cmoreland Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Well I finally decided to go ahead and blog here about my escapades into this hobby. I really got interested in reefs since I set up and successfully cycled a freshwater tank after learning about the nitrogen cycle. It made me realize that there is more to just 'a fish in a bowl' with this hobby. So pretty much all my buddies and folks at work who had aquariums had saltwater or reef setups. It was very intriguing and I wanted something like that. The only problem is these people kept telling me how expensive the hobby is, and this just about shut me down but after doing some research I realized that I could start out with a nano setup for a fraction of the cost of a large behemoth system that runs thousands of dollars. So I found a great deal online for an Aquamedic Nanowave 9 for $90 shipped and all. I'm sure you've heard of this deal (they are now out of stock I believe). They said a hinge might possibly be broken (hence the $89 price). Well, when it came in, it was pristine, smelled of new plastic, glass (it is actually glass not acrylic) and silicone and the hinges worked perfectly! Was such a good deal that after seeing it two other folks I work with immediately ordered one. Without getting into too much detail, this thing has a fuge, venturi skimmer and pushes somewhere around 100gph stock. I haven't made any modifications to the system as many do, I don't really want to cut it up! It does have a heat issue but I just keep the lid cracked for ventilation and even though temps range from 82-84F things do well. This is also a tank that gets really dirty if the proper husbandry isn't followed. Speaking of husbandry with this tank, I've had it for 2 months now as of today and I've learned (the HARD way) that you only feed the livestock every 2 or 3 days or the Cyano will unload a whole can of whoop-ass on the system, and even then only feed a tiny bit. I have been doing a 10-15% water change every week, also change out the filter floss and clean the skimmer cup once a week. Current livestock as of today (June 10th) is: - 2 Ocellaris Clownfish - 2 Scarlett Hermits - 5 Blue Legged Hermits - 3 Nassarius Snails - 2 Astrea Snails - 1 Margarita Snail Corals (all frags): - Purple-Rimmed Plating Monti - Montipora Digitata (branching) - Galaxy (Tooth) Coral - Waving Hand and Pom Pom Xenia - Ricordea Yuma - Zoa's - Candy Cane Coral Whew, well, here are the pics in chronological order from the beginning: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the initial setup, the rock is just tossed in there. A side shot. This is pretty much the original rockscaping I did and have kept most of it that way: Not much, but it was my very first coral! Picked it up at the LFS for $2 One of my favorite frags (don't laugh :-D): I suppose I should name these guys, any suggestions?: About a month into the setup, along came the algae (and dastardly Cyanobacteria) Further along, still have some GHA but pretty much got rid of the Cyano with the addition of Chemi-Pure and Chaeto back in the fuge: Not sure what that white dots are on the back wall but they preceeded the coraline growth: AAAAAAND this is pretty much where I'm at today, 2 month old tank exactly! The rock looks a lot cleaner and I'm seeing nice growth on all my corals. I've lost a few snails but other than that there has been no deaths. I still do battle with some cyano but it's in very small patches. I think this tank just tends to run dirtier than most bigger systems. I'm trying to learn how to take better photo's, seems like this is as good as my little Sony Cybershot will do: Thanks for checking out my tank! Comments, suggestions or critics very very welcome Oh yeah, I'd like to get a frogspawn, where do you think I should locate it? I don't want it to sting anything else in proximity but looks like the best place for it is on the top of that rock to the right of the Montipora. There is a ledge there it could sit on. -Clay Link to comment
cmoreland Posted June 26, 2009 Author Share Posted June 26, 2009 Well, the Nanowave is doing well. I may have mentioned before but it is a dirty running tank. I put a bag of Chemi-Pure Elite in the back to hopefully get rid of a new Cyano outbreak. Other than that, lots of coraline growth, coral growth is good. Got a few new additions here as well, loving my Hammer and Frogspawn! They may duel to the death though, we'll see :-D FTS 6-26-09 STS 6-26-09 Link to comment
cmoreland Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Some updates...not terribly new but I don't have my camera with me right now. Things are doing well, Pom Pom Xenia is exploding but the waving hand Xenia is currently all dying off...weird crazy Xenia for ya there. Anyway, I'm currently struggling to get some more color in these corals but I'm afraid it may not be possible under PC's... Link to comment
spencers Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I find it interesting how the rock color went away as your tank progressed. Where'd the coralline go? All in all, nice purchase and a good looking tank! Link to comment
cmoreland Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 I find it interesting how the rock color went away as your tank progressed. Where'd the coralline go? All in all, nice purchase and a good looking tank! Yes, it's rather sad and really disappointing but it's even more bland now although the coral growth is very healthy. My best guess is the high temp this tank runs but probably more likely would be calcium/alk levels swing too much in such a small tank. Plus these rocks came looking all purpled up and then had to live under 2x24 PC bulbs when they grew under MH... I will be doing water changes every week starting last week to see if it improves. Should be interesting to see what happens to the color. Link to comment
cmoreland Posted January 15, 2010 Author Share Posted January 15, 2010 I'd like to update this thread. I think the problem with my coraline losing its color is due to having stopped dosing kalkwasser when I bought a Kent 2 part Nano dosing system. Also threw in a bag of chemi-pure elite in there, which killed off any algae/cyano with ease so I stopped doing so many water changes until last month (which haven't helped the coloring all that much so far). Bottom line, calcium is too low I believe! I'm going to resume dosing Kalkwasser and continue my 10% wc every week. Here's hoping it'll help my bleaching monti cap as well! Link to comment
pismo_reefer Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 coming along nicely! Link to comment
Shard Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 Any updates? Tank shots? Link to comment
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