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Tommy's nano log


TommyH

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Hello all,

 guessed that it is more appropriate to put all my nano reef tank thing in here along with loads of pictures. For start, I went today into shopping! Yee! I spent in total 235 $ and I got following:

 

Wave Box 45 aquarium with lid,

Amtra LED System, 18W, with loads of combinations of white, blue and even purple lightning, (night, sunrise, day, sunset...)

Hydor 50W heater - adjustable,

Termometer with salinity meter (old school),

Amtra sea complex salt,

And suggested synthetic fiber filter,

Amtra aquarium stand (60*30 cm)

 

With this Will also be going previously mentioned Eheim Liberty 75 (380l/min) filter (that fiber filter for start and later on carbon aswell). In case you did not notice under beginner forum, I retested my water with suggested Tetra app, and results are now aparently - ideal. If not, maybe it is better that i don't know. I got awesome service in store, guy also promised one free smaller live rock to help me out, one I power up new tank.

 

Old freshwater will have to go  and i hope I can sell it under huge discount as complete set, for ready aquarium. I will get measly 40$ for it, but it will cover one soft coral at least. Shop manager (or owner not sure) also suggested already a pair of small fishes so i don't overburden tank, along with one crab (or shrimp...newbie XD). All in all i am very happy especially since all is "Wife aproved" system hehe. She was so stunned by looks of mocked up tank with lights on stand that even shocked me. I guess you all know, how wives react to mid-life crysis shopping lol.

 

I hope that water will be in tank some time next week, when i also plan to get easy life easy start liquid and most likely some saltwater specific tests.

Pictures are below.

 

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Christopher Marks

Congrats on your new nano reef system @TommyH! Will you be starting with dry rock and a little live rock? If you're able to purchase bagged live sand, that can also be a great way to establish your reef tank and begin the cycle process.

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Well, unfortunately for now they only carry plain sand and dry rock. But, store got alot of nice formed live rocks and they promised me one free piece for jump start. I also plan to use starting bacteria culture. I think they carry Easy start brand, but could be some  others. I guess i will need proper tester for saltwater, cos with those i can only test freshwater (lol, next time i'd better read labels better).

I will for sure try to look up live sand too if there is any in area. One other shop carry Red Sea stuff, so maybe they offer something and there are couple of shops that i did not visited. Btw. That salinity measurement is unusual thing, How do you use that? I saw on mine on other end there is also thermometer. I am guessing that I put it in watter and see where surface line goes to?

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I talked with my brother and he said that is very simple to add separate vent and hose got plain RO/DI water for salt water purposes. So I will get that in short time.One problem less 🙂

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Christopher Marks
On 4/19/2019 at 1:19 PM, TommyH said:

That salinity measurement is unusual thing, How do you use that? I saw on mine on other end there is also thermometer. I am guessing that I put it in watter and see where surface line goes to?

This sounds like a floating hydrometer, you are correct about how to read it, simply float it in the saltwater and read where the water surface line hits. There is a thermometer included because your salinity measurement will change a little depending upon the temperature of your water. You want to measure the salinity of your water at the same temperature it will be in your aquarium, around 25.5-26.5°C.

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Thank you for the tips. If all goes well, tank should start to cycle in next few days. Unfortunately I need to sell my freshwater tank first, but lucky I have a buyer.

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New day and new expenses. I went to shop yesterday and manages to get cheap 700 l/hour pump and 50W heather for saltwater mixing. I also got 10 kg white sand from Amtra.

A shelp for cycling start i took, Rowa bac MN4 and Ammonia NH3 test Profi from Salifert.

 

That was lot of cash but unfortunately I did not found any rock. One piece of info I got was that my country forbids to allow shops to sell live rocks, so I will start with dry rocks and sand. But since i will need to wait for some time to gather money for first coral (i guess coral should go first?) I am not in hurry anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all.

 

I was in small shopping today and decided to finaly start doing something. So I got 1 kg of smaller rocks and soon enough I hope to get 4 kg more of dry rocks. With those, there will be nuff material to create interesting reef. Apart from one large rock I plan to make at least one more small "island" for those corals that like to spread a bit too much. I also dod initial batch of water, which came out at 1.024 on my hydrometer (floating one). Since I need to put 2 more batches to fully fill tank, I figured I have nuff time to increase salinity or decrease if needed. Anyway it is in "green range" so I am happy. I admit that washing sand was painfully long and problematic. I won't say my wife how much water i spend on rinsing XD. As Always. Any advice is apreciated.

initial setup.jpg

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billygoat

Quite the low-profile aquascape so far! 😄 I look forward to seeing what you come up with once you get your dry rock in. What sort of corals are you planning on keeping?

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  • 1 month later...

Hello all.

 

I totally forgot to post pics. This was shot a week and a half ago when setup was completed and water filled in. Now I have at least 5 weeks to figure out what i will put inside. I came to conclusion that this tank must fill in 2 main needs as minimum. That is minimum of one fish (I gues it will me max aswell lol, due to 34 liters tank) and none of put corals must be too demanding or toxic. I read a bit in mean time and I was surprised to see that zoe contain rather bad toxin called palytoxin. So , I want to avoid these. Since you all got much more experienxe with nano's than me, i would apreciate suggestions as for corals so for possible nano-compatibile fish. I still need to get some basic testers. so far i got only Ammonia tester from Salifert and I add weekly dose of Rowa bac m to tank. So far, so good, Ammonia is at abouz 0.15 tops. I also noticed slight yellow haze in tank. I guess cycling process started to do it's thing. I did not changed any water so far. i am not sure should i do it or not. I planned to change 3 liters weekly when I put some livestock inside. (that would be about 10% of volume of water inside tank).

 

Anyway. I hope that you like it. ALso, to mention powerhead in marine rated and can haul up to 700 l/h of water, currently at half throttle. And I also put filter with some fibers for mechanical filtration and also for additional 380 l/h of water flow. so about 750 currently in total. I also marked level of water where I will check vapored water, but I dont expect much of that due to almost full tank glass cover. so fer in this part of year it is less then 0.5 dl every 2 days and that seemed too much for adding so next time it will be even less.

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I guess fresh pic is in order. This was shot just a minute ago. Not much interesting things happen since those were dry rocks. Rowa bac m should help with that I guess 🙂

As for other parameter testing I did not planned to do that before I decide to go and buy livestock and due to fact I need to ease a bit pressure off my wallet a bit XD.

Nano 11 days.jpg

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lately I check alot of websites for water tesing gear and frankly I am getting totally terrified with prices involved. Whole propper testing gear I need would cost me more that tank and light combined! That is absolutely insane! Honestly after I saw all prices involved I am on virge of dismantling everything, selling most of stuff and going back to freshwater. I really did not expected this many problems to tackle with and that expedable gear (tests) prices are this high.  I now wish i knew all these before I bought tons of gear 😞

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