10g low-budget diy nano reef

[Nevin]

Just finished a long evening of picking up and cleaning a carload of stuff I picked up from someone who was shutting down his tank. As a result, this 10G tank won't be around much longer. I think I won't be giving away too much to say that the next one will be 20-25 gallons, have a 5.5G refugium/sump, 175W halide lighting and a basic wavemaker. New livestock includes a clownfish, tiny red goby, urchin and a large brittle star.

Perhaps most important of my new acquisitions was a humble hydrometer. While the old one was consistent, it reads about .005 lower than the new one, so it seems my SG has been around 1.030 from the start! I hope this explains why I have not been very successful with corals.

So, at present I'm left with 3 tanks running (my 10G, 5.5G with new livestock in bathroom, 25G with new LR in bedroom) while I gradually adjust the salinity. The new rock has some caulerpa here and there--will I regret it if I introduce this into my tank?

Regards,
Nevin

[Nevin]

I'll try this again... I posted here last night and my thread was bumped up but the new posting isn't there!

[stuff deleted--previous post finally showed up]

[Nevin]

A cute picture of my urchin. Usually it drags around macroalgae, shells or the odd snail... Today it twice picked up a rock covered with zoas.



I'll be mostly updating my new (and much more exciting) build thread, here:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=41733

When that build is complete, this one will be taken down.

Regards,
Nevin

[Nevin]

New pics as I get ready to transfer to the new tank.





Regards,
Nevin

[Keri]

Originally Posted by Nevin

. The new rock has some caulerpa here and there--will I regret it if I introduce this into my tank?

Maybe...but the urchin may take care of it for you. If you're worried I'd scrub that rock...but me'n caulerpa aren't friends

[superduperwesman]

Originally Posted by Nevin

I've been waiting to update because I have a lot of changes planned, but I decided I should document where it's at now. I bought a Koralia Nano, which has greatly improved circulation--so much so that the sand is migrating toward the back of the tank. Now that the powerhead in the "sump" section is redundant, I am reconsidering the layout. Having a separate "sump" area probably increases evaporation from the water flowing over the divider. The purposes it serves right now are to maintain a constant water level and hide the heater and aquaclear intake.

The stand is essentially finished. Solid oak and oak plywood throughout. I made a matching one for my wife's 20G FW planted, so our living room is looking much better. I still need to caulk the inside, clean up the electrical, etc. No sump for now, though I have some ideas on how to do it. For now I'll just have a standard 5.5G tank inside the stand for mixing and storing saltwater.

Here's the pictures:

Full tank with new stand



That's all for now.

Regards,
Nevin

Yeah BABY door

I still haven't got to the last page but looking good so far... continuing...

[superduperwesman]

Cool tank keep us posted

[bignose]

nice tank