Com'n nano reefers! Lets get this thing on it's feet!

[Black Molly]

Am I the only one with a nano? Remeber nanos are any reef or fowlr 25g or under. lets hear it folks!
Carrie

[rottn]

Well - don't have a nano yet, but I *do* have a 5g and a 10g tank that are spares just kicking around. I figured the 10g will probably end up being my HT/QT tank, and the 5g I'll probably turn into a nano eventually. I've been kicking around a couple of ideas for it. Either pigmy SH's, or a goby/shrimp pair for the 5g. Or, just a nice reef with a small damsel or dottyback.

Anyways - look forward to hearing about everybody's nanos. I'm sure I'll get some great ideas here. :D

What about you Carrie? Can you tell me about yours?

[Chrismo]

I love my nano!
2 months? ago I transferred my 65 galllon tank into a 10 gallon nano!
I took all my best rock, and my corals, sps, and 2 domino damsels and crammed them into the tank. It's got a Bakpak skimmer and an AquaClear powehead, as well as a Hagen 201 powerhead.

I must say, this little tank is cool. It's packed with life, and seems to be doing good so far. The temperature varies lot (80 - 86 degrees) It's cheap to control Calcium levels, because I need so little Ca buffer (B-ionic) to resore levels etc..
And a 50 percent water change is only 4 gallons!

Lights.
I'm using 2 15watt NO flourescents (18" each), 1 actinic and one 10,000K. I run them in parallel which makes them the equivelent of one 36" bulb. I run an electronic ballast rated for 2 32" bulbs, and overdrive the bulb by approx 2x. They run really bright,

My bubble and Hammer coral seem to be doing well. I have a xenia which is growing like mad and split. (again) I tried putting some montipora Digitata right at the very top of my tank, since I had frags given to me. They seem to be doing well. The ends turned purple and they are a nice deep brown with all tiny polyps extented. I hope everything keeps going as well as it is. I thought it would be a lot more trouble. Everyone said nano's were so hard. But it's only been 2 months, so who I can't be too cocky.

I'm going to get more lighting and hope I can keep the temp down. but mostly I'm going to just wait it out and see how stable this little reef is.
I would love to hear about other people's reefs, and what they keep in them. And what problems you've encountered. Pictures and lists please! I'll upload a pic of mine if you do...


Chris

[Toirtis]

I am starting one up next month, inspired by a funky little 5 gal nano reef in an LFS....very stable, very pretty, lots of small corals, a couple of small tubeworms, and some shrimp.

[ajx22]

Woo Hooo

The Salt Water bug bites yet another victim! :devil:

[Chrismo]

A few weeks ago I bought a 175W MH, ( 6500K Bulb and a cap & coilBallast )

I'm happy with it!
My big worry was that this was too much light, and that heat would boild the water. The 10 gallon is only 12" high. But the temp hasnt been a problem as long as I keep a fan on it. The Corals took about 2 weeks to get used to the light. But they seem to be loving it now. My MontiporaGot a little burnt at the top, at first, but has reccovered and is fluffly and loving it. My Acro seems ok too. Hammer Coral has never been bigger, bubble coral was freaked out at first, but is back to the size it was.

I had to move some green star polyp, too much light was wilting them kinda, and my big mushroom would fold over and shade itself after a few hours. Anyway, I'm pretty happy, and if everything settles down a bit more and seems well, I might get a small deresa clam.

I built a hood for my 10 gallon out of an old speaker. The speaker was wood, and needed just a little bit of shortening to be converted into a hood. The Speaker box was 11 inches high, and the bulb fit in therre nice. The bulb is about 4 inches off the water now. I totally recommend using an abondoned speaker box to make your Hoods!

I still need to add a fan to the hood. Right now I'm using a seperate fan beside the hood. I've taken apart an old computer syquest drive and am going to use that power supply and a few computer fans.

Lovin' the Nano!
Chris

[IJO]

lol you guys are to much.... I gotta stop reading these posts before I end up with 50 tanks in my livingroom.:laugh:

[goby_dude]

Come on, there's got to be more nano reefers out there!!! Lets see some shots of your tanks too :) Ok, I'll start by posting a pic of my 2 year old nano. It's a 10 gallon with 2x32 watts of pc over it.

[Trent]

That's fantastic for a 10G!
That's the first small tank that I've seen that looked that nice.

I was reading the nano theads and was thinking. Is there a term for a tank under say 5 Gallons or say 1 Gallon?
If not, I have one.
Picoreef.
A pico is an actual unit of measurement.
So here's the challenge... Build a one Gallon reef, with a small sump proportional to an average reef positioned behind the display. Build miniture. And then put it on your desk in the office at work.
I believe it is possible if it hasn't been done already!

[Chrismo]

That is a great looking tank! I like the rockwork! Looks nice and clean. Not too jumbly.

Here's mine. its got a backpack, 175W MH and 32W NO (50/50) I feel like I should tidy it up now! but here goes...

[goby_dude]

Thanks guys, it's not as clean as it looks in the pic :D

Chrismo, your tank's pretty nice yourself, I really don't think you need to tidy anything up. You got some serious coraline growth though, wish mine will grow that fast. But yeah, a 175 W MH on a nano, you tank must be super bright!