Chris 12.5g Rimless Shallow

[cnseekatz]

Hey everyone! I'm new to NR, and thought I'd start a thread for my little office nano.

 

This tank sits on my desk at work, so it needed to be simple, quiet and very clean. It couldn't have a sump or too much visible external gear hanging off the tank. Taking some inspiration from a couple of fellow reefers (some on this site), I came up with this build:

 

Tank: 12.5 Gallon (18x18x9) Low-Iron Glass from Chris @ PiCo Aquariums
Lighting: AI Sol - Super Blue
Filtration: Eheim 2213 Canister Filter setup with lily-pipes
Flow: Vortech MP10 (with acrylic flow shield)
Heater: Hydor 200W inline heater

 

 

[JR!]

really cool tank man. would love to see more.

[cnseekatz]

Really great experience with Chris at PiCo Aquariums... highly recommended!

 

 

First H20

 

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Mounting the Sol

 

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Shameless plug (no I'm not affiliated!)

 

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[Smithjm5]

Oh man is that a sweet tank! How long have you had it up and running?

[JaceR]

I love your wrasse, where did you get it from and does it eat frozen?

[Scorched]

Tank and inhabitants look sweet. I worry that you rushed everything livestock wise though. How long has the system been running?

[cnseekatz]

Oh man is that a sweet tank! How long have you had it up and running?

 

Thanks a lot! I've had it set up since last June. I've had a bunch of issues getting it stable. Some have been unlucky circumstances, and some have been self-inflicted. But I think I'm finally "over the hump" and making progress. It's been a learning curve for me, and has cost me a few corals that I really miss, but it seems like it's something everyone goes through at some point, right?!

 

I love your wrasse, where did you get it from and does it eat frozen?

 

I got it from a LFS. It's an absolute pig! I know that sometimes people have trouble getting them to eat. He'll eat anything, including pellets. It's actually kind of funny watching him eat pellets. His mouth is pretty small so he'll inhale one and the swim around with his mouth open for about 10 seconds before he can choke it down. He's a pretty active grazer as well.

 

Tank and inhabitants look sweet. I worry that you rushed everything livestock wise though. How long has the system been running?

 

Thanks a lot. I probably didn't explain well enough, but the tank has been up for almost a year now. It's been through the wringer, but as far as having a well cycled, established system, it's in good shape.

[cnseekatz]

Question for all of you who know so much more than me...

 

Do any of you run filterless systems?

 

Right now my only external filtration is an Eheim canister. I'm wondering if it's entirely necessary to have this. Part of my motivation is that it would be cool to simplify the setup. The other part is that it would be much less maintenance. I don't have a sump or skimmer.

 

I currently have a fair amount of live rock, a good sand-bed, and quite a bit of macro-algae in my tank. The MP10 moves plenty of water, and I do weekly water changes of 10-20%. Would this be enough?

 

Any thoughts on a more natural approach would be much appreciated!

[cnseekatz]

[cnseekatz]

Just picked up a Blueberry Gorg from my LFS. He has a few in a display and a couple smaller guys for sale. They look amazing in his display, so I grabbed one.

 

I admittedly have never kept gorgs, and I know this is a non-photosynthetic species, but the guy was very bullish on how easy they are... and since his are so healthy, I bit the bullet. So then I come home and start looking these up online, and see how much trouble most people have with these guys... to the point of people looking for anyone who has kept them alive longer than a couple of months.

 

Guy at the LFS said they like super low-flow, and do just fine with spot feedings of phyto or zooplankton. Anyone have any experience with this species? Any pointers?

 

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic... it's the best I could do...

[cnseekatz]

 

[RollaJase]

Everything is looking really great .

[cnseekatz]

 

Everything is looking really great .

Thanks a lot!

 

Here's a shot of some maxi-minis. I think I'm starting to figure out how to capture colors under LEDs and under water!

 

[cnseekatz]

I had an orange acan cluster in my tank that died a while back (when I had a problem with my salinity), or at least I thought it died. All the tissue deteriorated, leaving a wild looking skeleton, that was tinted a little orange. I never removed the skeleton because it looked cool, and I just kind of shoved it into a little cave.

 

Now that my parameters are back in shape, I've noticed that there's new growth coming out of where the old green mouths used to be. I don't know what exactly is growing back, because now it has pink centers that slowly transition to orange, yellow and then green around the outside.... completely different than what was there before. Any thoughts?

 

[cnseekatz]

I run this tank with a canister filter, as it's a desktop unit, and I can't hang any gear off the back, and a sump is not an option. The unit I use is an Eheim 2213 classic can. It's worked (meh) alright for me. The gunk I clean out of it every week tells me it's doing it's job, but the flow rate is lower than I'd like, and over the past couple of weeks it's been spewing bubbles like crazy. It's not sucking in air from the intake, so it was clearly getting in at one of the seals. The most logical solution was where the top pops off. This is normally sealed with a simple o-ring and some metal clips. There was no water leakage, and the seal seemed tight enough, but I couldn't think of anything else.

