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a1rabbit
12/10/2006, 07:01 PM
I've been posting this on another forum for a few weeks, figured I'd cross post it here, maybe someone will enjoy it or get use out of it.

Here is where I'll keep a current picture of my tank.

As of December 9th, 2006.
http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/FTS/10g9dec2006.jpg



This is where my thread (on the other forum) first started on November 21, 2006.

First, thanks to everyone who's helped me by either answering my questions directly, making useful threads or just replying to other threads I (and others) read to learn more about this hobby.

The tank will be as follows:

10g glass tank w/ black back
Coralife 96 watt PC lighting
Maxi-Jet 600
Aquaclear 110(500) w/ skimmer attachment (+ fuge mod)
Jager 50 watt Heater (in the fuge)
15 pounds of Carib Sea Aragonite Sand. 12 in tank, some in the fuge, some left over.
13 pounds of Indonesian live rock.
RO water. (not RODI, had no access to a DI unit)
Coralife Digital Thermometer & Regular Glass Suction cup one for accuracy.
Magfloat Tank cleaner (I think everyone has one)
Misc Test items.

Custom stand (50% done) and custom hood to come.


At present the tank is cycling with the live rock. The Maxi-Jet is in there for circulation, the AC Fuge will go in tomorrow when the silicone is ready for water, and hopefully my skimmer attachment will arrive soon to keep the top clean. The AC filter/fuge will add a lot more flow to the back side and over the rock; right now there are at least 2 dead spots in the current flow. One spot is the front right corner. I’m wondering if the clean up group would keep that clean when I get them after it’s cycled. Either way I’m going to try adjusting the flow if needed after I get the AC unit.

The rock I picked up today, about 11 pounds from my LFS of Indonesian, I’ll get a few more pieces of rubble for the fuge. The color of the rock is nice in most places. Some is pretty brown and there’s a lot of algae growing on it. Not sure if it’s good or bad though… it’s covered in purple/red/green coralline algae, at least I think the green is coralline. So far no hitchhikers that I’ve seen.

Temps around 78 with the heater only, with lights on it goes up to about 80.5. I’ll keep my eye on it over the next couple days. I have a second heater exactly the same as the one that’s in it. I wonder if I should put both in?

I’ll post more pictures when the tank de-clouds and I redo the aquascape. Here’s what I can get so far.

I might post pictures of the stand when it’s done.


Rock with Flash
http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week1/Rockwithflash.jpg

Rock without Flash
http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week1/Rocknoflash.jpg

That's three peices of rock for those wondering. Long peice on the bottom, one peice on the right, on the sand, and the roundish one on top of the long one.

a1rabbit
12/10/2006, 07:06 PM
My next major post was...

So, it's been 13 days since live rock was added. Readings have been great since day four. The rock was pretty much cured when we got it; it had been at the LFS for quite sometime soaking before we brought it home.

On day six we added four Snails and 4 hermits. (2 Margarita Snails, 3 Tiny Blue leg Hermits, 1 Orange leg Hermit and 2 Banded Trochus Snails).

We let them do their thing for a bit.

Three days later we added 12 Snails and 1 Shrimp. (8 Nassarius Snails, 4 Cerith Snails and a Cleaner Shrimp). We also added a nice amount of cheato to the fuge.

Finally we just added two small tank bred clowns.

The water flow seemed way too much for the clowns at first, I don't think they ever really had a lot of (direct) water flow before they came into this tank. This tank is by no means a monster but I think the flow is pretty darn good for these two little fellas. We experimented with the angle of the maxi-jet output and found a nice angle at which they can thrive. They don't look like they are going to have heart attacks all the time now. But I did turn off the MJ last night to give them time to rest. I might do this for a few nights until they get accustomed to the flow.

Our cleaner shrimp has taken over the “cave” we have, he hangs upside down in there almost all day long, coming out to meet the snails and hermits as they pass by.

We’ve been feeding them with brine shrimp (I know it’s crappy, the LFS was out of mysis and this is small for the clowns until they can eat mysis easier) and a little bit of formula one flake, both soaked in a drop of “Kent Garlic Xtreme”. The coolest part is watching the Nassarius snails come out of the sand as soon as the food goes in. We turn off all the water flow for the 2-3minutes of feeding. We feed from a syringe.

