out of the options for now. but i think I’ve maximized the current lighting without ripping out the 2 15 watt T6's which may be a later project.
Currently there are 3 power heads of different brands creating a nice circulation around the tank giving a turn over of 25 times not including the overflow to the sump. Now some people may think that that maybe too much but it creates no dead spots and quite a few "famous" tanks have similar turn over if not more,
There is approximately 10 Kg of semi curing live rock in the tank currently, which came from India apparently and is very light and hardly displaces water. it had lots of corialine algae which bleached but has now started to recolour hence the brown colour. . that and the fact its covered in datioms and other algae .But i now need some smaller parts to stick in the sump. This was brought semi cured from my local and has been curing a further 11 days since then.
The sump is a small 3 US gall sump which has the protein skimmer and a return pump in, there is a section contain coral sand which is waiting for some live rock. which is illuminated by an 18 day glow T8 bulb, which i had both started and bulb lying around, which is set on reverse time period to the main tank.
im currently using a Red Sea Prizm Delux protein skimmer which on their website is recommended for tanks up to 400 litres/ 100 gal which i think is a little overstated as it isn't the strongest of skimmers but is adequate for this tank. it also has a plastic insert at the end which is currently full of activated carbon but will be replaced with something abit more substantial once the carbon has been used up.
The salt i am using is Reef Crystals which seems to be proving quite well which i took off the advice of my LFS who has of yet proved trustworthy.
The substrate is a mixture of 9 parts special grade reef sand arago-live and 1 part seafor super reef both produced by caribsea.
Right that’s that part done
---------------------------------
stats as of today, 30/10/2007 at 4.
Salinity: 1.026 ( it was 1.028 but some RO brought it down) taken with a Refractometer
PH: 7.7-7.9
Ammonia: between 0 and 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm
Phosphates: 0 ppm
Calcium levels: between 460 and 480
KH: 10 / 179 ppm
right then the PH has been rather low but what I’ve read up in the stickys and on other peoples journals this is down to 2 reasons, first the tanks new and PH swings are expected but to be fair it hasn't swung depending on the time the taken its just stayed low. the second reason it could be low is the amount of Algae covering the rocks, its everywhere but due to it cycling there has be quite a die off as expected.
now the Arag-alive and the Reef crystals both say they help support a PH of 8 ish so hopefully it should level out.
hows my tank coming on as far as curing? ive seen the ammonia and the nitrites higher.
-----------------------------------------
EDIT ive actually done a rescape now, not 100% happy on it prefered the old but too much rock touching the glass sides, so these photos are old, but it gives you an idea, ill post some new picks when ive found a layout i like
Picture time folks!
Full Tank Shot
Left side
middle
hitch hiker
i've found 2 of these so far but thats the only one that you can easlely view.
see what i mean by covered in good and bad algae.
breaths
well thats my little talk for the moment
hope you enjoy and wish me luck
Jarvo
Well where to start, after spending months watching and reading other peoples journals, i decided to take the big jump and start a nano tank.
The tank itself is a butchered Cayman 60 which holds roughly 70 ltr/ 18.5 ish US gal. With a 12 ltr/ 3 US gal sump.
The lighting for the tank is 2 x 15 watt T6's which are part of the hood (1 Actinic/ 1 daylight) and a 24 watt PC (daylight), now the lighting isn’t ideal but due to the fact of having a cat that likes to investigate the tank a luminator or metal halide were out of the options for now. but i think I’ve maximized the current lighting without ripping out the 2 15 watt T6's which may be a later project.
Currently there are 3 power heads of different brands creating a nice circulation around the tank giving a turn over of 25 times not including the overflow to the sump. Now some people may think that that maybe too much but it creates no dead spots and quite a few "famous" tanks have similar turn over if not more,
There is approximately 10 Kg of semi curing live rock in the tank currently, which came from India apparently and is very light and hardly displaces water. it had lots of corialine algae which bleached but has now started to recolour hence the brown colour. . that and the fact its covered in datioms and other algae .But i now need some smaller parts to stick in the sump. This was brought semi cured from my local and has been curing a further 11 days since then.
The sump is a small 3 US gall sump which has the protein skimmer and a return pump in, there is a section contain coral sand which is waiting for some live rock. which is illuminated by an 18 day glow T8 bulb, which i had both started and bulb lying around, which is set on reverse time period to the main tank.
im currently using a Red Sea Prizm Delux protein skimmer which on their website is recommended for tanks up to 400 litres/ 100 gal which i think is a little overstated as it isn't the strongest of skimmers but is adequate for this tank. it also has a plastic insert at the end which is currently full of activated carbon but will be replaced with something abit more substantial once the carbon has been used up.
The salt i am using is Reef Crystals which seems to be proving quite well which i took off the advice of my LFS who has of yet proved trustworthy.
The substrate is a mixture of 9 parts special grade reef sand arago-live and 1 part seafor super reef both produced by caribsea.
Right that’s that part done
---------------------------------
stats as of today, 30/10/2007 at 4.
Salinity: 1.026 ( it was 1.028 but some RO brought it down) taken with a Refractometer
PH: 7.7-7.9
Ammonia: between 0 and 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm
Phosphates: 0 ppm
Calcium levels: between 460 and 480
KH: 10 / 179 ppm
right then the PH has been rather low but what I’ve read up in the stickys and on other peoples journals this is down to 2 reasons, first the tanks new and PH swings are expected but to be fair it hasn't swung depending on the time the taken its just stayed low. the second reason it could be low is the amount of Algae covering the rocks, its everywhere but due to it cycling there has be quite a die off as expected.
now the Arag-alive and the Reef crystals both say they help support a PH of 8 ish so hopefully it should level out.
hows my tank coming on as far as curing? ive seen the ammonia and the nitrites higher.
-----------------------------------------
EDIT ive actually done a rescape now, not 100% happy on it prefered the old but too much rock touching the glass sides, so these photos are old, but it gives you an idea, ill post some new picks when ive found a layout i like
Picture time folks!
Full Tank Shot
Left side
middle
hitch hiker
i've found 2 of these so far but thats the only one that you can easlely view.
see what i mean by covered in good and bad algae.
breaths
well thats my little talk for the moment
hope you enjoy and wish me luck
Jarvo
