My 11 gallon nano tank build

[NanoTank1]

 

 

It is not a great picture but here is the new tank I am setting up. I should mention the surface water is not oily. It only looks like that in the picture. The build is as follows:

• Tank: is from truaqua.com. It is 11.33 gallons and only cost $68 with shipping. The construction is quite nice for the price.
• Heat: Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 75 watts. Cost: $60. I love this heater since it also shows the current temperature of the tank.
• Auto-top-off: Auto-Aqua Smart. Cost: $150. It is relatively unobtrusive for an ATO. I don't trust it yet simply because it represents a fail point!
• Current: Jebao WP 10. Cost: $70. I am running it at 50% power. I like the thinking that went behind it. For example, they have a 10 minute power-down button for feeding times.
• Light: Buildmyled 14K. Cost: $170 custom sized with dimmer. The light has great construction. The fixture is functional but 'plasticy' and not my taste.
• Rock: 10 pounds BRS reef saver dry rock. Cost: $25. Nice rock, but rinse it first. Quite a bit of dust was released.
• Power Strip: American DJ PC-100A. Cost $30. I wanted the ability to turn off individual fixtures such as my ATO. The first one of these fixtures I purchased was defective!
• Power for the light: Belkin WeMo switch. Cost $40. I use an iPhone app called IFTTT "If this than that" with it. My light will turn on at sunrise and off at sunset. IFTTT sends me an email whenever the light is turned on or off.

Total cost of build to date (not including odds and ends): About $600

 

The rock runs down the middle building up from front to back. I placed my LED light directly over the rock formation to concentrate the light. This way I can go with a range of corals, maybe even SPS.

 

I aimed the WP 10 to weaken a bit of its strength and to allow for reduced flow deeper in the tank.

 

I will let the tank cycle for another 3 weeks or so. I haven't decided on what to keep in the tank.

 

Any ideas on a fish and coral given the build?

[kalireefer]

Looks like a sweet little setup! I would recommend a pygmy hawk fish if you can find one, got one in my 10 gallon mixed reef and they are rad nano fish. Maybe a goby/pistol shrimp combo, tailspot blenny, lots of options... Good luck with the tank.

[Dramad1]

Looking good, like the equipment choices. I too have the autoaqua ato and so far it's working great. I didn't trust it at first either but so far ut is functioning flawlessly. I still find myself checking it several times a day.

For fish, I love the tanakas pygmy wrasse. I have one and he is very active and fun to watch. Only thing I notice about him is he likes killing snails. I feed him about 3 times a week and it helps prevent him from tagging my snails.

[NanoTank1]

Thank you for the excellent suggestions. I'll do some research on them.