Fish? Equip? Lights? Advices on New 24l Nano Tanks

[asg]

Hi! Bros and Sis, as luck have it, I bought a small tank in preparation for some fresh water fish as a gift from a friend. Now that it is no longer available (the fish, not the friend), I am thinking of using the small tank as a nano tank for some coral and no more than 6 clown fish size fish ...

I have fairly successful experience in keep a 4ft reef tank years back... to be exact, it was the years where T8 lights was still the IN thing... so now this 45cm*26cm*25cm tank looks like a goby swimming beside an emperor an blue face angel... but I believe that having a nano tank is a completely different ball game so my questions (and hopefully get some advices) are:

1) is there T5 lights box in 1.5 ft length available?

2) is protein skimmer necessary for nano tank (I am willing to change 10% water weekly)?

3) for a 24l nano tank, what is the recommended water flow capacity for a hang on filter? 150l? 300l? 400?

4) Any suggestions on fish that I can get? 2 Clown fish + 2 mandarin fish + ????

thanks a lot in advance for your inputs.

before I became a father:

after I became a father:

[tofubox]

1. Probably wont be able to find a 1.5ft t5 so easily. Depending on what corals u plan to keep, u could settle for those nano led light sets, best yet, just get a single par38, problem solved.

2. Not necessary to have protein skimmer as long ur bio load is low, and like u mention, weekly nutrient export is crucial. Dont forget to top off evaporated water

3. I usually aim to go min 30 times turnover or more. Higher the better.

4. No mandarin fishes for a tank that size bro, unless they are already feeding well on pellets, mysis alone for that size tank will be a killer, tank will not have enough copepods to sustain them on natural diet. Go with nano fishes http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/74703-lgreens-ultimate-guide-to-nano-fish/

Gd luck!

[asg]

1. Probably wont be able to find a 1.5ft t5 so easily. Depending on what corals u plan to keep, u could settle for those nano led light sets, best yet, just get a single par38, problem solved.

2. Not necessary to have protein skimmer as long ur bio load is low, and like u mention, weekly nutrient export is crucial. Dont forget to top off evaporated water

3. I usually aim to go min 30 times turnover or more. Higher the better.

4. No mandarin fishes for a tank that size bro, unless they are already feeding well on pellets, mysis alone for that size tank will be a killer, tank will not have enough copepods to sustain them on natural diet. Go with nano fishes http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/74703-lgreens-ultimate-guide-to-nano-fish/

Gd luck!

Thanks bro. I personally like mandarin fish a lot but I am in a catch 22 situation now, if i load my nano tank full with live rock, I might be able to sustain the mandarin fish... but the other swimming fish will be sardine in a bus...

thanks for the suggestion on par38, it is another new thing that I learnt today, will check around to see which LFS are selling them.

[tofubox]

Yup, the par38 will be the perfect choice for that size tank. It's quite common in pasa Malam, and much more affordable.

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[asg]

hello everyone, just some updates on my 1.5ft Nano tank as of 24 June.

I think I am more or less done with the equipment (the only undecided part is whether to get a mini canister to use as bio filter...), current equipment list:

1) one set of T5 2*16W (white) + one set of LED 1* 16W (blue) -> add up to about 5 watts per Gallon

2) one external hang on filter max output 750l (approx 30 times water volume, following advice from one of the bro)

3) one fan

4) a dymax protein skimmer

Have started to stock up LS bit by bit. so far all the fishes are eating and coral are adapting well (read: open open).

my targeted list of coral:

orange: sun coral, plate (bought liao)

red: RBTA (bought liao, but this fellow still moving around, looking for a landed property...)

blue: clam and ??

yellow: ??

green: hammer (bought liao), star polyp (bough too large a piece, plan to cut it and place at the surrounding base of LR acting like fence... then the rest give away...)

white: cocoa worm (?)

The constraint with Nano tank is that even a normal looking size coral will look BIG in the nano tank

sigh sigh sigh... any mini colourful coral to suggest...

p/s: how come one time can only attached 3 photos...

p/s 2: reborn (LFS) no longer open shop liao ah? any bro knows what happen...

FTS @ 24 June 2014

ET couple

sexy anemone....

