Couple Quick Rookie Questions

[TDogg]

Hello everyone, i must say i never heard of "nano reefs" before until a friend told me about them i always had a interest in doing a saltwater tank but was always under the impression it was close to impossible in such small tanks, it will be a good change up from my freshwater tanks... anyhow i have a couple questions I hoping some of you might be able to answer.. sorry if they have been asked before

 

I currently have a eclipse 12 system that im not using, i want to make this into my nano-reef, I read that the supernova32 would be the perfect light upgrade for my hood, if this is true i have a couple questions about it

 

1. Does it come with everything needed to upgrade?

2. Do i need a electrical background to install it?

3. What tools will i need to install it?

4. Will it get to hot and risk melting the tank or top of the hood?

5. Will it be enough light to house some live coral?

 

also I plan on going the LR/LS way of things

1.how many lbs of live sand will be a good amount?

2. how many lbs of live rock will be a good enough to help establish a good filter system within the tank

 

thanks for any help provided and i look foward to chating more on this board seems like a good community with many helpful people which is always a good thing

[MKramer]

The SuperNova:

1. Yeah, it comes with everything. remote ballast, reflector, socket, screws, switch, etc.

 

2. No electrical background necessary. The included instructions are short but excellent (it's a rather simple proceedure). Basically, you just have to wire-nut two pairs of wires together, and the wires that go together are conveinently the same color (or at least they were in my kit). If you want to put the switch in, it just goes between one of the pairs of wires.

 

3. For tools, all I used was a philips screwdriver, but I was mounting to a wood canopy. I'm not sure abotu the eclipse canopy.

 

4. Again, I'm not sure about the heat with the eclipse, but I highly doubt it'll be a problem.

 

5. A single 32W lamp over a 12g will be sufficient for lower-light corals. zooanthid, mushrooms, and the like. Other people here can probably list low-light corals better than I can.

 

LR/LS:

1. I would suggest 20lbs of fine or mixed grain sand

2. The amount of LR is hard to specify, as it really depends on the particular pieces. The target range should be between 15-25lbs probably. If you get really porous stuff like Marshall Island rock, it won't take as much (weight-wise) to occupy the space of your tank, and it will have as much or more surface area for filtration and buffering than a heavier collection of Fiji rock.

[printerdown01]

I don't know how much the supernova is, but this site sells a CSL (Coral SeaLife is a very reputable lighting manufacturer for reef aquariums, and have been in the business for quite some time)32W retrofit, that will run about $52 if my memory serves correctly (including shipping). I retrofitted a 12 gallon tank with an eclipse hood (so roughly the same set-up at least in terms of what the hoods are made out of). This has been plenty of light for my tank. I have some softies, and one SPS that came 1/2 dead on a piece of live rock... It has been over a year now, and the SPS is still alive and kicking. No problem with overheating w/ this light- in fact I'm considering adding a 2nd one so I can keep clams! Retrofit kits are a piece of cake to install... I did it in a dorm room (so I was VERY limited in tools, in fact I think I used my pocket knife to install the whole set-up!)! In terms of what can be kept under these lighting conditions, I think you will be pleasantly surprised... It is my opinion that people tend to over exaggerate the amount of light needed to keep certain corals (I have kept the SPS that is currently in my tank under 30W of NO lighting – the lighting I had before the 32W CSL), but hey, it is good to error on the side of caution anyway!

 

In terms of LR and LS: go for approx 15 lbs of GOOD QUALITY rock. Hold off if you have to, this is going to be the backbone of your reef! When it comes to LS, I take a different approach than most people... As far as I am concerned it is almost pointless to buy bagged live sand. There is nothing in these bags except for a few spp. of bacteria that could handle all of the die-off and oxygen depleted conditions in the bag. The LS sold in most fish stores looks more like bits of rock and shell than sand... Thus, I would recommend another method (this method is only valid when starting a tank, and should NEVER be used on an already cycled aquarium): Buy some dry sand (preferably aragonite, this stuff is great for sustaining life) go to your LFS and ask them if you can use a pipette or a turkey-baster to suck up the gunk (or crap, whichever word you prefer) off the bottom of their LR holding or curing tanks! This gunk is FILLED with bacteria (both aerobic and anaerobic), it also has tiny fragments of coralline algae (probably multiple species), and other critters that normally come with LR and like to hide on the bottoms of tanks i.e. amphipods, copepods, isopods, mini brittle stars, tiny snails, and eggs of all kinds of things...

*just mix the stuff with your sand in a bowl (after you have washed the sand of course), and add it to the tank... It will be a bit murky for a while, but that was going to happen anyway! That is my trick for cheap, efficient, and biologically diverse live sand... Not to mention the fact that you can pick the color, size, and type of your sand

[Korbin]

I have the same tank with the same light. It came in the mail. I popped the old light off, and screwed the new one into place. It took about 15 minutes. And then I plugged it in. Thats it.

 

I am keeping mushrooms, polyps, a colt coral, ricordia, and a frogspawn and they're all doing fine. I also have a very tiny sps frag that I got for $2 and thats still alive as well.

 

When I started my tank, I had about 12lbs of base rock (dead, bare rock) and 10-11 lbs of argonite sand. I let that all run sterile for a week, and then I scooped some crap out of an older, established tank and dumped it into my new tank. I also scraped off some coralline algae and sprinkled them in. I added about 2lbs of liverock and live sand, and now my tank is full of life 3 months later.

 

If you are patient, you don't have to spend $70 on a bunch of liverock and sand. I problably spent under $30.