peacemaker's office nano 2

[peacemaker]

Hi all! For those who have visited my first tank thread, I've had a small upgrade from a 1 Ft to a 1.5 Ft tank. The design is pretty much the same as before, except with more room for better equipment and livestock. Here's the link: peacemaker's office nano tank

As usual, not having deep pockets like some of the folks here, I prefer to stick to smaller tanks. The selection of corals will be of the smallest in sizes, which leads to lower cost. Also, being an office nano, I have very limited space, and having a smaller tank enables easier maintenance. Personally, I love being "up close & personal" with the tank inhabitants, and I'm often found staring at my tank with my nose almost touching the glass. A small tank gives me that "focus" view. Please kindly share your comments and advice as I humbly present to you, my mini reef:

[peacemaker]

Another view...

[peacemaker]

Left half of the tank

[peacemaker]

Right half

[peacemaker]

Some close up of my corals...

Coco worms.

[peacemaker]

Mixed frogspawn. Mostly green, with bits of pink.

[peacemaker]

Pumping xenia. Have grown a small branch since the first time I bought it.

[peacemaker]

Branching goniapora. I always call them the marine flowers in my tank.

[peacemaker]

Red mushrooms. Been with me ever since I started my smaller tank till now.

[peacemaker]

Rhodatics...

[peacemaker]

Some tubeworms.

[peacemaker]

Zoanthids. One of my favorite types of corals.

[peacemaker]

More.

[peacemaker]

Spotting some growth. You can see the "flesh" spreading to parts of the expose rock.

[peacemaker]

Green yuma.

[peacemaker]

Green & blue star polyps. The centerpiece of my tank.

[peacemaker]

Now for the other inhabitants! My clownfishes...

[peacemaker]

Cleaner shrimp. These guys are getting big real fast!

[peacemaker]

Welcome, the cleaning crew! Snails and hermit crabs.

[peacemaker]

Some of my equipment:

I'm using an Ehiem Compact 1000l/hr pump for my return, a Dymax hang-on skimmer, hydor flo deflector and hydor nano wavemaker. Bio homme is used as my bio filter, with filter wool for mechanical filtration.

[peacemaker]

1 day's worth of skimmate.

[peacemaker]

2 days. I'm quite impressed at its performance to get rid of all that gunk in my tank. One of the things that I dislike about reef keeping is the washing of skimmer waste. Argh... the smell!

[peacemaker]

My tank went through the usual cycle of algae bloom. The diatoms went crazy, and I had to deal with the rising nitrate levels as well. I posted in the forums requesting for some chaeto, and managed to collect a hand full from a very kind reefer. Nuclear Fibre! Most of the algae cleared in a matter of days.

[peacemaker]

I keep an 11W PL light on for 24/7 to keep the chaeto going. They have grown quite a bit now. Have to keep them in check in case they out-grow the basket and start to choke the pumps.

[peacemaker]

I'm using 4 tubes of T5s (2 white, 2 blue), but its low output (11W). I can't find any T5 HO light sets at 1.5 Ft, so had to make do. So far, no corals are affected by lack of light. On the contrary, the rics I had from my previous tank didn't do so well in this "brighter" light (my previous tank is only using a 2 tube 11W PL). They started to bleach, and are slowly recovering at this moment. Will post pics of their progress. I believe that the low tank height (1.5 Ft x 1.5 Ft x 1 Ft, glass thickness 10mm) makes it sufficient for lights to reach the corals.