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Old 01/09/2008, 10:43 PM
carlso63 carlso63 is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Lehi, Utah
Posts: 453
11/20/2007 - Day 11

Setting up the Nursery Tank


If you ever seen pictures of my reef tank you may have noticed I tend to do things a little differently than most... for example, my sump for my 125g display is not under the tank (like most) or plumbed remotely to another room - it is level with and right behind my main tank, like this:



Basically, I use siphon tubes on one end to bring water into the sump, then the first compartment houses the skimmer; the second the lighted refugium; and the third has the heaters, a topoff station and the return to the main tank... which, in my case, is 2 Fluval 404 canisters which run nothing but carbon in them. So again, a little different than most. The only change I have made from this pic is I chucked the "homemade" PVC siphon tubes in favor of some clear plastic overflow tubes.

One nice thing about this arrangement is that it is basically impossible to cause a flood due to sump return pump failure or loss of siphon on the input.

I also have chosen to run a plenum under the sandbed of my display. Have done so for decades now; always have "0" nitrates / phosphates - never had a problem with a "crash". So it works for me, quite well...

Anyway, back to the nursery tank setup.

One of the things that I was worried about with a seperate tank for the fry was how to keep it clean and the water "healthy" for the fry - without having to do daily water changes to fight off ammonia or organics buildup. I didn't want to risk losing babies because I forgot to do a water change and their little nursery tank got an ammonia spike or something.

And then there's filtration, heating, etc... what a pain it could be to have to set all this up...

So I ended up doing a nursery tank setup based on my sump setup. I decided that a 10g tank should be large enough to house and rear the fry - at least until they got large enough to put in with adult sized fish, anyway. I built a 2 X 4 stand for the 10g and placed it level with and right next to the side of my display (as the back was already taken up by the sump). Another siphon tube to send a constant supply of aged, zero nH3 / nO2 / nO3 / pO4 saltwater into the tank; a small powerhead to pump it back out of the tank... like this:

Note the nursery tank on the left side of the display



Side view of the nursery tank. You can see the input siphon, return powerhead, a small airstone (to keep the water surface from getting stagnant) and a media bag over the powerhead strainer (to avoid sucking in any fry) and a little sprig of chaeto to give the fry some cover




Top view showing the filtration / water exchange system



So, with my male now carrying for 11 days, most of the hard prep work was done... but the waiting continued...
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125 gal Mixed Reef; 30g Sump / 10g Fuge
1134w Odyssea 15K MH / PC lighting
(3) Koralia 3s, (2) Fluval 404s, (1) MJ900
modded CSS220 Skimmer
165 lb LR / 3/4" full Plenum / 5" DSB