First Tank! 34L Nano

[Kirsten04]

Hi everyone

This is my first ever tank which I set up on the 5th of December. I got into marine aquariums thanks to my boyfriend who has had them in the past and has also just set up his own tank. The little tank I have is an early Christmas present which I can't wait to finish cycling soon after Christmas so that I can put my first coral in it!!

Tank Details:
Tank: 34L Reef Free Nano
Heater: Eheim Jager Heater 50W
Pump 1: Not sure what it is, it came with the tank
Pump 2 (using as a powerhead): Sicce Silent Syncra Pump Nano 140-430L/H
ATO: Auto Aqua Smart ATO Micro

Aquascape
I had so much fun doing my aquascape. I always wanted to have some sort of bridge for my fish to swim through and to make the tank look interesting and I was really lucky to find the perfect piece of dry rock at my LFS. I chose to use dry rock because I don't want to risk any pests getting into the tank immediately. It is also cheaper to buy and easier to stick together. I also don't mind waiting a little longer for the tank to go through the nitrogen cycle so that I can add coral and fish.

^The rock I bought (the perfect piece is the top left one)

 

^First aquascape which was unfortunately too wide for the tank

 

^Second and final attempt at my aquascape design (I fell in love with it and it fits!)

 

^All glued together and in the tank. I only had to glue 4 pieces together and I have one or two that I will put in the tank next to the main piece.

 

Filling My Tank with Saltwater

I'm using saltwater from the ocean instead of mixing my own because why would I go through the trouble of mixing it when the ocean is so close!! (I live in Perth, Australia)

Before I filled my tank I cleaned my dry sand very thoroughly so that it wouldn't make my tank all cloudy. Also, when I did fill the tank I did it very slowly and poured the water over my rocks so that it wouldn't make such a mess.

 

^Nearly halfway there!

 

^All done!!

 

Auto Aqua Smart ATO Micro

I got this all set up just a few days ago. It is another early Christmas present thanks to my LFS having a special sale on this particular ATO leading up to Christmas!

 

^All set up now, it was really easy to install and takes up hardly any space as you can see

 

Sneaky Powerhead

I wasn't sure if the flow in my tank was enough so I bought this little pump that has an adjustable head so I can use it as a powerhead in my tank because others are so expensive and usually too powerful for such a small tank like mine. It looks pretty good in the tank and the flow can be really easily adjusted as well which will be handy in the future.

 

 

That's all from me for now, I'm just waiting patiently for the cycle to finish...

[vlangel]

Beautiful scape Kirsten. You are off to a very good start.

[Kirsten04]

It's been 6 weeks since I set up my tank and so I think it's time for an update on what has happened so far!

 

My First Algae Bloom

A few days after setting it all up I had some algae start to grow on the rocks. It proceeded to spread and after a week and a half it was covering the glass and I could barely see in the tank. I was pretty keen to get a snail to start cleaning it up for me but I hadn't noticed a colour change on my ammonia alert yet and I wasn't going to risk it especially as I was going away for 4 days and if the snail died while I was gone then I'd really have a problem! So I decided to use my new little scraper tool to clean up the glass and see what happened... There was algae flying all over the place but by the next day I couldn't see any of it anymore aside from the few pieces that got caught on the rocks.

 

^ Algae bloom all over the glass

 

^ After I scraped the algae off the glass

 

While I Was Away

When I got back My tank was miraculously clean... This caused me some concern as you can imagine. I discovered that the light had been off the whole time I was away and as a result the algae had died and I now had a nice little ammonia peak and my ammonia alert had now definitely changed colour. It wasn't too bad and since there was nothing in my tank yet I had nothing to worry about, just perhaps a bit more time to wait before I could put anything into my tank.

 

First Water Change

Last friday (13th of Jan) I did my first water change. I cleaned all the new algae off the glass, blew most of the algae off the rocks with a turkey baster and disturbed all the sand to get everything swirling around in the water. I then changed about 70% of the water and my tank looked as good as new

 

^ Dirty water before the water change

 

^2/3 of the way through the water change

 

^ Sparkling clean tank after the water change

 

Visit To My Local Fish Shop

The next day I went to the LFS to get a snail and see if they had any zoanthids that I liked (I wasn't very hopeful). When I got there I found that they had a bunch of small trochus snails that looked pretty active and quite cute with the coralline algae on them. I decided that I would get two of them instead of one big one considering how small my tank is. When I went to look at the zoanthids I found plenty of rocks of what the shop normally has in stock and one little rock of these pink and purple zoanthids for $10. I fell in love with them and so I bought them along with 2 small trochus snails

 

I went home incredibly excited, not only because I could finally put something in the tank but because I found the perfect zoanthids for my little tank. When I got home I drip acclimated them all for about half an hour and popped them in the tank. One of my snails decided to race its way over to the nearest hole and go straight into it! I thought he had gotten himself stuck because it was such a close fit

He did manage to find his way out eventually much to my relief!! I decided that considering his behaviour and my first impression of him I would name him Trouble.

 

^ Drip acclimating

 

^ Everything is in the tank and as you can see Trouble has found the hole...

 

^ Trouble going deeper much to my horror

 

^ My adorable pink and purple zoanthids once they finally opened up for me

 

^ Trouble and his friend safely out in the open on the top of my aquascape

 

Everything seems to be going well in the tank so far (fingers crossed). I plan on keeping it fairly simple for now with some easy coral that don't require heaps of testing and dosing. I'm loving my zoanthids and I plan on buying a hammer coral when I find one I like that isn't too big. Once I have the hammer coral and everything is going well then I'm going to get a couple of baby clownfish to add some more colour and fun to my tank

[burtbollinger]

Very cool. Nice job so far.