Low Tech Desk Nano 15g

[Havre]

Hello fellas!

 

New guy here, I'm a reefing beginner and I wanted to share my journey with like minded people. Hopefully to learn and gain valuable feedback from more experienced reefers. 🙂

 

I'm a 30 yo lad from Sweden and I do have experience from the fresh water hobby where I've kept wild discus for several years, so I would say I have basic knowledge about the aquarist hobby. However I had to sell everything prior to building a house and moving, just couldn't keep up with everything plus the discus but now I'm simply trying something else and small to begin with and we'll see where it takes me. 🙂

I'm going to setup a fairly simple tank (Dennerle Scapers Tank 15G, cause that's what I had left), a couple of rock, alittle sand, a heater, powerheads and a small Tunze Comline Streamfilter just to be able to run some carbon and whatnot and hide the heater and auto-top-off. Going to have 1000~ gallons/hour of flow to begin with. Not going to use RO water to begin with even though most people recommend it, I have my own well and provide my own water so I know exactly whats in it, which to me is an advantage at least compared to municipal(?) water. Maybe I'll start RO again when the garage is finished, which it isn't, yet.

 

Got an AI Prime HD light using David Saxby's schedule. Hopefully I'll be able to run it without any more equipment than this and do weekly 10-20% water changes. Only going to stock a couple Trochus, a hermit and two clownfish + some corals. 

I've just started the cycling plan instructed by Red Sea Reef Mature starter kit. However I won't be adding any livestock as soon as it tells me, because I want to be incredibly anal about quarantining everything for at least 4 weeks to make sure I don't get a bad start.

 

I've built a super simple and clean rock structure/scape with a tiny cave and some triangular shapes with a small mountain top, kind of. Looks good to me and only needed two rocks. I do need to buy a quarantine tank though, currently I have a hang-on-filter on this tank that will cycle along with it, so that I can move that over to quarantine tank later on so that I have some filter power.

 

Anyway, this is where I'm currently at. I'm hopefully going to post updates along the way to see how things progress. Basically thinking out loud while I do things, hopefully someone can stop me when I'm about to do something stupid or encourage me when I'm doing something non-stupid. 🙂

 

Cya around, hopefully. 🙂

[skyscraper2290]

Great start! Love the simple scape but still quite a bit of real estate for corals. I used the Red Sea Reef Mature kit as well and I would say it is a great kit and I did follow the stocking instructions and am up to 36 corals including SPS so I really think it helps speed the maturation process up. 

[MrObscura]

Looking good, you'll definitely be able to get by with that equipment with a weekly water change. Only thing I'd say is 1000gph is likely way more than you need. Also I wouldn't bother with starter kits/dosing programs personally.  They're designed to sell product first and foremost as far as I'm concerned. Plus dosing anything that isn't necessary will only complicate things imo. For example dosing to reduce nitrates and phos from the start might just end up requiring you to dose them later because your nutrient levels are to low. 

 

Cycle the tank normally. Then stock a reasonable bioload without overfeeding, and with running a little chemipure Blu(or carbon and gfo) , and doing weekly water changes, no3 and no4 should take care of themselves.  I plan to avoid dosing anything other than cal and Alk. And my corals will dictate how and when I do so. 

[WV Reefer]

2 hours ago, Havre said:

Hello fellas!

 

New guy here, I'm a reefing beginner and I wanted to share my journey with like minded people. Hopefully to learn and gain valuable feedback from more experienced reefers. 🙂

 

I'm a 30 yo lad from Sweden and I do have experience from the fresh water hobby where I've kept wild discus for several years, so I would say I have basic knowledge about the aquarist hobby. However I had to sell everything prior to building a house and moving, just couldn't keep up with everything plus the discus but now I'm simply trying something else and small to begin with and we'll see where it takes me. 🙂

I'm going to setup a fairly simple tank (Dennerle Scapers Tank 15G, cause that's what I had left), a couple of rock, alittle sand, a heater, powerheads and a small Tunze Comline Streamfilter just to be able to run some carbon and whatnot and hide the heater and auto-top-off. Going to have 1000~ gallons/hour of flow to begin with. Not going to use RO water to begin with even though most people recommend it, I have my own well and provide my own water so I know exactly whats in it, which to me is an advantage at least compared to municipal(?) water. Maybe I'll start RO again when the garage is finished, which it isn't, yet.

