Intarsiabox's 2012 Nano Contest Entry

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by Enigma

I think the t8 would be enough for a lot of softies. You can always move them close to the top, too. NPS would be a challenge, but they would work as well.

I have some pom-pom xenia that I may put a frag of into the tank, also lots of anthalia but it's too invasive (in my sump right now from a previous ill conceived tank). I'll see if I can find anything more colorful in soft corals, maybe some zoas that do well under lower light conditions. Between work, 2 dogs, fish tank, wife and 2 young girls who are into all sorts of activities I'm thinking NPS is out of the picture for me, although I love the looks of a lot of them and hope Denny goes through with his NPS plan as I would like to see a nano NPS tank!

[Boxboy]

Aggreed NPS is alot of work, but pretty dang cool looking.
Just do lots of bright pastel colors and you will be happy im sure

or set up a auto feeder for a nps tank.

[Enigma]

There are a lot of gorgeous mushrooms out there that do well in lower light. I just picked up a rock that has really lovely purple and teal mushrooms on it. I'm not sure what they are. I have a couple of rhodactis mushrooms with amazing colours (one is bright green, the other is green and orange) that I got from Snappy several months ago.

I can't keep Xenia. It melts on me. I do love it, though. Kenya trees and lots of leathers do well under lower light. You could do a softy tank, and just run lots of carbon.

[intarsiabox]

There so many options to choose, I'm going to have to start poking around the stores to see what's available and make my mind up.

[intarsiabox]

Lighting options for the tank.

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The top is a chinese 60W dimmable LED fixture suspended by my hitech shelf brackets and a 2x3. I would most likely go open top with this route but don't have any form of ATO which may be an issue depending on evaporation rate.

Bottom photo is using a 50/50 T8 bulb. Visually much dimmer but uses the canopy to reduce evap and gives the tank a more finished look.

The heater is keeping the water at 78.2 - 78.4 throught the day and night so I'm not going to touch it. Only problem is the suction cups don't want to stick anymore.

I'm leaning towards keeping a maxi mini, some various zoas, rics and LPS in the tank with shrimp instead of fish for inhabitants to keep the bioload down.

Also need to get a few small pieces of fresh LR to seed and for bio diversity. I looked at the stuff in my sump and it is all covered in clove polyps and anthalia so it's a no go.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

I'm thinking NPS is out of the picture for me, although I love the looks of a lot of them and hope Denny goes through with his NPS plan as I would like to see a nano NPS tank!

ill be doing it for sure , i almost am ready to give my journal a rehaul update lol i have all my nps corals ordered and the sump is almost finished,been talking with alot of azoox keeers both here and RC, im determined to make this work


loving your build so far bud keep up the good work