A little over a year ago, I sold all of the livestock in my tank for many reasons. My dad's cancer came back, my fiancé came home from Iraq, I got married, and I moved, thus I had no time for the tank. I LOVED my set up and I LOVED my critters. Originally, I started out with a 46 gallon bowfront. After a year off, I'm now 4 months pregnant, and my husband is deploying to Afghanistan in December so I've decided I need a hobby to enjoy while he's gone and to de-stress from being a stay-at-home single-for-a-year mom. I'm starting this thread to track the progress of my tank, and to show set-up from planning to running. I still have all of my equipment so setting everything up is just a matter of planning and patience. This time around, I'm starting off already knowing what I want, instead of hodge-podging everything together as I go.
Here's all my equipment:
29 Gallon Bio-Cube and Stand
Original Bio-Cube hood and bulbs. I love the 50/50 bulbs set up and the blue night LEDs. The hood is EXCELLENT at keeping evap to a minimum and keeping jumping fish in.
Tunze 9002
InTank by Steve T collection cup so you don't have to mod the hood to fit the skimmer.
InTank by Steve T Media Basket
InTank by Steve T fish guard fish saver
Theo Hydor 100 watt heater
5 watt underwater light for fuge in the media basket
My plan for livestock:
Clean up crew:
(I may cut back on some of the snails. Last set up, I had a lot of just a couple types of snails. I'd rather have just a few of lots of different kinds this time around. I really love the bumble bee snails! I had mexican turbos before, and they were fantastic at cleaning, but they are such bull-dozers that I think they are just too big for a nano. I'm on the fence about the crabs and peppermint shrimp. I had peppermints before because I had aptasia at one point and I'm not sure I really need them this time around. The crabs were a little too cantankerous and fought with each other and bothered the snails. I LOVED my skunk cleaner shrimp, and I think they were my favorite part of the entire tank. I loved sticking my hand in and getting free manicures, watching them dance, and watching them clean fish. My old ones would actually have babies every 8-11 days and it was so cool to watch them "give birth" at night and shake them all over the tank. The mandarin was pretty happy about it too. I may get an anemone shrimp for the ricordia.)
3 Blue Leg Hermit Crab
2 Electric Blue Hermit Crab
2 Peppermint Shrimp
4 Nassarius Snail
4 Astraea Snail
4 Margarita Snail
4 Cerith Snail
4 Super Tongan
4 Nassarius Snail
8 Bumble Bee Snail
4 Zebra Nerite Snail
2-3 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
1-2 Anemone Shrimp
Fish:
1 Ocellaris Clownfish with a very small RBTA (I plan on putting the RBTA in before any coral so it can find it's spot and I can place coral without worrying)
1 Purple Firefish Goby (I REALLY wanted one last time around, and I'm very excited to have one this time)
1 Pearly Jawfish (One of my favorite inhabitants last time around. I think I'm going to make him a tunnel with an entrance so hopefully he won't dig up under all the rock)
1 Sixline Wrasse (Had one before and liked him, but it's not a must have. He'll be added last if the tank seems like he'll work with it)
1 Green Mandarinfish (I was VERY successful with the one I had in this same tank last time around. I got him when he was VERY skinny and he plumped up really well. I will have a fuge in the back, and I will be adding pods to the tank often to make sure it's well fed. I will get the store to feed it frozen in front of me before I get it to make sure it will eat frozen too. My last one loved mysis shrimp)
Coral:
I plan on keeping it simple and doing pretty much just zoas and ricordia with maybe a sunset monti, and setosa.
I'm going to do black sand again because I feel it made all the colors pop and it looks cleaner in the long run than white sand.
Once I have the sand, I'll be scouring craigslist and the classifieds here for LR. I think the pieces I had last time were just a little too large since they were originally in my 46 and I didn't think I would have a nano. I'll be looking for pieces that are a little smaller. I do plan on doing Live Rock, not dry, but I'm going to soak it like crazy to kill all the fireworms, flatworms, etc. I ended up with a flatworm problem last time since I just rinsed the rock instead of dosing it.
