machus » Nano Reef

New Fish

machus — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:49:05 +0000

I finally broke down and added some livestock to my tank. Of course I went the very typical route with new salt water fish and added two juvenile false clowns.

Update: Fish are gone now.

Scarlet Crab Molts

machus — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:44:53 +0000

So when I woke up the morning and checked on my fish tank I saw that my scarlet hermit crab decided to well make a birds nest out of my birds nest coral. I decided to leave him up there and see if he would get himself down on his own and of course he decides that it would be the perfect place to conduct a molt. Thus preventing me from moving him since I didn’t want to disturb him while he harden up and would be moving on his own.

Scarlet Crab Molt Spot

Scarlet Crab Molt

New Frags

machus — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:36:59 +0000

Just added some new frags to the tank.

Hammer Head Coral

Purple Death Zoanthids

Purple Green Yuma

Purple Fuzzy Mushroom

Blue Purple Florida Ricordea

Hopefully once I have a DSLR I will be able to take pictures of the actual stock in my tank.

Filtration Change

machus — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:29:58 +0000

I just killed a bunch of brittle stars. A very pointed first sentence but anyway. The filtration change as the headline suggests I changed some stuff on the nano wave in the third chamber. What you get in the box when you buy the nano wave for the 3rd chamber is some ceramic which I suppose is to provide some more biological filtration. This wasn’t the best type possible so I instead swapped it out with some chemi pure elite and some poly filter pads to support the chemi pure. This is where the first sentence comes from in emptying out the old ceramic a lot of brittle stars made it their home along with a couple of feather dusters. Hopefully as the day goes by the water will clear up more with the extra filtration.

Hermit crab swapped homes

machus — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:26:15 +0000

Well looks like the store bought shells are a success. The scarlet hermit crab last night got themselves a new home and crawled back up top of the rocks. Of course as happy I am that the shells appear to be working out I am sad that I didn’t get to actually see him swap shells. Now all I have to do is get them to actually face the front of the tank so I can see them at work. Also I think I may have to get some seaweed for them to munch on due to food supply might be a little low.

Hermit Crab Shells

machus — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:49:20 +0000

Instead of paying about 50 cent each for each shell from the fish store, I decided to follow a suggestion from a forum post that I read on how to get more shells for my hermit crabs. I went to the local hobby lobby and simple bought three bags of shells for a total just under ten dollars. Once I got these shells home I fired up the stove and boiled all the shells to clean them up before I added any to the tank. I ended up with more shells than I could possibly ever use. My two hermit crabs haven’t swapped any shells yet from either the shells from the fish store or from the newly boiled ones but if they use the craft shells I will be sure to drop a note. Below are the pictures after I boiled and somewhat sorted them out on size and shape.

New Aquascape

machus — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:28:15 +0000

So this morning after my water testing i decided to rearrange the rock in the nano to give me more shelf room for attach more corals and the like. It also gave me an excuse to remove some of the larger hair algae so the caulerpa in the refuge has a chance to grow.

But hark what is that towards the bottom in the center of the tank? Why its a dragon eye zoanthid.

Not the best picture but have to use the camera that I have.

Nano Reef Staring Cycle

machus — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:47:15 +0000

If you want information on how to cycle a new tank or start the cycle check out these links. The cycle is the same on a big tank as it is on a little pico tank. Please don’t cycle a tank with fish or other livestock in the tank. Just let it cycle with the live rock and sand if you have that.

http://www.nano-reef.com/articles/?article=8

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/bionitrogencycle/The_Tank_Cycling_Process_and_Ways_to_Cycle_an_Aquarium.htm

I went ahead and purchased a nano wave by Aqua Medic from the local fish store (lfs) and starting gathering supplies for it over the next few days. Of course since this was my first foray into salt water it has been quite interesting and a vary valuable learning experience. Even thoug the tank seemed like a good purchase at the time issues have been coming up. Since the ballasts for the lights are in the hood and don’t include a fan heat has been an issue and I enlarged the slits on the side of the hood to try and increase air flow. But even with that I still have to either crack the hood open some and or have a fan pointing at it. This thread over at nano-reef.com pretty much goes through all the little problems that he trys to go and fix. After three days of cycling the tank I can see the benefit of having a overflow into the refuge.

Anyways it was time to start cycling the tank and see what I can do with it with my rather impressive reef keeping skills, which is none. You can see what happens when one doesn’t wash the live sand before added it to a tank and how cloudy it has become.

Hrmm I wonder what type of camera phone I used…..

I have another interesting problem arise with the camera phone that I am using to take the pictures in that I get banding in the images reminiscent of old CRT tvs.

After a full water change due to me not washing the sand and not wanting to ruin the pumps the tank cleared up after a few hours.

Here is the tank I think on day two after the water has cleared up and before I head off the fish store for some sand out of their tank to really give the cycle a kick in the pants.

The power head takes up a lot of room but gives me rather impressive flow in the tank and at the angle it currently is at the sand has been blown away. Makes for some interesting sand shapes.

Here it is on day 3 of the cycle and 1 day after I added the live sand from the store.

I even got a bonus critter in my sand a Nassarius Snail. Of Course I am worried about him since he is going through a complete tank cycle and as a scavenger and not an algae eater he is going to be going hungry here soon. I am slightly worried that my water change in the beginning might have done a number on starting the cycle but I did buy some sand from another established tank to get the cycle started. I say I am worried since my levels haven’t changed so far.

I am using google docs to do book keeping of the tank which also always me to do pretty charts like the above. Hopefully when I get home tomorrow from work and do another test my ammonia levels have started to climb indicating the start of a cycle.

Nano reef

machus — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:48:05 +0000

Been doing a lot of research on setting up a nano reef. So far found two good local fish stores that have fairly good selection of equipment. My current hold up is finding a good tank stand that isn’t designed for just one particular kind of tank. Want to find one that will let me put a bigger tank on it should I decide to upgrade in the future.