hey nano's...

[leaky]

Just thought I would do my part here and post that i have a 10 gallon nano with a gravity fed 5 gallon refugium. I have 1 clown, 1 damsel, 1 cleaner shrimp, 4 blue leg crabs, 3 torchus snails, ricordae, trumpet, zoo's, GSP's, Xenia, Frogspawn, Finger and a squamosa clam. In the fuge I have a 2 pound chunk of fiji rock grape calurpa, xenia and GSP frags a couple crabs and a couple snails, lots o bugs....

[johnfish]

Hi Leaky,

Wow, that's a lot of critters for a 10 gal tank. How long has it been running?

I used to have a 20 gal nano. I found it would do really good for a few months, looking really beautiful, but then something would suddenly go horribly wrong. Then it would be a battle to get it straightened out again with lots of expensive livestock dead.

It was kinda like balancing a plate on the end of a stick. Very tricky. When something got a bit out of whack it would crash fast and hard.

I would think for such a small tank the only way to do it would be to change most of the water every week.

Cheers :)
John

[Chrismo]

Sounds nice. I have a clown and damsel in my 10g too. Damsel terrorizes the clown though... Wish I could get him outa there without taking everything out.

What kind of lighting do you have, and how much evaporation? Or a protien skimmer? I was thinking of adding a clam but worry that he might really suck back a lot of calcium... How do yo deal with your calcium? kalk drip?

I havnt had much trouble with my nano. I recently started a constant dripping of freshwater into my nano in order to keep the salinity more constant. Seems to work great. Everything seems a bit fluffier. My acropora is started to grow faster, (but The Montipora grows insane)

Chris

[leaky]

been running about 2 years now, I change 1 gallon a week, I had a battle with hair algae once but found the source was a bad peice of live rock... I have 3, yes 3 55watt pc's(1-10000k, 1-50/50,1-actinic) I obviously had to build a custom hood, i'll get pics up soon... evaporation is about a small margarine container every 2-3 days... no skimmer, I have a clam and actually has been one of the best things for my tank. it eats up nutrients and as for calcium, yes he does chew it up alot but I dose with b-ionic and its fine...... How do you constantly drip? could this be another DIY for me? hmmmm....

[Chrismo]

I have a 2.5 gallon Kent Marine doser jug that sits atop my hood. Gravity and a little control valve that it comes with lets me drip my freshwater in there a drip every 2 seconds. I think that ends up being about 3/4 of a litre a day. But it's good because I can go away for a few days and not have to get someone to add water. I replace my wate every 2 weeks. 40 percent.

I got a 175W MH 3" off the top of the tank, a Bak pac skimmer, an aqua-clear 150, and a Computer case fan. I think all that water movement and definitly the lights & fan speed up my evaporation... but the evaporation keeps my tank cool too.

My temperature used to always go up to 84 during the day, and then back to 80 (where I wanted it) at night. I couldnt get the day temperature down, and finally decided to just make the night temp 84 too, by turning the heater up. Now it's stable at least

Maybe I will get a little clam after all!

[leaky]

wow, just seen your photo gallery Chrismo and i must say, very impressive aqua-scaping... you have a 175w halide on a 10g? wow, is there any signs of over lighting? Is you coraline algae turning white at all? I ask because I heard some storys on halides on small tanks having strange effects like coraline turning pinkish white or coraline being completely gone.... I have access to cheap halide lighting and am always thinking of adding it to my 10g... still researching.... yah get a clam they are great

[Chrismo]

Thanks!
My aquascaping's gotten messier since the picture there. Get a pic of your tank in your gallary. I love looking at peoples nano-aquascaping.

The 175W MH isnt that much more than your 3 55W PC's! One patch of greenish coraline did start to turn white at the top of the tank white... but only for a few weeks, then it slowly turned a deeper different shade of purple. When I first put it in I put it up 6 inches or so above the water with no reflector. Also it was a 9 month old used bulb, and so not at full brightness. Maybe that helped... I even have 2 15W NO actinic bulbs in there as well. Over charged to 30W each.

I dont think too much light is often a problem from what I've read. As long as you slowly get your corals used to it.

Chris