Nightstand NANO build

[Lula_Mae]

14 hours ago, Jeff Hood said:

Algae barn order came in.  I added a nice wad of Chaetomorphia to my reactor, a jar of pods and some phytoplankton.   I also added some bacteria to my quarantine tank.  

    Hopefully it will be cycled in a couple weeks and I can put my first fish in there for a month or so.  

 

As as far as fish, I’m not completely sure on my stocking plan. Any suggestions?   

 

Options in my mind

• mandarin if the pods reproduce.  Tank may be too small to keep up
• clown pair
• gobies
• royal gramma

i plan on only 3-4 very small fish and that’s it. 

 

 

I’ll start doing my regular water changes soon.  Also I’ll start dosing my two part as soon as we finish my dosing containers and holders.  Curious how long before I start to see some coralline algae?   I’ve seeded a very small rock with coralline and placed it into a high flow area with my power head blasting that rock.

     Can’t wait to show my dosing containers off. A friend at work is making them for me on his 3d printer. We took the design from a on line file and modified it to look better and work with led back lighting. Should be cool. 

 

I love my pink streaked wrasse. He's my favorite fish probably ever.

[Jeff Hood]

8 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I love my pink streaked wrasse. He's my favorite fish probably ever.

Cool I’ll check them out.  

[Lula_Mae]

2 hours ago, Jeff Hood said:

Cool I’ll check them out.  

Here's Merlin's purchase picture:

 

I also have a video of him on my tank thread.  He's so fun!

[Jeff Hood]

2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Here's Merlin's purchase picture:

 

I also have a video of him on my tank thread.  He's so fun!

He is so cool.  I will definitely keep my eye out for one. 

    Ammonia is coming down in my quarantine tank.  Once the bio filter gets going I’ll order a fish.   

[Tamberav]

Very cool!  What are all the dosers for? Maybe one is for automatic water changes?  

[banasophia]

If you’re considering a mandarin for a smaller tank, I recommend a captive bred Biota mandarin from Live Aquaria, and scope out The Copepod House group on Facebook for info/support on culturing copepods. I have a Biota mandarin in my Biocube 16 and I love him, but I do feed heavily to care for him and my sun corals, which does present a challenge with keeping nitrate and phosphates in check... not sure I would choose to keep a mandarin if choosing all over again, my tank is very high maintenance. If you’re thinking of a mandarin, you will probably want to avoid any other pod eating competitors. 

[Tamberav]

36 minutes ago, banasophia said:

If you’re considering a mandarin for a smaller tank, I recommend a captive bred Biota mandarin from Live Aquaria, and scope out The Copepod House group on Facebook for info/support on culturing copepods. I have a Biota mandarin in my Biocube 16 and I love him, but I do feed heavily to care for him and my sun corals, which does present a challenge with keeping nitrate and phosphates in check... not sure I would choose to keep a mandarin if choosing all over again, my tank is very high maintenance. If you’re thinking of a mandarin, you will probably want to avoid any other pod eating competitors. 

 

Nice photo... I used to keep 6 of them in a 29g hex but it was a ton of work and why I don't have any right now. I had lots of free time then to take care of them but I am out of college and a working girl now lol

[Jeff Hood]

Yes, I agree that it’s probably more work than is feasible right now especially once my daughter goes in for her bone marrow transplant.  I’ll be traveling a lot to see her.  Appreciate the ideas on fish.  Might be best to pick something that can be fed with an automatic feeder at least until we get her back home. 

     

[Jeff Hood]

On 10/25/2018 at 12:04 AM, Tamberav said:

Very cool!  What are all the dosers for? Maybe one is for automatic water changes?  

Yes, the DOS is for auto water change. The other 4 will be for two part and what ever else I decide later.  At first I’ll just use two or three of the BRS dosers.  Once I have a bunch of corals I’m sure I’ll add things if needed, trace elements, aminos what ever.  I will try to set up the water changer soon.  No need at the moment as my bioload is almost nil. 

[Jeff Hood]

Almost done with my dosing containers. We are going to try and print one more batch and see if we can get a better cosmetic result. 

[Jeff Hood]

My pods are growing and multiplying well.  I’ve been feeding them the phytoplankton they came with.  5cc daily.  

 

My chaeto seems to be struggling with the low nutrients so far.  Not real surprising.  I may have to replace it once I’ve got fish in the tank and nutrients are higher.  

