Actually if you squint and look real close you can see a Koralia 1 in the centre of the rock. The pump return also has a Hydor rotating water deflector (the poor man's wave maker).

Based on the waving motion of the feather algae that has popped up the tank circulation looks pretty good.

As far as stocking goes I keep changing my mind. So far I have 5 hermits, an urchin and Lester the Lobster. The urchin was embeded in the Selembu rock I purchased from Interior Reef. My wife is from Nova Scotia so picking up Lester was a must, although he is pretty darn shy.

I have a birthday coming up so I have suggested she make the first selection of fish/corals to add. She had a very long look at the Interior Reef tanks a few weeks ago and has some ideas.

But I am always open to suggestions?

Well, I'm just putting together my first nano as well (about 16 gallons) but I plan it to be an SPS tank for a couple of reasons. One, in the small space you and I have, many softies or LPS corals sting each other if they get in close contact. I have that problem already in my 70G tank where I can't put anything near anything else without the tenticles coming out.
Two, the color combinations of SPS are crazy nice.

I would take a look at Snappy's online sale (Coral Master on here) and think about filling that beauty you have with SPS frags that will color up in every shade. His prices are reasonable and the 8 frags I got from him have all been doing well.

Just my thoughts though. I admit that SPS are tougher to keep in the long run but the rewards just seem that much bigger.

My brain hurts. Yes stinging in a small tank is more of a concern but I did not want to get into SPS until I had more experience.

From your posting elsewhere did you just let Coral Master pick the 8 frags at random for you or did you search through his collection on-line or in person?

Well my wife is firmly convinced I am a nerd (she was pretty sure about that before) since I started grabbing a beer, pulling up my viewing chair and watching the paint peel, er I mean watching the algae grow.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h.../DSC_3308s.jpg

All there is to see at this point are the hermits as they make the rounds but I am keeping my eye open for new critters including feather dusters as they pop up.


And a view from the viewing chair:

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h.../DSC_3318s.jpg

I trusted Greg to pick frags for me after telling him that I was interested in certain colors or aspects of the corals.

Corals or Fish?
 

Well my birthday was a couple of days ago and I have some birthday money to burn. The tank has very nicely stabilized, a bit of algae to deal with but the 1 urchin and 5 hermits should be able to deal with it.

The question is fish or corals, which to add first? From everything I have read I should be adding corals slowly before fish. But fish will help to add to the bio load and improve the filtration system.

The Cad 39G is a bit misleading, after discounting for the 4 sump chambers in the back the display section is actually only 27G.

It has been suggested that I might want to concentrate on SPS so I do not need to worry about sweeping tentacles.

Now my wife was quite taken by some hammer coral, which if I keep near the front of the tank would give some room for the sweepers to do their thing. (happy wife happly life)

Also the LFS has some blue green chromis. Could I add just 2 of them to start my fish stocking?

I still have lots of flexibility with this tank and am looking forward to your input.

A reef aint a reef without some lps and softies :P

You should get a goby or two instead of silly little chromis :)

Algae Under Control
 

10 days ago I headed down to the coast for a series of meetings. To reduce evaporation and to finally get the algae under control I turned the hallides off for the four days but kept the actinics on their normal 12 hour cycle.

While in Vancouver I picked up more hardware, 3 astrea snails and 5 nassarius snails. For the first week all of the snails spent their time on the glass or rock surfaces. Yesterday some of the nassarius started to work on the sand substrate.

Yesterday I set up the JBL top-off device with a 4G bucket of water. It is just a temporary set up at this time. Once a week has gone by and I am confident that the system is working properly then I will set it up permanently. That requires putting the fresh water container in the corner directly behind the cabinet and out of sight.

I will soon be ordering my first corals starting with zoos, ricordia and GSP. After getting those established then I will be looking to add some corals that a pair of clowns might host in. But I will take Mseepman's suggestion to heart to keep room for a few SPS.

Since our house is south facing in the sunny and hot Okanagan the next test will be keeping the temperature to a non-fatal range in the summer. I will need to figure that out before adding fish.

Not a bad plan at all. I see that Greg (Snappy) has an SPS sale going on right now so you might want to keep that in mind. Not that I'm trying to rush you...but you seem to have an amazing level of patience.

One thing to look at if you have temperature issues is the ICE Probe cooler. I'm debating getting it myself for my "someday to be finished nano tank" I would probably buy it from somewhere in the US or e-bay since it's a lot cheaper than sold here in BC.

I am starting to get a bit antsy to move the tank along to the next "level". My patience is a combination of listening to warnings to take things slow and I am just too darned busy at my day job to more than have a beer and stare at the hermits in the evening.

ElGuappo's recent postings on his RSM are great food for thought. Now that the algae is knocked back it is definitely time to add some colour and movement.

Yeah the "cooler" technology looks very interesting but it seems that you need to drill a hole in your tank or sump to feed the probe in. I am not sure how or where to do that with a AIO tank.