The ShermaNANO, a 12g project

[Sherman]

My local club was generous enough to all chip in and give me a great gift! I'm pretty excited about having a 12g nano sitting next to my desk. I've already started planning what I want to do with this tank, and this aquarium is going to be a lot of fun, along with some challenges... but that won't happen for a few months. I'll be headed out of the country in October, so I don't want to do anything drastic to this system until I get back. Luckily, that forces my hand at being patient, and I think it will be a good thing, in the end.

So, just as a matter of documentation, and to show you all it has water and has begun curing, here's the first full tank shot. The rocks are simply placed in there. This is not aquascaped, by any means. Right now, I'm still fighting the Southdown sand storms. This is the first time the sand has settled enough for a photo.

I seeded the sand with some sand from my established 38g. I also purchased a 3lb rock to bring in more diversity. The rest of the rock came from the stash of dead rock I've had stored since I set up the 38g, about 3 years ago. Already, the sand is crawling with spaghetti worms, and asterina stars somehow found their way over, as well.

The file cabinet that supports the nano is only made of your standard build-it-from-a-box particle board. While it's supported my weight before (And I weigh plenty more than the 12g nano), I didn't feel confident about the long term reliability, so I decided to add in a piece of 3/4" oak plywood I had left over from when I made my reactor cabinet. I cut it to the same bowfront shape as the nano, stained in black, and it's worked out really well.

I haven't been able to test the performance of the Sapphire nano skimmer, yet. It would seem that's not really going to be an option until my surface skimmer weir arrives. Without the weir, the water level in the rear chamber is so high, the skimmer is completely under water. It doesn't make very good bubbles that way .

To follow convention, I'll be using this thread as a sort of live journal, with updates as things happen. Thanks for looking!

 

[Krish]

Very cool Jason! Have fun with it as I'm sure it will result in something really nice

 

[spongebob lover]

wwouu Jason that's awesome !!!

 

[Sherman]

So if you want to use the Sapphire skimmer, the surface weirs are needed. I put it in place, and the little skimmer started foaming up immediately.

Also, The LED moonlights are very well focused... too well, in my opinion. They make two perfect blue circles down in the sand bed. The tank's entire lighting is covered by a clear plastic shield, and you can see exactly where the LEDs are shining through, because there are two 1" round blue circles on the shield. I happened to have some "window frost" spray paint, so I painted those two circles with frost. Now the LED moonlight is much softer, and diffused throughout the tank.

 

[Krish]

Looks great!

 

[spongebob lover]

that looks very kewl dood

 

[Snowboarda42]

That's so sweet! I keep thinking about getting a Nano.

What's your plans for it?

 

[Sherman]

Snowboarda, since this was a gift just sort of thrown onto me, I wasn't really prepared. I already have a reef, so I didn't necessarily want another one of the same ol' thing. I thought about the old staple, the clowns and anemone host, but that's so overdone, and I expect to see that in my other current tank upgrade anyway. Obviously, at 12g, predators were out.

I've always wanted seahorses and pipefish, but something is telling me this isn't the tank for it. I contemplated a blue ring octopus, but my wife (and 1 year old) came to their senses before I had a chance to. What I think is going to happen will be some corals on the rocks (softies, zoas), but I think I've decided on heavy macro algae coverage and a cowfish. If I can find some of the large leafed red algaes, and other non-conventional (hobby wise) sea life, that would be a fun challenge. I'd be up for something with a little more difficulty in order to get the rewards of having an ecosystem much different than most of us are used to.

Today, only 3 weeks in, I tested my water, and it appears the tank is cycled. Ammonia and nitrates were both undetectable. The only diatom "bloom" was for about 2 days there was real light coverage on one rock. At only three weeks, I'm assuming this is because of a few factors:

1: 50% of the rock was already fully cured
2: The sand was seeded from my main tank
3: 80% weekly water changes from my main tank (what else would I do with the waste water, after all?)
4: A very large clump of chaetomorpha from yet another tank to seed with pods/etc. and soak up all the nitrates

I'm headed to the Bahamas in October, so I don't want to add anything tricky before then (read: cowfish). Because of this, the tank will sit and mature until then, though I might add a coral or two between now and then.

 

[Elmo18]

Looking great Sherman!

