My Rushed Nano - 10 gal

[raisemyrent]

Hello,

I have been lurking in the dark here for a bit, so about time I made a journal. The story behind this nano is long, but goes as follows:
OK, I can't skip this, when we were going to univ, one my housemates was walking home from the bar and saw a fish tank at the back of a house, in the alley, by the dump. For some strange reason, he decided it was a great find and brought it home. Little more happened until fairly recently when he heard that I was into tanks and decided to randomly come and drop it off at my place. I figured I'd take it, as a possible future sump for my main project: my 33 gal living room reef.

Then the addiction kicked in, and I decided to establish a nano (oh, I had a 6 gal nano for a couple years when I was in high school, 7 years ago) while I waited for equipment deliveries, etc, for my main tank.


The rest of the story is typical, I got some rock, some sand, some equipment here there and everywhere, deals here, expensive there, and the tank is as the picture now shows. The cycle/break-in has recently ended, and now it is time to stock it.

Any suggestions???

I plan on keeping softies, mushrooms, and maybe the odd SPS near the top. I have a rio nano skimmer that also circulates the water well, a koralia nano, and a Current USA T5HO 2x24W 24" 10K plus 460nm light fixture... the big piece of LR on the left was from an established LFS (she uses it as LR for her display tanks with frags and sells it sporadically) and the coralline encrusted pieces were the few from her frag/display tank that I could snag without any life on them. The other two big pieces of LR were from another store that I bought shortly after delivery (uncured then, and I have figured they're too big and will end up in the other tank as soon as it is ready). The dead/white pieces are caribsea base rock in a bag (fossilised LR I believe).

Most of the sand is dead aragonite then seeded with some ocean direct.

First thing that comes to mind is CUC, but can I just start with a fish? or a frag? hahaha please feel free to chip in with your suggestions...

[ILIKECOUGARS]

I guess that this is a fairly new set up. I would wait for the tank to cycle before adding anything to it. Then start with a small clean up crew.

[raisemyrent]

OK, thanks. I will do that. I think the inverts are fairly hardy anyways... I don't want to throw everything out the window by waiting. The tank has been up for just over 3 weeks and has now finished cycling/breaking-in per my test kits, so I will give it a week or two before anything goes in. That will give my time to plan it, too.

[Myka]

Inverts are actually more sensitive to water chemistry than fish are. Wait until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and <10 ppm nitrates. Once the first two are down, do waterchanges until the third is achieved. You can read through the tank cycling guide in my signature too if you want.

[ElGuappo]

Nice rock scape. if you have a glass top i might drop the light right on top of the tank. i have found that with only 2x24 w on my 10G doesnt really raise the tank temp and gives much better light penitration to the bottom of the tank. i have 4 types of sps and some zoas in this tank and all seem to be doing well. just my opinion.

[raisemyrent]

thanks, Myka. you're right, inverts are more sensitive to poor water...

so why does everyone start with a CUC? especially as there's not a lot for them to eat yet, IMO.

Either way, I will plan this carefully... ElGuappo seems to have quite a few critters in his tank... and I wanted TWO snails! I thought shrimps were out of the question due to the size of the tank...

I didn't test for nitrates, but I hope they're low... the tank is getting a water change no matter what...

something in the back of my mind tells me to stop by the LF on the way home...