Christopher Marks Posted November 4, 2002 Share Posted November 4, 2002 I just finished up the setup of my new 15 gallon nano reef today. More photos and info on the tank is on my site at www.nano-reef.com/chris/15 Post your comments here Quote A new nano reef is born! On October 31st I build this aquarium, and on October 28th the lighting hood arrived for it. On November 2nd, I built an oak table top to place on my bookcase so it would be wide enough to hold the new tank. Yesterday, November 3rd, I filled the tank up with water, and today I placed liverock and sand in it, from my recently sold 46 gallon reef. Lighting consists of one 10,000K 70 watt HQI metal halide, and one 36w smartlamp powercompact. The lighting hood was custom made by Catalina Aquarium (www.petsupplyliquidator.com), and is housed in their Ultra Reef size aluminum fixture. I had it made 20" wide, with a 4" internal cooling fan, and separate switches for each bulb. The oak tabletop I made is 42"x18" The canopy is placed directly on top of the tank at this time. I do have some legs to keep the tank about 6" above the water, but after running the hood for a full day, I found it to not get very hot at all. Since it looked better without the legs, I'm going to monitor the water temp and see how it does. The tank top is completely open, and you can see the shimmer of the water with the metal halide. The picture doesn't do much justice to how nice the lighting looks. Plus, I had just added the sand, so the water was still a bit cloudy. I do plan to replace the smartlamp with a true actinic bulb, as it's very white right now. The tank's dimensions are 20"x16"x14". The sump takes up 3" of the back depth. As you can see the tank desperately needs more rock and sand. It was hard to judge how much rock I was going to need, but I'll be able to get more soon. I ran out of sand as well. Link to comment
Pgreco Posted November 4, 2002 Share Posted November 4, 2002 chris, looks good so far. I like the light fixture, was that a custom request, can you PM me the price. I'm looking to upgrade the lights on my 15 which currently had 91W of power compact. Link to comment
NaNO ReeFiN Posted November 4, 2002 Share Posted November 4, 2002 Looks very.. empty.. Do you still have your original nano chris? Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted November 4, 2002 Author Share Posted November 4, 2002 Yeah, the original nano is still going of course! I'll have some updated photos of it too later tonight. I sold my 46 gallon oceanic setup to Parhead, a member here who has a 7 bow. Some of the rock from that tank in this new one. I'm basically 'downgrading' my tanks for the future when I have to move out. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my 90...but I doubt many land lords would like that... Link to comment
glazer Posted November 5, 2002 Share Posted November 5, 2002 Looks good so far Chris... Sweet little light setup. I am DIY'ing an enclosure right now for a 150, ah the joys of building it, scrapping it... start over, naw don't like that,hmmm what if?....lol Hey since ya ditched the legs for that badboy... um, wanna sell 'em to me? No really, I'm serious... are they metal or plastic and send me a pic and a price if ya want to get rid of them. Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted November 11, 2002 Author Share Posted November 11, 2002 Well, the green star polyps on the whole left side rocks have come out happily now. They take up so much of the rock though, I will probably frag some off for this tank, and move the rock to the 90. Diatoms have started on the sand and glass, nothing too wild yet. I will probably get the rest of the rock I need for the tank sometime this week - and maybe get some photo updates! Link to comment
glazer Posted November 11, 2002 Share Posted November 11, 2002 Yeah Chris MORE rock! ! hehehe Hey by the way... I looked at your site and pics here. It just struck me that your setup is the most "devoid" of equipment/life support mechanisms I have ever seen... WOW, clean! I like, I like but where is everything? Heater, filter(?) and so on... Did you set this up with a sump then? Got any pics and details on that part? Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted November 11, 2002 Author Share Posted November 11, 2002 I like to make all of my aquarium systems very simple and pleasing to the eye as far as equipment goes. The 7.5 and the 15 use my nano reef aquarium design (which I was previously selling at Nano Reef Aquaria) which has an internal sump in the back portion of the aquarium. This is for surface skimming, and circulation for the main tank. I keep a heater and a prefilter sponge in the sump, that is all. I have done the same thing on the 90 and formerly owned 46 bow, except the sump is centered along the back, and is about the size of a typical internal overflow box of a 'reef ready' system. All my systems only consist of LR, LS, a prefilter sponge, and a heater - running over 2.5 years strong Link to comment
Physh1 Posted November 11, 2002 Share Posted November 11, 2002 Nice and simple....very coolB). I really dig that HQI setup.....I might have to look into one of those instead of using my AquaMedic hood...... Cameron:) Link to comment
Sahin Posted November 13, 2002 Share Posted November 13, 2002 Cloudelicious! Nice. hehehe. Link to comment
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