My 18 gallon nano

[lunchingfriar]

Here's a pic of my three-month old nano. Stats will follow if I can successfully upload an image.

[lunchingfriar]

Woot, the image uploaded. The first one was sort of a top-down view to get everything in the tank.

 

The tank is an 18 gallon acrylic I bought on ebay from Acrylicman (his ebay name is "displaycollectables"). It has a 15 gallon tank area and a built-in 3 gallon sump. In the sump is a wet-dry filter and a skimmer. The tank also came with a black acrylic canopy. I like the tank a lot; I wish it were made of glass instead of acrylic, though.

 

I installed a 2x32 watt CSL retrofit in the canopy. Recently I added a couple of 6500K self-ballasted 10 watt lights from All-Glass Aquarium to bring the total wattage to 84 watts. I also put a heater whose wattage I have forgotten in the sump.

 

I set the tank up in November. I started out with a 15-pound bag of aragonite sand (the kind that comes with lots of little shells and whatnot) and RO water from the LFS. After the dust settled I added 20 pounds of fiji live rock from Harbor Aquatics.

 

Right now I've got a maroon clownfish, a green bulb anemone, a crocea clam, a feather duster worm, an open brain coral, an orange lettuce sponge, a hammer coral, some green star polyps (green and brown living on the same rock), a red sea fan, and a small frag of hydnophora. The only thing I've lost is Xenia, and I'm pretty sure a hitchhiking crab was responsible for that (I've since caught him and exiled him to the sump). Also running amok in the tank are three blue-legged hermit crabs, an astrea snail, lots of bristleworms and pods, lots of little mystery snails, and some mini brittle stars. Oh, and my firefish, which stays hid most of the time.

 

Here's a closeup of the clam and the open brain coral:

[lunchingfriar]

Here's a shot of the maroon clown, the green bulb anemone, the feather duster, the clam, and the open brain:

[lunchingfriar]

Last but not least a shot of the GSP, the sea fan, and the hydnophora (you can't see the little hairy green polyps but they're there):

[quandary_23]

The clam and the open brain go well together.. Very nice,

[madness]

Great tank! What is the red fan against the back of the tank called?

[Cyber]

Hello lunchingfriar,

 

I am not sure about having the crocea under 84W and on the bottom of the tank. Unless you feed it every day using phytoplankton, it will starve and die. It may appear well right now but down in the road, it will starve. The zooxanthellae that convert light to food for the clam and itself will slowly die and your clam will lose color (turn brown).

 

Another potential problem is the BTA. It may move around in the future and sting the crocea or brain. Or worse, it "waits" until your tank is full of livestock then decides to move around.

 

You can check with peolpe who specializes in clams only like www.clamsdirect.com. You may be able to keep derasa, squamosa or hippopus but not crocea or maxima. If you know how then let me know, I like to keep some of them in my 18gal tank too =)). Currently I keep mine in a 40gal under MH.

 

Cyber

[lunchingfriar]

Thanks for the comments.

 

The sea fan was sold by the LFS as a "red sea fan". There's one on liveaquaria.com that looks just like it that they're also calling a red sea fan, so I guess the LFS got it right.

 

The BTA has moved around the tank some since I put him in, but so far there haven't been any problems. He seems happiest when his foot is totally surrounded by rock like it is now. He hasn't moved in about a month.

 

I've had the clam about two months. He was in a tank at the LFS about a month before that under far less intense light than he has here. I really didn't want this particular clam because I thought he was too big for the tank, but I figured he would die at the LFS if I didn't. So here he is. I feed the tank a capful of DT's about 3 times per week. I've had him higher in the tank than he is now, but he usually gets knocked over by something in the night. The good news is that I've got a 250W metal halide pendant on order for the 44 gallon corner tank at home, and once that arrives I'll probably move him there.

[Rene]

This is a great look for any tank, and nice to see in a nano. I like the idea of having a few larger centerpiece corals rather than jamming lots and lots of corals in there. Is that open brain okay or was it a fish-store rescue? It looks awfully bleached but the rest of your corals look great.

[lunchingfriar]

Thanks

 

I bought the open brain about a week ago. His coloring is more intense than it looks in the picture--my photography skills aren't that great. (Actually I was proud I didn't get any flash glare or blurriness in these shots.)

 

The LFS keeps their corals under normal output fluorescent lights. The open brain had been in there at least three months. They're a great fish store but they're a little old-fashioned and resistant to change when it comes to lighting.

 

A friend of mine gave me the hydnophora frag. I was wondering if it was gonna make it or not but since I added the extra lights he seems to be doing better. I've got room in the canopy for two more and I'm considering getting them and some good reflectors for them. (Right now the reflectors on the 10W lights are aluminum cans.)

[Cyber]

"The good news is that I've got a 250W metal halide pendant "

 

Way to go!!! Make sure you acclimate stuff slowly to the new light.

 

Cyber