Expats 10 Gallon Nano...

Well here is my little Nano. Its the first tank this small I have tried, hopefully its gets better quick but I know this will take some time. I am usually into much bigger tanks but this little inspiration is all Sugar Magnolia's fault. Of course FishingInTheDark didnt help much either, or cich1 for that matter...Thanks anyways Ladies and Gents.

It was established about 6 weeks ago as a brackish water tank that I slowly added saltwater to to get it to full strength saltwater. After seeing SM's 2.5 I just had to make it a Nano-Reef. So last week we finally got it to full Saltwater, as such I have added several things over the last week to get it up and running. Specs and Equipment are as follows;

1 10 gallon AGA tank
1 Aqua-Clear 200 HOB Filter
1 50 watt Heater
3 40 watt PC's
2 lbs Cured Fiji (stolen from another tank I have)
8 lbs Cured Marshall Island Rock (from another tank I have too)
20 lbs Oolitic Sand (seeded from frag tank)
7-8 Mollies (Temp Resident only)
4 Ghost Shrimp (Temp Resident only)
1 Fire Shrimp
1 Hippo Clam
1 Dwarf Yellow Feather Duster
#? Miniture Red/Pink Feather Dusters (from Nathans sump)
7 Hermit Crabs
9 Asterea Snails

Hopefully in a month or so I can start adding a few corals to this baby so it looks like a reef. Since its not a 75 gallon plus tank this is gonna take some thought on my part...

Feel free to beat-up my set up, if you spot any short commings or gaps as this is not my forte` so to speak...

[winnona15]

nice im thinkin about doin one like that. what lighting would you need for it, say like an anemone? strong, yeayea ive heard that before, what exactly is strong?

[Sugar Magnolia]

Woo! Looks really good!

[nanoman123]

i LOVE the aquascaping. youve only had it for a few weeks, and your 10g is already looking better than mine!!!

I think, and this is just my personal opinion now, that with a good 96 watts over a 10 gallon would be a good minimum. On a 20L, I would probably shoot for 3 x 55/65 watts.

I dont particularly care for an anenome in a small tank though as they will take up so much room after a short period that it would be difficult to have anything else in there. I would rather forego the anenome as nice as a RBTA looks and have several corals instead. Just my humble experience though....

Yeah it does look kinda cool and has some possibilities. Thanks for the compliment! I just need to give it some time and get the Coralline algae going good and add a couple of corals. I like Sugar Magnolia and FITD idea of glueing some Green Starburst Polyps to the back glass. It doesnt really take up any valuable space and it covers the back of the tank too! I might scout around for a small Xenia, Encrusting Montipora in Orange or Purple, add some eye popping Zoos and few Ricordias. I will have to get soem feed back on that though from some of the other memebrs here and see if thats workable.... :?:

Other than the sand and mollies only a week!

Its alright looking, but I am really shooting for SM's level on the bar. Thats what I am shooting for!!!

But its off to a nice start, thanks all of you all for the support!

[nanoman123]

the green starburst polyps to the back glass is a GREAT idea. i thikn im gonna do that. mabye glue some anthellia to the sides.....

i havent had any luck with any xenia in my 10g..... all of it melted. i hope you have better luck than i do :)


GREAT TANK~

~Matt~

Actually I have done this on power heads and filter intake/exhaust tubes. This way they arent so much of an eye sore! In fact I have another 10 gallon that has no substrate that I grow GSP on the bottom of the glass and use a razor to scape it free then cut the GSP into small sections and glue away on rocks and stuff. Its the fastest way I have found to prompagate it. I just never thought of using it for a back ground on the back glass.

Humm, now I am thinking about Zoos..... :idea:

An idle mind is such a dangerous thing..... :lol:

[gman0526]

That would look awesome!!! Some nice blue, green and orange zoos in the background. You guys are making me think about redoing my whole 10gal. tank.

I am sorry man, I didnt mean to start something...It SM's fault :lol: !

It does sound pretty cool though huh?

[nanoman123]

blue zoos........ i wonder if he has those.... ive always wanted blue zoos but there like 10$ a polyp!

That would be quiet the visual....

[MikeS]

Looks like it is off to a great start!

Mike

[Sugar Magnolia]

I am sorry man, I didnt mean to start something...It SM's fault :lol: !
Quit it! (done in my best Bart Simpson voice)

Blue zoos? I be fragging those in a few months nanoman! I have some blue/geens from Logical and two small frags from another vendor.

edit: I hate typos!! fixed my post!

Blame is always better to give than recieve, SM.

But I think you were on to something there with your 2.5, definitely insparational if nothing else. Alot of us may have been thinking about a nano, many of us I suspect would have eventually gotten around to taking the "plunge", I for one would have probably procastinated if I hadnt have seen your awesome little nano.

