Achu,
Until recently I was running two 10 gallon and a 20 gallon long glass nanos. The 10's each ran 96 watts of PC lighting and I put a 225 watt VHO setup on the 20 long (my first time using VHO, and boy was I impressed. The VHO bulbs REALLY seem to make the corals fluoresce unlike anything I saw under PC's. Admittedly, it took me a few days to get use to the "pinkish" haze.). I only ran a skimmer on the 20 long, and just relied on the water changes to keep the two 10’s in shape.
As far as the frag problem goes (finding stuff that will fit into them). Try showing up to LFS’s right after they receive a shipment, as sometimes they have broken pieces, etc.
In addition to that, Blue Sierra usually has some small misc. ‘shroom and zoo frags floating around the bottom of their VHO coral tanks (I have also seen some at Saltwater City and Aquarium Concepts, but Blue Sierra usually has the most.). The staff always seemed more then happy too fish some out for me and charge a small amount for each little piece. Over two years of collecting this has resulted in about 30-50 different varieties/colors/patterns of ‘shrooms and quite a few different types of zoo’s as well. The best part is, these all seem to split and mutate in a short period of time, so you can end up with a really “full†tank in very little time (You can also “help†them along by cutting up bigger ‘shrooms and putting them in a yogurt container with some rubble. The little pieces will eventually attach (2-3 weeks) and you can then glue those down to your live rock. For the zoo’s, you can use an exacto to split small chunks of them up and then glue the smaller sections to various live rock.)
If you are more interested in hard corals, I found Montipora Digitata, Montipora Capricornis, Stylophora, and Pocillopora all seemed too grown under my lighting conditions. You will have to feed these as well as add additional chemicals to get the calcium up (and keep it there) but you can have a really gorgeous display in no time (You can usually find 1-2.5†frags of all of these at most of the LFS’s, from what I have seen, Aquarium Concepts and Blue Sierra both usually have a good selection of these.).
I have had a Pocillopora colony for about 2.5 years now, it originally started out under 32 watt PC’s (While I had it at the top of a 20 gallon high, its growth was slow, so I added a second, and then a third 32watt PC retro fit kit to it.) It has managed to go through a “boiling†(heater incident), a “freezing†(several power failures), and a “dry spell†(leaky tank). Unfortunately, once it was added to my 90 gallon, it was immediately stung by my anemone. After much swearing and pruning of dead skeleton, I am down to a 2-3†section that managed to survive (it has since been moved). If you are really interested in doing an SPS nano, I would suggest starting out with a small piece of this, as atleast my piece seems to be VERY hardy.
I would also suggest talking with people in the club about bringing some small frags to the club meetings. This is probably the easiest way to get xenia, leathers, small candy cane frags, and small frogspawn/torch/hammer frags. Lots of people have leathers and xenia that has to be “trimmed†on a routine basis. A lot of people just dump this down the drain or throw it in the trash, so maybe you can talk them into saving a bit for you. The SPS I mentioned above are also voracious growers, so you might also be able to find someone in the club who is willing to frag a small branch/piece off of their colony.
If all else fails, you can also try some of the “unique†zoo sellers online (Blane Perun at
http://www.thesea.org/catalog/) tends to sell very-small frags of his items. As well as single 'shrooms, and other interesting items.
Unfortunately, while I loved running my nanos, another summer of doing daily top-off’s made me break down and buy a larger aquarium (I would highly suggest getting an auto top off solution if you plan on keeping them through the summer heat. I can send you some good links if you need them, they run about $20-30 or so and will make your life SO much easier). Besides the top-off situation I was starting to get concerned that adding the chemicals directly to the main tank (I didn’t run a sump/refuge) might be hurting some of my corals (The calcium was my main concern as it really freaked out my ‘shrooms (and if it didn’t dissolve correctly, little bits would “burn†a hole right into a ‘shroom. They recovered in a couple of days, but still…).
Overall all though, nanos are blast to maintain and watch, I hope your experience goes as well (or better) then mine! (They got me hooked!)
-V