 

Got an AI Prime HD light using David Saxby's schedule. Hopefully I'll be able to run it without any more equipment than this and do weekly 10-20% water changes. Only going to stock a couple Trochus, a hermit and two clownfish + some corals. 

I've just started the cycling plan instructed by Red Sea Reef Mature starter kit. However I won't be adding any livestock as soon as it tells me, because I want to be incredibly anal about quarantining everything for at least 4 weeks to make sure I don't get a bad start.

 

I've built a super simple and clean rock structure/scape with a tiny cave and some triangular shapes with a small mountain top, kind of. Looks good to me and only needed two rocks. I do need to buy a quarantine tank though, currently I have a hang-on-filter on this tank that will cycle along with it, so that I can move that over to quarantine tank later on so that I have some filter power.

 

Anyway, this is where I'm currently at. I'm hopefully going to post updates along the way to see how things progress. Basically thinking out loud while I do things, hopefully someone can stop me when I'm about to do something stupid or encourage me when I'm doing something non-stupid. 🙂

 

Cya around, hopefully. 🙂

Looks good so far! 🙂

[vlangel]

Nice start.  You should be fine with weekly water changes.

[Havre]

13 hours ago, vlangel said:

Nice start.  You should be fine with weekly water changes.

 

I hope so, rather change tiny amounts often to keep things as stable as possible.

[Daniel91]

Greetings from Denmark! Well... Los Angeles now.

 

Looks really nice! Can only be a great journal!

[Havre]

2 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Greetings from Denmark! Well... Los Angeles now.

 

Looks really nice! Can only be a great journal!

Dang dude, did your GPS break? 😄

 

Did first round of tests today as stated by Red Sea cycling kit:
27 degrees

1,025 salinity

14 alkalinity

 

Alkalinity was kind of a surprise, my tap water is at 8 so I guess something in the tank is buffering it quite a lot, probably the salt I'm guessing (RS  Coral Pro). However, I'm going to proceed as instructed, if KH higher than 8.4 then don't dose KH Coralline Gro-buffer.

[Daniel91]

My GPS didn’t want me to live in cold weather anymore 🙂

[Havre]

On 11/1/2018 at 6:24 PM, Havre said:

Dang dude, did your GPS break? 😄

 

Did first round of tests today as stated by Red Sea cycling kit:
27 degrees

1,025 salinity

14 alkalinity

 

Alkalinity was kind of a surprise, my tap water is at 8 so I guess something in the tank is buffering it quite a lot, probably the salt I'm guessing (RS  Coral Pro). However, I'm going to proceed as instructed, if KH higher than 8.4 then don't dose KH Coralline Gro-buffer.

Tested alkalinity for 18 today. O_O

[Havre]

I switched out my tunze nanostream to a mp10qd, those things are expensive but soooo sleek and non-invasive. 😊

[Havre]

Got 2 clownfish, 2 trochus and 1 hermit in my quarantine system now. Not sure if I need to keep them there that long though, the LFS has really strict quarantine routines on new arrivals and extremely serious about quality, they also treat their system for ick and parasites.  The fish I bought has been in their tanks for 2 months. They are a salt water only store and quite small since it's in sweden, so they don't have that much rotation in their stock.

 

But according to my cycle procedure the inverts will be there for at least 12~ days and fish at least 21 days. This tank doesn't have much filtration tho so I'm going to feed very tiny amounts maybe once every 3 days and keep doing small water changes throughout the week. I'll have to monitor the values quite closely.

[DCUEVAS74]

40 minutes ago, Havre said:

Got 2 clownfish, 2 trochus and 1 hermit in my quarantine system now. Not sure if I need to keep them there that long though, the LFS has really strict quarantine routines on new arrivals and extremely serious about quality, they also treat their system for ick and parasites.  The fish I bought has been in their tanks for 2 months. They are a salt water only store and quite small since it's in sweden, so they don't have that much rotation in their stock.

 

But according to my cycle procedure the inverts will be there for at least 12~ days and fish at least 21 days. This tank doesn't have much filtration tho so I'm going to feed very tiny amounts maybe once every 3 days and keep doing small water changes throughout the week. I'll have to monitor the values quite closely.

Love clowns, what kind of food are you going to feed?  

 

[Havre]

16 minutes ago, DCUEVAS74 said:

Love clowns, what kind of food are you going to feed?  