 

The one rock I put in to get coralline started growing has some algae growing and there is a film of algae or something growing on the glass.   Possibly could be dinoflagellates or a brown cyano but too slight to be sure.  There is some very slight hair algae growing too but it’s all very minimal.  I’m not worried about any of it at this time.  I’m quite sure I’ll go through a new tank phase and hope to be able to minimize it with standard practice.  

 

Nitrates are roughly 20

phosphates still read zero with the low range kit

ALK is 7.7

Ph ranges from 7.8-7.9.  I figure this will go up once I start dosing.

havent bothered to check calcium and mg yet. 

only food going into the tank is the phytoplankton and light. 

I cut the peak photoperiod back to only 3 hours but total is the same. 

 

I will I’ll turn my flow back up now that the bugs have all taken hold and began reproducing.  

 

My main tank has only been running for 40 days. 

My quarantine tank is in the middle of its cycle.  Nitrites are still above 1, ammonia is zero.  It’s been up and running for only 9 days. Trying to be patient.  

 

My two part dosing and my auto water changes will begin next week.  I have the week off so should be able to get some stuff done around the house.  My cichlids will get a new bio filter started for the beginning of some upgrades there and my garden pond will get it’s new plumbing installed.  

 

Plan for the NANO....once quarantine tank is done I’ll order 1-2 fish and keep in there for a month.  Then add them to the display once they go through my planned process. Once stable with two fish and a flow of nutrients through the tank I’ll add a test coral or two.  

 

Stay tuned.  

[Jeff Hood]

Here are the dosing containers all done.  They match all my APEX gear really well.  Mounted pictures this week. 

[Jeff Hood]

[Jeff Hood]

Auto water change has began.  It’s changing out 0.3 gallons over a 12 hour period during the day.  After figuring in dilution it will be a 10% dilution per week.  This comes out to around 20.6cc every 13 minutes.  

     Noticed my salinity has dropped. This is most likely from emptying my skimmer cup and water tests diluting it out.  I need to be better at replacing this water after every test and skimmer cup cleaning.  Crazy how a nano can change on you in a hurry. 

 

 

I Immediately noticed Ph is little higher and more stabile.   Will be curious how accurate the two pumps are after calibration.  I’ll be watching the salinity trend over time closely. 

 

Some day I hope to show something in the tank but for now nothing interesting is going on there other than the rapid multiplication of the copepods.  

[Jeff Hood]

Well, in the mean time while I’m waiting on the slow start up of the nano I’ve been working on improving my African tank and garden pond.  

     The African tank got a new lighting system. I have liked the AI prime so much that I decided to try out the fresh water version that just came out.  It really improved the look of my tank.  Plus it’s WIFI controllable and I can ditch the old appliance timer that use to run my old DIY lighting.  I also like how the lights can ramp up and down for a dusk effect. 

     I plan to replace all the gravel in the bottom to a dark colored sand.   This will be a while.  Kinda dreading that.  ?‍♂️

 

[Jeff Hood]

Finally got dosing hooked up and running.  Don’t need much at the moment but will fine tune to my goal numbers and see how it goes. 

 

Looks complicated but it’s really pretty easy.  It’s for sure a busy sump.  

[Jeff Hood]

Well, for the continuation of this build thread I’ll add a few pics of some other 3D printed stuff we’ve made and progress of my cycle. 

 

The tank is cycled.  After 2 months it’s pretty stable.  I changed the water yesterday to get Nitrates down to less than 5.  Phosphate is unmeasurable.  I’ve been feeding the tank, adding phytoplankton.  Skimmer is working and running silent.  I’ve now lowered it back into its stock location.  

   I’ve added a second wave pump I bought on Black Friday and got it set up.  They work together wirelessly.  Pretty cool for a nano. It’s the little egg shaped one from Innovative Marine.   1500 gph each on Max.  I run them in level 7 for now. I’ve also added a nice screen top for future jumpers. 

 

The Quaranteen tank is also cycled.  The glass lid should be here Wednesday and ready for its first inhabitants. I need salt to change the water in the Q tank so should order my first fish next week.  Looking forward to having some life.  

   I’ll quarantine the fish for 3-4 weeks with standard practice then add to the display tank once deemed healthy.   

 

I also got got in my calibrated temp probe.  Discovered my Q tank heater was almost 3 degrees off.  My Apex for the main display was calibrated to match the heater I bought for it that had its own external temp probe.  Amazingly it was spot on.   So now both my tanks are temp matched and water parameters are matched.  