 

So I looked online and people said that they've had trouble with the O-rings. I inspected mine and it seemed to be in pretty good shape. Some people recommended lubricating the O-ring and seal with a little silicone grease or petroleum jelly. I dug into it online, but found mostly conflicting reports as to how reef-safe those products are. I looked for the silicone lubricant, but couldn't find any, so I bought some generic Vasoline from the drug store. I swabbed that in the groove where the O-ring sits, and locked that baby back in with the clips.

 

So far so good. The filter has been running for a few hours without any air getting into the impeller chamber, or bubbles spitting out into the tank.

 

If anyone has any knowledge that says that I shouldn't be using petroleum jelly to lubricate the filter's O-ring, please let me know... I would hate to poison my tank. If not, I'll let you know how it goes long term.

 

Thanks!

[cnseekatz]

[cnseekatz]

It's been a long time since I updated this thread. I changed jobs, and moved my tank home. It was interesting (and annoying) to break the whole thing down, bag up all the inhabitants and move everything, but it went pretty well. Everything survived and is doing well. The only exception is my Randall's Goby. When his burrow was demo'd during the move, he tried to establish a new home under the rock where the two clowns hang out. I thought that would be okay, but a few days later, he carpet surfed. I guess the strain was too much. RIP.

[nanosaurus]

glad to hear the move went (mostly) well!

 

Are you planning to keep the same external canister filter set-up? I'm curious since I'm looking to do a similar setup with my 60p

[cnseekatz]

glad to hear the move went (mostly) well!

 

Are you planning to keep the same external canister filter set-up? I'm curious since I'm looking to do a similar setup with my 60p

 

Funny that you mentioned that. I'm not sure exactly where the problem is, but I've had some issues with that filter. It sucks air from somewhere, which causes that annoying sucking sound, and the spewing of bubbles into the tank. I know the O-Ring is sound, and I've tightened all the fittings, but I think there might be a leak in the intake pipe. I had some leaking as well.

 

Long story short, I shut it off, closed all the valves, and dropped a backup heater in the tank. I was planning on pulling off the canister and doing an overhaul on it (or replacing it), but I've put it off and put it off, and the tank doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear. I think with the high flow from the MP10, the well established live rock and sand bed, along with a good amount of (decorative) macro-algae, it's doing alright. If I keep up with my water changes, I am hoping I can maintain without an external filter. That would be ideal, because it could allow me to have only the heater and the MP10 attached to the tank, and nothing else.

 

I certainly won't try to add any SPS or anything else that requires really clean water, but my livestock doesn't seem to mind what is likely a little dirtier water. Softies, acans, clams, nems and Zoas/Palys actually seem to like it a little better.

 

I'll try to remember to post a new FTS soon.

[cnseekatz]

When I removed my canister filter, I was not terribly concerned about the water quality. I know that without a sump, without a skimmer, and now without any kind of external/mechanical/chemical filtration, I'm not going to have pristine water. However, seeing as this is a lidless tank, meant to be viewed from all angles, including top-down, the water clarity is important, especially on the surface. Any muck on the surface was a non-starter, so I picked up a $25 surface skimmer from Eheim. It's just a little pump that has a floating overflow intake that runs through a sponge filter. It moves about 80gph, and keeps the surface crystal clear. It's only about 5" tall, 2.5" across, and 1.5" deep. It's not going to give me any kind of meaningful filtration, but it'll skim off the crap that collects at the surface. The cool thing with this guy is that the overflow intake floats, so it'll maintain surface level, regardless of water movement/evaporation. It's plug and play, and after about 30 seconds, the surface of the water was clean. Good deal!

 

I also went ahead and purchased an automatic top off unit. Being a small tank, the unit had to be pretty small itself. Also, the nature of the tank lends to having the water level very close to the top of the glass, so ATOs with float valves would not work. So I picked up the Smart ATO from AutoAqua. It has a golf-ball sized optical sensor that attaches much like an MP10 does, with a wet and dry magnetic coupling. I like that it has no moving parts, and that it can be mounted at the tippy-top of the tank. I did a test run, and the little tiny pump that it came with worked like a champ. It's only lifting a couple of feet, but it worked fine. I do want to find some way to make the return line mount a little less bulky, but for now, it works!

 

[cnseekatz]

Here's a shot of a couple new tank inhabitants. The yellow coris wrasse was brought in to hunt any zoanthid eating nudibranches that might pop up. I had seen a couple of them before he came in, but he's a good grazer, and I haven't seen any since. About a week after he was introduced, one of his eyes started bugging out. I guess it's called Pop-eye. I QT'd him with some antibiotics, but he ended up losing the eye. He doesn't seem to be any worse off for it, though he's no long an ambi-turner.

 

[cnseekatz]

[k4ndyk1ng]

Looking good, what power is the mo10 so it doesn't blow the sand

[cnseekatz]

I've got it on one of the variable modes (reef crest mode I think), set to max out around 75%. I'll occasionally get a few grains of sand swirling around under the MP10, but it's good for the most part.

[Miguel Burguete]

Very very nice tank! What's your maintenance routine?