[asg]

16 July 2014

some lessons learnt since the last update (better write down than to forget )

1) The favorite spot for anemone in the tank is at the canister water inlet (dont ask me where is the RBTA now)

2) Gravity works inside tank as well, so if you place too many corals on a horizontal LR, it will drop to the sand bed... with all the corals on it...

3) Any normal size corals will become giant size when you place them in a 1.5ft tank...

anyway, it is slightly more than a month since I set up the nano, hopefully I have found all the sweet spots for all the coral and they will all open within the next two weeks.

FTS@ 05/07/14 with Nature Sunset lighting _-"

难伺候的家伙。。。

容易伺候的家伙。。。

hummer hummer

[asg]

Week 7 (25 July 2014)

As usual, a FTS to start this week recording of events.

This week is kind of busy, spending more time working around the tank than viewing the tank. List of ad hoc thingy that I have done during this week:

1. Gotten two clownfish to host my orange tip torch coral. After three days, the bigger clownfish is still chasing the smaller clownfish away from the torch coral. Will continue to quarantine the bigger clownfish intermittently till the smaller clownfish established himself.

1. Tupperware feeding treatment for the sun coral has continued for five days. Will continue to do so till sun open big big. Hopefully in two week time this treatment can stop and I can switch to feeding sun using hat feeding method.

1. The cleaner wrasse has joined the blue tang in eating seaweed (both red and green) throughout the day. It has been eating Mysis and brine shrimp since day one but I am glad it has something to chew on during the day. For those bros who are interested in providing some supplement feeding for your cleaner wrasse, you might want to try the seaweed thingy too.

1. Lastly, what is this coral? I have been searching the ID for it, suspect it is kind of a flower pot coral when I purchased it but can’t confirmed. Anyone can help to ID this? Thanks.

finally some misc shots of inside my nano. Hope you enjoy them:

angry green jewel

very angry jewel

bubble bubble where is your shrimp

my name is orange fatty

that's it for this week of update. see you till i see you, till then, enjoy your reefing.

[joby553]

Very nice.

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[kfc]

Nice tank

[pcw]

Cool, nice tank. I started out wanting to keep a nano. But I decided to go a little bigger because I felt that parameters are easier to be kept stable in a bigger tank. May I know how much and how often do you change your water? Thanks.

[asg]

13/08/14

As usual, a FTS to kickoff the update.

Past two weeks have been really busy playing around with the tank. Upgraded to a 2ft tank (courtesy of a bro here), bought a (new) chiller, (pre-owned) canister, (pre-owned) UV, (new) wavemaker, (new) protein skimmer, etc. Trying to find the right place and settings for all these toys, 快乐并痛苦着. Given the space constraint, I guessed the only toy left to buy is new/ pre-owned LED lighting.

Also purchased some new LPS and SPS. New family members in the last two weeks:

1) Super sun (shall be able to survive)

2) True octopus (no issue)

3) Purple tip elegant (no issue)

4) Long tentacle plate coral (no issue)

5) Flowerpot (shall be able to survive)

6) SPS * 3 (these ones really don’t know…)

Need time to help the above fellows settle down so no more new corals in the coming weeks…. of course, the exception is unless I really like the coral a lot (the reef version of “I-have-space-for-one-last-pairs-of-shoes”) .

Humble photos time:

Chapter 15: I am as big as you, said the octopus. The elegant was too proud to answer him...

To: the snail, I don't blame you for too slow in eating the algae. You are snail-paced by natural.

Murphy's (marine) law: the coral that adapts the slowest is either 1) the one you like most or 2) most expensive ones

Frankly speaking my dear (LFS owner), when you sold me this, you didnt tell me half of it was dead...

one blue note. I considered this a good buy.

one blue note. I considered this a good buy too.

Murphy's law at work again.

------------- end of update, till next update, enjoy reefing as it meant to be so------------

[asg]

Very nice.

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yo bro. I am sure your tank will be chio chio too. Next few weeks will be exciting time for you and the tank.

[asg]

Cool, nice tank. I started out wanting to keep a nano. But I decided to go a little bigger because I felt that parameters are easier to be kept stable in a bigger tank. May I know how much and how often do you change your water? Thanks.

Hi! Bro, currently I am changing 10% (6 liters) every 2/3 days cos waiting for quite a few thingy to start work for eg skimmer, bio sphere, bio media, etc. After that hopefully can reduce the WC to 10% per week or 30% every two weeks.