Best,
Ilham

 

[Sherman]

Oh wow! I really haven't kept this updated! This tank has changed pretty significantly since the days of curing live rock! I've had no livestock until this week, except for a couple zoanthid frags. I added a cleaning crew this week, which consists of about a dozen astrea snails, and a small handful of scarlet hermits. Yesterday was a northern California frag swap, and I made out really well with several new zoanthid frags, some of them seen here:

I also had a club member bring me a small frag of Tubs Blue Zoos today, so this tank is making some progress in that regard.

This coolest new addition unfortunately, is actually not for this tank, it's for the 120g. I added 4 anthias to the 120 today, and this little guy was more than Mrs. Sherman could handle, she had to have him. I didn't want to add so many fish at once, especially since this is the anthias are the first fish to make it into the 120, so I decided to keep this tiny sailfin tang in the 12g for 3-4 weeks while the 120 stabilizes, and so I can watch the sailfin. There's lots of greenery in there, and he was grazing literally as soon as I introduced him into the tank. He's already let his sail down and is having a ball, all by himself, in the 12g nano.

And here's today's FTS, with the sailfin cruising around. I'll be placing all those zoanthids in the rockwork in time.

 

[Snowboarda42]

Alright, I want an update.

 

[Sherman]

Nothing's really changed in this little nano, lately. The sailfin made it over to his 120g permanent home, so there aren't any fish in this nano. I have to admit, it sure makes things boring. However, I've decided to use the nano as a quarantine for new fish. Being a fully established tank, that doesn't allow for medications and such, but I can set up a hospital tank for that. At least this tank will allow me to watch a new fish for a while before introducing it into the 120, just like I did with the sailfin.

So the goals with this tank? I just want to see what super low maintenance can do. I added some halimeda, which is just exploding in this tank. I've also let all the hitch hiker macros just do their thing. That's what the olive green plant is in the center, as well as the halimeda directly in front of that... hitchhikers. There are some ricordea in here, but they're not doing well, at all. A handful of zoanthid colonies are doing OK, and would probably do better if I'd just glue them down, instead of letting the hermits throw them around all day.

Anyway, here's today:

 

[Sherman]

Notice what the macro in the center has become. I'm sure I'll need to prune it before too long. Nonetheless, I just wanted to see what it would become. It really makes me want seahorses now.

The halimeda in the back corner was purposely placed there. The halimeda in the front, however, is also a hitch hiker. So is a lot of bubble algae.. that stuff's been a bit of a chore. Oh well.

Here's today.

 

[Sherman]

I decided to hack the super kelp weed, or whatever it was. It reached the surface, and started spreading across the surface, shading out the entire tank. Since then, the halimeda has taken off.

Today, I picked up a beautiful Aurora Goby (Amblyeleotris Aurora) from Dr. Dee. He's already eating really well, and he took straight to the cave I'd intended for a goby someday. Nonetheless, he'll still make it over to the 120g in a couple weeks. I have a pistol shrimp in there somewhere, it would be awesome if they'd pair.

As usual, shooting through the nano is just about impossible, so here's the distorted shot, as best as I could make it.

 

[spongebob lover]

cute fish dood .

 

[Sherman]

I hope I can catch a decent photo of his tail in time. You can only see hints of the yellow with orange spots in the shadows. Seriously, that tail is like a national banner, it's so flashy.

 

[Sherman]

I still feel like this fish is perfect for this tank, and am having a hard time coming to the conclusion that he needs to go into the 120g. One of the reasons I like him in a tank this small is that he's very shy. He typically scurries into the rock every time I enter the office, only to slowly creep his way back out over the next couple of minutes. I'd simply lose him in the 120g. I've also considered that the fish in the 120g are in front of foot traffic all day long, in the front room, so they're used to us. In contrast, this nano is in the office, where things are usually dark and quiet all day long.

I managed to grab a couple more shots of him today. I've been working on getting a decent shot of his amazing tail. It's not as sharp as I'd like, but it's the best I've been able to do so far. I also enjoy the tiny spots on the edge of his dorsal fin.

 

[james734]

I'd leave it in the nano for all the reason's you mentioned.

 

[Sherman]

But the pistol shrimp is in the 120g!

I know, I know.... It also gives up the QT tank to a permanent resident. Perhaps a proper QT is in order, anyway. There are a few fish I'd like to see come through QT but would be inappropriate in a 12g. The powder blue tang is a fish I've thought about on occasion, for example.

 

[Krish]

Beautiful fish Jason!