Nano Cube Setup

[chisiang]

Hello everyone!

I have recently took the plunge and pick up the salty side of the hobby. I have been in high tech planted tanks for a few years. I'm here to learn and have been reading up on this forum 6 months earlier.

Equipment

Tank: ANS OptiClear 45cm cube tank
Filtration: Overhead Sump (with 900L/hr powerhead)
Skimmer: Bubble Magnus QQ1
Light: Chihiros A-Series for marine

I recycled one of my planted tank for this project. I decided that a cube tank is too deep to be used for a planted tank but could be perfect for a nano reef tank!

This tank was once like this 

Pre-filling setup.

The best part of any aquarium setup is the filling up of the tank with water!
I used Red Sea Salt to get my salt water. Coming from the freshwater side I was amazed at
how much 100L of water can absorb salt. Eventually after emptying the 4kg salt I got the ideal
salinity of 35 ppt. From now onwards water change is gonna hurt my wallet!

 

I was researching for dry rocks and substrate and I decided to go with REVOREEF® 3DM REEF-SAND.
And I also go with REVOREEF® Dry rocks. I didn't know rocks were so expensive. Spent like $100 on
rocks alone.


After 5 days and using fish food as ammonia source the water started to turn cloudy. Good sign that water
is bacteria friendly though the wrong type of bacteria.

Today is the 10th day and the cloudy water has cleared! Ammonia is coming down to 0.5 ppm.
I have also added a few more REVOREEF dry rocks. I have also added a handful pieces of crushed coral which
I collected from one of the coral tanks at Coral Farm @ LCK. Hopefully these will carry coralline algae spores, 
as well as BB.

I reckon I have another 10 days more when the tank is ready to receive its first CUC.

Can anyone help me with my list of CUC. Hopefully will not shift the substrate too much as the
rocks may fall.

Thanks!

[Kwancy]

[soggycookies]

Nassarius snails and members of the conch family(like gong-gong) are good sandbed Cleaners, and turbo snails are great for the rockwork. Neither should be able to shift the scape about to the point it topples over, as they’re fairly light compared to cuc with heavier shells like cowries. For a nano, you might wanna avoid getting starfish and urchins, as most will eventually find a way to mess up the rockwork in a small tank.


Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

[chisiang]

Thanks soggy.

My CUC list:

2x Nassarius (to begin with)
1x Turbo snail (later on)
.
.
 

Is 1 CUC per gallon guide sound? So 24g should have about 20 CUC thereabout?

Are shrimps any good as CUC? Hermit crabs?

Also I find it strange that in fresh water when it comes to clean up crew shrimps are the best clean up crew, but when it comes to marine the CUC are dominated by snails and crabs. And man the marine shrimps are huge (compared to the fw counterpart)!

[soggycookies]

Thanks soggy. My CUC list: 2x Nassarius (to begin with)

1x Turbo snail (later on)

.

.

 

Is 1 CUC per gallon guide sound? So 24g should have about 20 CUC thereabout?

Are shrimps any good as CUC? Hermit crabs?

Also I find it strange that in fresh water when it comes to clean up crew shrimps are the best clean up crew, but when it comes to marine the CUC are dominated by snails and crabs. And man the marine shrimps are huge (compared to the fw counterpart)!

 

 

Cheers. You can definitely put more nassarius snails- they’re typically small and since the sandbar has the most surface area in the tank, getting more of them wouldn’t be a bad idea. 

I think the ratio is fine, but better to go by the demands of your system than follow a static number. E.g. if your tank doesn’t get fed much/has very few fish, it wouldn’t make sense to stock up too much CUC.

 

Turbo snails usually aren’t as necessary if you have fish that voraciously eat algae like a Tang(but most people don’t keep tangs in a nano anyway) so a handful of them would definitely be worth it for algae control of the rockwork.

 

I tend to stay away from hermit crabs cause they sometimes eat the snails that are also part of your cuc since they don’t grow with their shells so they do this sometimes to acquire a new shell.

 

Shrimp are great as CUC too, I just don’t keep them because I find too many fish eventually consider them prey and enjoy nipping their legs until it eventually dies or gets eaten.

 

 

Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app