[Planted]

Very nice bro! Hope I can achieve that mixed reef style of yours!

[joby553]

yo bro. I am sure your tank will be chio chio too. Next few weeks will be exciting time for you and the tank.

Really thanks for your help. Now transferring over some corals and tomorrow colleagues gettingr me a fish!

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[Bunster]

Wow bro, you're more pro than me lah... What a lovely tank your have! Very nice selection of corals

[asg]

FTV(ideo) @ 15/08/14

Three more days till my two weeks business trip, during the period there will be no maintenance done (only feeding and emptying skimmer cup)... fingers crossed, hopefully all the filters/ AC/ etc that I have put in place is sufficient for the LS to survive the two weeks... fingers crossed.

Posting a before video now, will post an after video when I come back to 纪念纪念...

FTV as at 15/08/14

http://youtu.be/Oq1rfGZ3TtM

FTV as at 30/08/14

XXX (to be uploaded)

[Admiraltian]

Nice nano setup.

[asg]

03/09/14 (Wednesday)

As usual, a FTS to mark the date

(double tail blue tang...)

====================================================

Ok, let's turn back the clock to 30 Aug 2014 when I was finally back from my two weeks business trip and this was how the tank looks like after zero maintenance done for two weeks.

It turned up not as bad as I feared, loss a sea fan, a plate and some SPS frag but the bulk of LS are still OK. Tested the NO3 and PO4 at that point before I did some WC. To my surprise, both value are almost undetectable. So what causes the loss? A closer look at my tank and I think I know why, the tank water level has dropped below the skimmer suggested water level and I believe that the skimmer is not skimming optimally for at least the last few days (read: toilet breakdown).

After doing some basic maintenance, my hand started to get itchy and I began to play around with a clip on mobile phone macro lens that I got from my business trip. Considering it costs less than $10, I am pretty happy with the effect.

next was playing around with the ZETLIGHT ZT6500 that I also bought during the trip. I would say for that amount of $, I consider it a very very worthwhile purchase. Thought of doing a product review but then, there is no LFS selling it in SG so better save my energy...

To sum things up, not being able to attend to the tank for two weeks was a very seven up eight down kind of experience, but I guess I am very much closing to finding out what are the thingys that I need to better prepare the tank for my next two weeks trip... which is pretty soon...

lastly a FTV to end the update. And till I update again, happy reefing and may the ich be without you.

(Video taken under ZT6500 mid-day setting, shall try different effects next round- thunder mode, cloud mode, sunset effect...)

http://youtu.be/ON37Zn_l688

[Admiraltian]

There is actually a local distributor & src sponsor for this brand, zetlight but not sure if they carry the model u juz bought.

[asg]

There is actually a local distributor & src sponsor for this brand, zetlight but not sure if they carry the model u juz bought.

oki... then maybe their marketing strategy for this brand is to let it quietly quietly...

anyway, how i wish more LFS actually display the lights they are selling on a live tank, i have such a hard time figuring how maspect r420r 10000k diff from 16000k on actual tanks...

[asg]

Organ pipe organ pipe long time no appear liao... anyone WTS...

[asg]

12/09/14

As usual, a FTV to start of the update.

http://youtu.be/I-75OJxx3ws

Added what I considered the last piece of my equipment puzzle, a TLF phobans 150 FR. (Depending on how my current filters performs, might consider doing an ATS in the HOD filter).

Also bought a few fishes and coral to add more colour varieties to my tank. I have never been a big fan of ricordea, blasto, acan, etc but I guess I am learning to appreciate non-swaying coral more now --- using them to fill gaps between swaying coral.

On a final note, feeling a bit happily sad as clearly I am approaching the end of stocking phase of my tank and the next phase: maintaining (read: cannot buy LS anymore) would be equally challenging but surely wont be anywhere near as exciting.

On a final final note, the mightly god of reef, please, just let me add a lemonpeel angel successfully and I should call it all check boxes checked.

New family members

Red Blasto

Yellow Ricordea

Japanese Sun (this one is really hard to come by...)

Mini clam

Yellow Tubeworm

[yq33]

Upgrade then can add more livestock!

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[asg]

Upgrade then can add more livestock!

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_-" then i rather buy more coral and place them like sardine in my current tank.