I cant deny credit where its due. Thanks for sparking new ideas and new projects!

[nanoman123]

SM mind if i buy/trade for a blue zoo frag after your done fragging them?


~Matt~

[Sugar Magnolia]

Matt, I just got them about a month and a half ago, but they are already taking off. One frag only had about 15 polyps and the other about 50. It'll be a few months till I have polyps growing off the rock. I definately have new growth tho!!

Imaexpat, I'm thrilled that all of you guys are taking the nano plunge. I really enjoy the small tanks. It's a quite a challenge to see how much "stuff" I can cram into such a small box of rocks and water. In fact I was thinking of chunking off a piece of rock in the 2.5 that is filled with tulip anemones so I can add some more zoos. tulip vs zoos? tulips won and now I have waaaaay too many tulips anemones.

Just some udated pics and new critters, thats all.

Courtesy of Under The Sea I have added the following new critters to the tank.
1 x Sand Starfish
1 x Dwarf Yellow Feather Duster
1 x Fire Shrimp

Also scrounged up a small cluster of "Ho-Hum Brown" Zoanthids just to get a little something going in there too. Its coming along slowly but surely. The Hippo Clam is starting to get a little color and character to it now too.

[Sugar Magnolia]

ho hum brown zoanthids? nice description. :) Keep us posted on that sand sifting star. I've heard that they don't do so well in nano's.

[cich1]

well, wheres the pics? :D nevermind they just popped up, i have a fireshrimp in my nano too, hes pretty shy but i've been hand feeding him so now hes coming out when he sees me

[FishinInTheDark]

Thanks for the pics! It's looking really nice!

Ya liked that adjetive huh? Yeah I probably wont keep the Starfish in there for long...not a whole lot of sand to sift through in there...I am assuming thats why they dont fare so well?

[gman0526]

Looking sweet!!!!

[Sugar Magnolia]

I would imagine that is the problem with nanos and sand sifting stars - not enough sand to support the microfauna it needs to survive. I would imagine it can wipe out the life in such a small sand bed pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you are heavy handed with the feeding, it'll keep the tank sparklingly clean of detritus!

Yeah thats why is vey temp. He will probably go in the 300 gallon tank in the next day or so. I will probably snatch the Mollies up too as well. Just need to think of a fish or two to replace them with.... :?:

Oh I was just noticing in the full tank shot...I forgot about the small frag of Purple Frilly Gorgonian I fraged from the 24 gallon Nano and put in there!

If that frag does alright...I will frag the heck out of it cuase that thing is getting to be pretty huge in the 24 and could use a little pruning to shape things up a bit...

[nanoman123]

looking good!


~Matt~

[icereefer]

:razz:

Well here are some updated picks of the Nano Reef project.

The most major change is that the 2 lbs of Fiji has been removed and replaced with 6 lbs of Kaelini rock. I like the Kaelini much better as it potentially adds a lot of different types of coralline algae to the tank. It should complement the 6 lbs of Marshal Island rock thats already there. This obviously neccesitated a slightly different lighting arrangement as a result. A good bit of coralline algae is bouncing back to life on the rock with some new spots showing up too. Hopefully the Kaelini will really turn the heat up for me in that respect as well as it has in other tanks.

The other big change was substituting the 65 watt PC with a Coralife Quad 4 96 watt PC fixture. Although the pic doesnt really reflect it...its much a brighter light and what I feel is a better light arrangement for that size tank. Its also a much more suitable light fixture for a number of reasons on a 10 gallon tank in my opinion.

Hope you enjoy the updated pics...

[icereefer]

that tank is going to look sweet in know time.
I'm going to try something different on my 20 gal. I have some pinkish and purplish primer paint that is the same color as coraline and I'm going to try and camo the back with it and see how it comes out?
if it don't look right I have a shape razor too,,,,,,,,,lol.
icereefer

Here is an updated pic to my Nano reef. Since the last pic posted on 28 October, I have added the following...

1 x Ultra Grade Maxima 2.5"
$30.00 courtesy of Under The Sea Mt. Vernon Wa.
(This is a far nicer colored clam than the pic would have you believe!)

1 x Yellow Polyps 2" x 4"
$5.00 courtesy of Under The Sea Mt. Vernon Wa.

1 x Purple Claves
$29.99 courtesy of MDMAquatics (CF Sponsor)

1 x Torquoise Rocordia
$8.00 from E-Tropicals

1 x Orange Zoanthids (6 polyps)
Frag, stolen from my 300 gallon frag system

Thats about it for new additions. There is a good bit more Coralline algae growth on the rocks too and its starting to look pretty nice finally. Still no fish in there yet....

[cich1]

looks much nicer than my 5.5g algea farm :badgrin:

[FishinInTheDark]

Looking very good!