1st Nano-Reef Setup- Many Q's

[mollydog18]

If all goes well tomorrow my boyfriend and I will begin creating our Nano-Reef. We've ordered an 18 gal Via Aqua tank and stand that should be arriving at my LFS tomorrow. While we have some experience with aquariums, this will be our first marine tank.

 

We hope to create a tank which houses a nice selection of corals, fish, and other invertebrates. In preparation, I've tried to take in as much info as possible regarding the setup & success of my Nano-Reef. My major questions regard the subjects of Live Rock, Filtration, and Stocking the tank.

 

Live Rock

 

I will be getting my live rock (about 18-24 lbs) when I go pickup the tank. I don't know if its been cured or not.

 

Should I bring a cooler or something to get it home?

 

The suggestions for what I should do next with my Live Rock varied greatly depending on the source. Assuming my LR is cured I will fill the tank with saltwater, add powerheads, and put the rock in the tank. (?)

 

How precise must the water parameters be for cyling?

 

Will organisms in the live rock be sensitive to fluctuations like many other reef creatures? Should I care?

 

Does the tank need to have light while it cycles? If so, how much?

 

Can you jump start the cycle using Biospira or established filter media to introduce more bacteria initially?

 

 

Filtration

 

At this point we've decided that we prefer to leave the tank floor bare. How will not using Live sand as well affect our cycling- in terms of time and the size of the resulting colony of denitrifying bacteria?

 

We think we will probably use a small HOB filter. I understand the concern of becoming dependent on an external source for bio filtration. I am considering hiding a small sponge filter behind my live rock soley to supplement bio filtration. What do you think??

 

 

Stocking

 

In what order should I add my organisms to the tank? How many/much at one time? How long should I plan on waiting before the next addition?

 

I want to have some fish in the Nano-Reef. While I normally don't mind moderate aggression in fish, I want this tank to be fairly peaceful. I definitely will add a smaller goby and blenny species and/or maybe firefish. I would like to have 1-2 smaller fish that are social, but peaceful and preferably not clownfish. My tank doesn't have a lid so any known jumpers probably aren't a good idea. Please let me know any suggestions and/or opinions.

 

In addition to fish I really want some shrimp, small crab, and a sea and/or bristle star.

 

Approx how many small fish could I get?

 

I'm also interested in knowing the minimum tank size for the smaller Tridacnid clams (when they are still quite young)?

 

Please Help me if you can!!

 

TIA,

Nicky

[audi206rs4]

i would setup the tank with saltwater (sp. gravity of 1.023-1.025, i like 1.023 cause it gives you the room to allow the sp. gravity to rise to 1.025 due to evaporation if you forget to top off w/ freshwater, use ro/di). set temp between 78-80 and run the powerheads to thoroughly mix the salt. let this run overnight, make sure there are no leaks and that your powerheads and heater are operating properly. then put in the live rock and set-up to your liking.

 

you'll use the hob for flow, get the ac 300 and make a fuge out of it, research it, you'll like the idea.

 

how come you're not using any substate???

 

get all that set-up let it cycle (up to one month) then worry about stocking the tank, but just f.y.i. ... lr, cycle, clean-up crew, coral, fish.

 

hope that helps

 

ocean/hai

[audi206rs4]

oh and having the light cycle helps keep the life on the live rock alive (8-10 hours per day should suffice).

 

i'd go with the 96w power quad pc for your tank, imo.

 

good luck, let us know how it goes!

[mollydog18]

thanks for the info!

 

We actually already own an AC300 but its on another tank. Its really a great filter. If we got another and we used it as our filter would we still use the powerheads for water flow or not?

 

About not using substrate - We decided to leave the tank floor bare for a few reasons:

**1. This Nano-Reef setup will be our 4th tank and no sand will make our cleaning a little easier (We also have a 72 gal, 55 gal, &10 gal)

2.Just recently we've seen a few bare bottom reef tanks and didn't think they looked bad- we actually liked them a lot

3. While we're getting our feet wet in the reef tank we won't have to worry about detritus getting trapped in the sand and screwing with our water parameters

4. We decided that if we were to change our minds at a later date about wanting substrate (which always seems to be the case )- it would be much easier to put sand into a tank that was already set up versus trying to remove it.

 

We'll see- I wouldn't be suprised if we added substrate down the road.

[audi206rs4]

yeah the powerheads will help mix up the water flow in the tank.

[Dingo]

No need for a sponge filter, the rock will do it all.

 

No need to jumpstart to add bacteria, it's already in the rock.

 

The store will probably have a box for you to take your stuff home. The rock already survived being shipped in newspaper to the store, so the ride home won't make much difference.

 

Don't worry about water params except for SG during cycle. Everything else will get thrown out of whack while the rock rots off the dead stuff. After cycle, change most of your water and then worry about it.

 

Rock, then cleanup crew, then corals, then fish. Clams much later as they need a mature tank. Do alot of research before you buy clams because they cost a lot and are hard to keep alive.

 

If you want hard corals and clams, then don't skimp on your lights, as you will need to upgrade later if you do. Those 96W power quads would be good. (hellolights.com)

[Crakeur]

I would think that a bare bottom tank is more work than having a sandbed. First off, you don't vacuum the sand in a reef. Live sand has many critters that are beneficial to the reef and vacuuming it will remove them from the tank. All you need to keep the sand looking clean is a sand sifting crew. Sand crabs work, some fish work, starfish, snails, cukes etc.

 

The bottom of a bare tank will have more visible detritus than a sand bed (my opinion) and that would drive me nuts.

[Siejuban]

I just setup my nano for 2 weeks, I suggest you put live sand, it help a lot, and no need to clean, since I have some nassarius snails to help me. Before I added my nassarius snails to my tank, there are lots of detritus on the sand bed (produced by the crab that come with rocks), after I added the snails, the detritus is gone, the snails has done something to them. And the mini starfish may also like the LiveSand too.