 

Here are the new NANO probe holders my buddy made for me. They worked out perfect.  It hangs from the glass separator for the pump return section in my Red Sea tank. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Hood]

First full tank shot with final aquascaping.  

[Jeff Hood]

Ok, now I am ready for winter and any possible short term power outages.   Anything longer and I’ll get a generator but for now this should be great.  Battery back up for my two powerheads.  I’m working on trying to get a little DC pump to fit for the return section but no luck yet.  

 

Oh oh and here is a sneak peek of my buddies build I’m helping with.  His 800 gallon office reef.  It’s gonna be crazy.  

 

 

[Jeff Hood]

Yea, first macro life in the display. One Astrea snail.  I also have two new fish in the Quarantine tank.  A pajama cardinal and a yellow/ orange  spot goby. Both pretty small.  

     

[Jeff Hood]

Sumps for the office tank coming along nicely.  Need to finish plumbing the air exchanger in there otherwise I’ll need to take my respirator to finish up all the plumbing.  We have decided on two 90 gallon sumps chained together.  I can bypass the second one and turn it into a salt mixing tub for a 90 gallon water change.  It will also double as an algae grow out sump.  When a water change is required it will just me moved and put back when done. Still a lot of work to go.  

   Today I’ll be adding unions to the top drains so the sumps can be removed and cleaned easily.  

 

On the NANO front, fish acclimating well to their quarantine environment.  Both are eating well and showing no signs of disease.  The Goby has set up a little territory in a piece of PVC pipe.  Probably doesn’t venture much farther than 6” from the opening.  Can’t wait to get him “Walter”. And his buddy the pajama cardinal “Lurch” into their new home.  

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Hood]

Well, small disaster at home.  My big African tank that’s been running for 15 years sprung a major leak.  One of my bulkheads for the return through the bottom of the tank decided  to fail.  So I had to drain the whole tank and transfer the fish to the sump.  Wasn’t fun and got 99% of the fish out.  A few didn’t make it. Lessons learned...never use the flexible PVC pipe.  It just doesn’t get the same bond to the fittings as regular pipe.  Sure it lasted a long time but should have lasted forever.  

     Gonna take this opportunity to redo the whole room and re plumb the whole tank.  It’s overdue as the plumbing for this tank has been set up since 2002 from my old salt setup. 

     Tanks front panel will get a good polish, new sump layout, new external biofilter, new pump.  Should look nice once done.  

    I did consider turning this tank back into a salt tank but decided to keep it an African tank.   Not fond of acrylic with salt water.  Almost impossible to keep coralline off the front panel and gets scratched too easily trying to get it off.  

 

While re doing the room I’m gonna remodel the whole room to make it a more efficient pet room, room for multiple tanks, quarantine tanks, other displays, new boa constrictor cage etc...  the room will get it’s floor and lower walls sprayed with Line-x to form a waterproof floor wall system in case of another leak.  Stay tuned. 

As for the NANO, all is on schedule.  Fish doing well in quarantine and tolerating their treatment.  

[Jeff Hood]

Well, first fish is in the NANO and doing well.  The second fish will get transferred in the next few days once he’s back up to full speed.  He was a little sluggish after the copper treatment.  He is eating now and looks good.  

 

My african tank is drained.  I’ve lost half my fish.   Just too stressful a move I guess.  It’s not over yet.  Hopefully I can keep what I have left.   I’ve began re plumbing it.  It will be a much better system once done.  I’ve learned a few things plumbing my buddies 800 gallon and will use a similar setup at home. 

 

The 800 gallon office reef is full of test water and running.  We’ve got it pretty well dialed in.  No major leaks and it’s passed the power out test.  

 

 

 

[Donny41]

Sorry to hear about the leak, just read through the thread and the African tank is really impressive (as is the nano build). Following along to see how it recovers.

[Jeff Hood]

Thanks @Donny41  it will recover fine.   It needed to be re done but I was hoping it could be on my terms but it decided for me. It will come back better in the end. 

 

The nano is doing great so far.  Been stable.  I’ve got some hair algae that’s sprouted up despite no measurable phosphate ever and moderate Nitrates.  I’ve got those down to 5 and I’ll mechanically remove it soon.  New tank thing.  It will get better.  I’ll start adding more to my clean up crew.