 

I have frozen mysis and Aquaforest marine mix s (https://aquaforest.eu/en/product/af-marine-mix-s/) 🙂

Might actually be big pellets for my tiny clows but i'll have to squish it to smaller pieces of they cant eat it. I feel like 1 single 1mm pellet would sustain their tiny bellies for several days.

 

[DCUEVAS74]

10 minutes ago, Havre said:

I have frozen mysis and Aquaforest marine mix s (https://aquaforest.eu/en/product/af-marine-mix-s/) 🙂

Might actually be big pellets for my tiny clows but i'll have to squish it to smaller pieces of they cant eat it. I feel like 1 single 1mm pellet would sustain their tiny bellies for several days.

 

Good news is they can be little pigs.  I have a large female and small male.  The small one actually eats just as much as the female and even takes on larger pieces available.  Good luck and I look forward to watching your tank mature.

[Havre]

Both fish have been eating at least now, which is a good sign. However one of them noticed some white stringy poop. In my discus experiences this is always cause by intestinal parasites/flagellates, something that pretty much all discus carry and never get rid off, but it can break out with stress. Maybe this is the same case here; they recently experienced a lot of stress with moving ofc.

 

I'm not 100% it works the same way with clowns though, that they're pretty much always carriers, I'm thinking maybe I should run a cure.

 

Since they're eating it could just be caused by stress and not parasites, so I'm going to keep an eye on it and see if it fixes itself. Otherwise I have Sera Flagellol at hand which is sometimes used to cure this in discus.

[--chris--]

Nice tank, and off to a good start!  Welcome to this branch of the hobby 🙂 

[Havre]

You guys remember I said I wouldn't get an RO system and use tap water?

 

I have an RO system now.. I know, move along.

 

Anyway, I've set up some more stuff, installed mechanical filter & osmolator. I like that most of the tech is hidden so everything still looks quite clean.

 

 

[Lula_Mae]

Having the RO system will help you keep the alk under control,  RSCP mixes with pretty high alk to begin with so I was going to suggest trying regular Red Sea salt with your well water. 

[Havre]

20 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Having the RO system will help you keep the alk under control,  RSCP mixes with pretty high alk to begin with so I was going to suggest trying regular Red Sea salt with your well water. 

Yeah, that makes sense. 🙂 I figured I might go back to tap water if it's got the right parameters later on, however, the well was drilled 5 months ago so i'd first like to know how stable it is year around. Currently I'm testing the water once every 3 months to see what kind of fluctuations to expect, mainly for drinking/health perspective but why not do tests for aquaria as well while at it. 🙂 

[Havre]

Did some testing today. Red Sea Kit states approximate values right now should be

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm

 

And that it's time to add cleanup crew. I only just started getting those brown algae as you always see in the beginning. However, my tests say something different.

 

Ammonia: 0,3 ppm

Nitrite: 1,5 ppm

Nitrate: 70 ppm.

 

Safe to say it's NOT time to add anything living to this tank, cycling will take longer than "planned" but thankfully for me is that it's as simple as waiting it out. 🙂

 

When Ammonia and Nitrite is at zero, I can do some water changes to deal with Nitrate and then slowly add living creatures. Going to start changing with RO water as well to slowly change the alkalinity.

[Havre]

Being new to the salt water hobby I don't know much about clown fish behavior other than the fact that they're quite silly fish.

One of my clowns, the bigger one, has eaten some small pellets. The other one has tried them, but spat most of them out. I feel like they're quite big for it though so it not eating might actually be to the fact that it's hard to digest such big pellets. Going to get some flakes I think to try and feed them to see if it's easier for them to eat now that they're juvenile. When adding food they swim around and get active, which is a sign of wanting to eat but the food provided might not be in their taste due to its size. 🙂

 

Other than that I let the display tank run it's course, not really doing much to it, waiting for ammonia and nitrite to come down before i start doing water changes and introducing living creatures. Also doing 30% changes on the quarantine tank every 3 days after feeding to make sure its as clean as possible, while doing that I also test for ammonia and nitrite.

[Havre]

Interesting, they both took flakes, but spat it back out like 10 times. They'll probably eat once they're hungry enough... Picky fudgers.

[Havre]

Ammonia still coming down. 0.2 today, nitrite still off the chart. Guess I'm pretty much in the second stage of cycling.

[vlangel]

This stage will go faster however.  Nitrites cycle pretty fast.  As soon as they drop and nitrates go up, you are good to go...slowly though.