Beginner office nano tank

[illumnae]

Hi all,

After lurking around and resisting the urge to start a marine tank for years, I think I'm finally ready to take the plunge for a simple tank for my office. Just wanted to seek some advice on whether my plans are feasible I am just intending to keep a simple setup, starting with FOWLR only, but hopefully eventually adding some simple corals. The corals I'm thinking of adding are based on recommendations given by Practical Fishkeeping magazine over the years as nano-friendly and beginner-friendly corals.

Here's what my plan for the tank is:

Tank

Ocean Free Nano Space 2 (27 litres)

Filtration

1st compartment: Dymax IQ Skimmer (with limewood airstone replaced)

2nd compartment: Chemical filtration (Purigen/Chemi-Pure Elite/GAC) - Please recommend

4-5kg Live rock

Water

DD H2Ocean Natural Reef Salt (20%/5 litres wc every 2 weeks)

Flow

Stock Ocean Free 200 litres/hour pump in 3rd compartment

Tunze Universal Pump Mini 300 litres/hour pump in tank for added flow

Substrate

Either CaribSea Ocean-Direct Pacific Black 5lb or CaribSea Super Naturals Tahitian Moon 5lb - Please recommend

Lighting

Stock LED for now

Upgrade to PAR30 (3W2B) or Par38 (14000K) before adding corals - Please recommend

Livestock

Clownfish (Ocellaris or Percula) - 1 pair

Red-Legged Hermit Crab - 1

Trochus Snail - 2

Cleaner Shrimp - 1

Corals (future)

Zoa

Mushroom

Torch

Please recommend others

And that's the plan! Any and all feedback/advice is greatly appreciated!

[JeffL]

Hi and welcome!

How do you intend to lower your tank's temperature? If your tank is gonna be in office, does your office has it's air con turned off during non working hours? You may want to get fan for that.

I also would recommend changing your water weekly. That's just my opinion

You wont regret getting the Par38 or Par30

Lastly, you may want to add rowaphos to control your PO4?

[illumnae]

Thanks Jeff My office air con is lowered during the night, but when I come in the morning (even Monday morning), the temperature is still low - it is just stuffy. I believe the thermostat is still left on, but the fan/blower is switched off.

I was thinking of doing 20% water changes every 2 weeks to be realistic, as I do foresee that during busy periods (or periods when I'm on leave), I may not be able to keep up with a weekly water change schedule. That is why I included a small skimmer in the setup, as I read that weekly water changes are required with no skimmer and the time between changes can be extended if there's a skimmer in place. I understand the IQ skimmer is not very highly rated, and that's why I would still do 20% every 2 weeks (vs 10% weekly as recommended when there's no skimmer in place)

The media basket that comes with my tank has 3 compartments. Perhaps I could use Purigen + CPE + Rowaphos, 1 per compartment? Should I change one of the above to GAC instead?

[illumnae]

In relation to the future lighting, how's the Beamworks Double Bright Clip On? It's 9x 1W LED (3 blue 6 white) vs 5x 2W LED for the PAR30 (2 blue 3 white) vs 5x 3W LED for the PAR 38 (5x 14000K or 5x 20000K). There's higher intensity on the PAR bulbs, but given that this is just a 1ft tank with at most soft corals and easy LPS, would I need such intensity? The Beamworks has better spread so can be placed closer to the water too to "increase" intensity.

[illumnae]

Well I've come into office over the weekend, cleared the freshwater setup out and done some basics - filled the salt water (using H2Ocean Pro+ by D+D) and poured in the live sand (using CaribSea Arag-Alive! Oolite). Decided to go with 10lb of sand instead of the initially planned 5lb (encouragement from Ken @ MadPetz and my wife to have a deeper sand bed).

After leaving it overnight, the water is still cloudy, and there's alot of foam on the surface of the water - is this normal? I thought the water would have cleared overnight. The foam only appeared after I put in the sand (couldn't wash the sand as it was supposed to be live sand with bacteria).

Trying to find some time to go get live rocks to put in, but (1) it's hard to scape when the water is cloudy; and (2) I was recommended to go to Coral Farm to get Fiji rock (expensive!!!) but it's such a faraway place that I can't go get it during lunch time - will have to wait till Saturday to do it.

I will be relying on the live rocks, bacteria from the live sand and Microbe-Lift Nite-Out II to cycle the tank. Hopefully it won't take too long.

[illumnae]

Anyone got any reviews on Beamworks 9x 1W LED set for this Nano - keeping Zoas, mushrooms (and possibly other soft corals) and maybe bubble/torch corals maximum...nothing more demanding than these.

[illumnae]

Anyone can id this hitchhiker? It's crawling around my back wall.

[inwear]

Anyone got any reviews on Beamworks 9x 1W LED set for this Nano - keeping Zoas, mushrooms (and possibly other soft corals) and maybe bubble/torch corals maximum...nothing more demanding than these.

u can get from sell forum for 3 red notes...test it out before u buy

[Admiraltian]

Anyone can id this hitchhiker? It's crawling around my back wall.

Might be a cowrie.

[MadScientist]

any full tank shot?

[Firestarter]

Anyone can id this hitchhiker? It's crawling around my back wall

Either a chiton or a limpet.

[illumnae]

Thanks for the ids! The creature has disappeared and I haven't seen it today.

FTS is below. It's still very bare and ugly and I'm still cycling it. I like the texture of the rocks very much, but it seems a little low...not sure how I can raise it without disturbing the nice overhang cave effect I have going with the rocks. Are there any "tall" looking corals I can add to the top of the rock to make the upper half of the tank look less "empty"? Was thinking of putting a frogspawn coral perhaps on the upper left hand side and some red cauliflower soft coral on the right side.

Current inhabitants are 1x red hermit crab and 2x trochus snails. Was thinking of adding 1 more crab and 1 more snail.

[illumnae]

I need some advice on how to tune a skimmer.

I installed the Dymax IQ skimmer today in the first compartment of the filter (2nd compartment will be the floss + chemical filtration, 3rd compartment is return pump) using a Gex e-AIR 2000SB air pump. The air pump allows me to control the airflow with a knob (in addition to the valve for fine tuning provided with the skimmer).

As recommended, I replaced the airstone with a Sander 2 airstone. According to another thread on this forum, the Dymax IQ skimmer works very well with the new airstone.

However, now I'm a little befuddled. I switch on the air pump to full blast and I get a nice thick white foam building up. However, it seems to be building up too fast! Within seconds I see my collection cup fill up with clear water. If I turn it too low, the foam disappears. What kind of rate of foam build up should I be seeing in my skimmer? I know it takes time to "break in" and start producing brown skimmate, but I need to know the rate of production. It can't be that I have to clear the cup every 5 minutes?

[illumnae]

My skimmer in action. Is it supposed to be like this?

[illumnae]

New additions today!

[MadScientist]

That would depends on your bioload. For me, green tea colour and darker would be ideal

[illumnae]

The skimmer is starting to produce some very light brown skimmate. Not yet green tea darkness, but it's better than last week!

Added in some new livestock over the weekend - a pair of clownfish from Coral Farm and 2 peppermint shrimp (for aiptasia control) from LCK201. The pistol shrimp/goby pair have since shifted their cave location...I think they felt threatened by the new livestock.

[reckless]

hi bro, are u still in ur water cycling period when u added ur inverts and fishes?

[illumnae]

I cut short the cycle by using live sand, cured live rock and daily overdose of bb for 2 weeks. Livestock went in after 2 weeks.