Here's pics of my equipment and my old set up:
Feel free to share advice!
I realize the mandarin in a nano is controversial, but I am confident I can keep one. At the first sign that it isn't doing well, I will not hesitate to take it back to the store. The animals' well-being comes FIRST!
Here's all my equipment:
29 Gallon Bio-Cube and Stand
Original Bio-Cube hood and bulbs. I love the 50/50 bulbs set up and the blue night LEDs. The hood is EXCELLENT at keeping evap to a minimum and keeping jumping fish in.
Tunze 9002
InTank by Steve T collection cup so you don't have to mod the hood to fit the skimmer.
InTank by Steve T Media Basket
InTank by Steve T fish guard fish saver
Theo Hydor 100 watt heater
5 watt underwater light for fuge in the media basket
My plan for livestock:
Clean up crew:
(I may cut back on some of the snails. Last set up, I had a lot of just a couple types of snails. I'd rather have just a few of lots of different kinds this time around. I really love the bumble bee snails! I had mexican turbos before, and they were fantastic at cleaning, but they are such bull-dozers that I think they are just too big for a nano. I'm on the fence about the crabs and peppermint shrimp. I had peppermints before because I had aptasia at one point and I'm not sure I really need them this time around. The crabs were a little too cantankerous and fought with each other and bothered the snails. I LOVED my skunk cleaner shrimp, and I think they were my favorite part of the entire tank. I loved sticking my hand in and getting free manicures, watching them dance, and watching them clean fish. My old ones would actually have babies every 8-11 days and it was so cool to watch them "give birth" at night and shake them all over the tank. The mandarin was pretty happy about it too. I may get an anemone shrimp for the ricordia.)
3 Blue Leg Hermit Crab
2 Electric Blue Hermit Crab
2 Peppermint Shrimp
4 Nassarius Snail
4 Astraea Snail
4 Margarita Snail
4 Cerith Snail
4 Super Tongan
4 Nassarius Snail
8 Bumble Bee Snail
4 Zebra Nerite Snail
2-3 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
1-2 Anemone Shrimp
Fish:
1 Ocellaris Clownfish with a very small RBTA (I plan on putting the RBTA in before any coral so it can find it's spot and I can place coral without worrying)
1 Purple Firefish Goby (I REALLY wanted one last time around, and I'm very excited to have one this time)
1 Pearly Jawfish (One of my favorite inhabitants last time around. I think I'm going to make him a tunnel with an entrance so hopefully he won't dig up under all the rock)
1 Sixline Wrasse (Had one before and liked him, but it's not a must have. He'll be added last if the tank seems like he'll work with it)
1 Green Mandarinfish (I was VERY successful with the one I had in this same tank last time around. I got him when he was VERY skinny and he plumped up really well. I will have a fuge in the back, and I will be adding pods to the tank often to make sure it's well fed. I will get the store to feed it frozen in front of me before I get it to make sure it will eat frozen too. My last one loved mysis shrimp)
Coral:
I plan on keeping it simple and doing pretty much just zoas and ricordia with maybe a sunset monti, and setosa.
I'm going to do black sand again because I feel it made all the colors pop and it looks cleaner in the long run than white sand.
Once I have the sand, I'll be scouring craigslist and the classifieds here for LR. I think the pieces I had last time were just a little too large since they were originally in my 46 and I didn't think I would have a nano. I'll be looking for pieces that are a little smaller. I do plan on doing Live Rock, not dry, but I'm going to soak it like crazy to kill all the fireworms, flatworms, etc. I ended up with a flatworm problem last time since I just rinsed the rock instead of dosing it.
Here's pics of my equipment and my old set up:
Feel free to share advice!
I realize the mandarin in a nano is controversial, but I am confident I can keep one. At the first sign that it isn't doing well, I will not hesitate to take it back to the store. The animals' well-being comes FIRST!