I think our Orange Leg Hermit lost his pincher/claw. There’s one sitting on the sand bed. I’ve seen the hermit out and about, maybe he’s molting or something.

Our temp has been fairly stable at 78(ish) Adding a PC fan blowing over the water helped keep it stable. We picked up a new Jager heater, it’s been working perfect for the last couple days.

Water has been nice and clear for the most part. Just gets dirty when we change flow/move rock.

We found a hitchhiker. A crab, he reached out and crabbed one of our snails shells and tried to thrash him around a little bit. I pulled out his rock and squirted some fresh water on him to get him out. He’s currently sitting in a 1g tank with a piece of live rock, a tiny bit of sand… a heater and some water flow until our next trip to the LFS. Apparently he’s reef-safe but after we saw him do that we figure it’s better to let him go back to the store.

We still need to finish the stand, I need to build a hood.


Here’s some hitchhikers we’ve had.

Bi-Valve Clam or something. (http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/BiValve1/)

Worm (http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/Other/whatisthis.wmv) (Video)

Crab (http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/Crabs/ID1/)



Oh, I also found a nice little free program for keeping track of your tank readings, maintenance, etc. It's called "AquaLog (http://www.joejaworski.com/aqualog/)".


I would like to add a Royal Gramma or a Goby of somesort, but I'll have to wait a couple weeks and make sure the bio load is ok.


And for the new FTS. Sorry, these pics are kinda crappy.

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week2/fts1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week2/fts2.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week2/fts3.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/Week2/shrimp.jpg

a1rabbit
12/10/2006, 07:08 PM
Finally....

We added a Coralife Mini (9") fixture to our AC110 Fuge and a Hydro Flo Wave maker to the MJ600 last night. So far the fish really like the hydro flo and I like having a light over the cheato in the fuge.

Only problem so far is that the Coralife Mini case gets really hot to the touch... We got the 50/50 mini over the fresh water mini because we can use it later on a pico or emergency tank if needed.

We've also moved the heater to the main tank for now.

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tank/10g_Nano/Fuge/CoralifeMiniSW.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tank/10g_Nano/FTS/10g9dec2006.jpg

saltycreefer
12/10/2006, 07:12 PM
Looks great so far.Before you get into adding more stuff, I would recommend you pull out the rocks with the green algae and take a scrubber brush to it in a pail of saltwater. Rinse the rocks off in the pail really well before putting them back in.

a1rabbit
12/10/2006, 07:27 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8721959#post8721959 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by saltycreefer
Looks great so far.Before you get into adding more stuff, I would recommend you pull out the rocks with the green algae and take a scrubber brush to it in a pail of saltwater. Rinse the rocks off in the pail really well before putting them back in.

Maybe someone could tell me what kind of algae that is on the right had side of the rock. I tired to find out before but no one knew, I can get better pics now. We actually sort of like it, if it stays only where he's been, we would not be too upset.


Here's a couple closer pictures.

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/Algae/ID1/ID1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/Algae/ID1/ID2.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/ID/Algae/ID1/ID3.jpg

a1rabbit
02/10/2007, 06:27 AM
Well since we can't edit our posts on this forum so I can update my picture on the first post I'll just keep updating it this way. At least it's a free bump I guess, lol.

It's been awhile since I posted last, here's the tank now.

Video as of February 7th, 2007.
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd4_8Q4H1G0). (YouTube)

Photo As of January 21st, 2007.
http://members.shaw.ca/lugg/tanks/10g_Nano/FTS/10g21jan2007.jpg

What's in it?

Gear
10g glass tank w/ black back
Coralife 96 watt PC lighting
Coralife 1 watt LED Moon Light.
Maxi-Jet 1200 w/ Hydro Flo
Aquaclear 110(500) w/ skimmer attachment (+ fuge mod)
Jagger 50 watt Heater
Coralife Digital Thermometer & Regular Glass Suction cup one for accuracy.

Inhabitants
2 False Perc Clowns
1 Cleaner Shrimp
8 Nassarius Snails
2 Banded Trochus Snails
4 Cerith Snails
2 Tiny Blue Leg Hermits
1 Orange Leg Hermit
Yellow Polyps (Just got them in the above picture, they open more now)
Dragons Eye Zoos (frag)
Chocolate Colored Zoos with Pink center (frag)
Frogspawn (2 head Frag)
Red/Pink Shroom
Turquoise Shroom
Small Xenia (frag)