Andyoybna

Ok, well ive had my nano-reef going for about 2-3 months now, and i took some pretty cool pictures today. Also finally starting to get a bit of coraline growth, and getting rid of that pesky hair algae

So far it has-
Firefish
Caribean Pygmy Angel
Condalactus Anemone
Green Star Polyps
Toadstool Leather Coral
~15 Hermit Crabs
~10 Snails
10Lbs LR
15Lbs Sand

Andyoybna

Andyoybna

Also, heres a neat lilttle piece of info on the tank-

I only feed it maybe... once a week, maybe once every 2 weeks, i have sooo many copepods and tiny inverts on my LR that my firefish doesnt need anything else, and my angel just picks at my gigantic ammounts of algae, there is actually so many nutrients in the tank that my leather coral is constantly shedding, he only looks good once a week when hes done

Tommy Gun

That is really a sweet tank andy!

how do you figure you got so many copepods in your tank? I am trying to do the same, but in a 90 gallon tank which is not working well. I have decided to switch a 10 gallon FW fry tank I have over to a nano-saltwater tank (fish only) for my Mandarin Goby, who needs these copepods so I am looking for hints and tips on that issue.

Andyoybna

Honestly i don't really know why i have so many copepods, maybe i just got really lucky with my LR, another thing that happened was, in the beginning stages right after the tank cycled, a piece of LR fell on a shrimp, and being such a small tank, it spiked ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and it ended up killing everything else, mushrooms, a percula clown, anemone, flame scallop, hermits/snails...

sooo i got pissed and just left the tank, did weekly water changes, but i left all the decaying matter in there, and i ended up with an extremely strong bacteria bed, as well as tons of tiny crustaceans on my LR and copepods, i guess it was just extremely food-rich for all of them. I also had the benefiet of taking some live-sand that had been established in my stores display tank for 3 years that was FILLED with bacteria and copepods.

and obviously i don't reccomend that you do that... very expensive also not good for the animals that it involves.

also, im not sure if not using any chemical filtration has added to my luck in propogating the copepods, somehow i just hit a nice place where my tank is almost self sufficient except for the now bi-weekly water changes, bacteria handles the waste easily, hermits and snails clean up real good, angel takes care of a lot of algae, and copepods are doin good

Tommy Gun

That sounds like a good idea though. I may try to get some new live rock from my LFS and I know they would sell me some of their live sand. I may just allow my new tank to run without fish for a while so that the copepod population can increase. In my big tank, I just have too many fish that feed on them and it is really too young to even expect a lot of them anyways. I am doing the research on how to get a refugium added to my sump so that would help me out.

Thanks for that info and advice. I do not use any mechanical filtration either other than my skimmer. My tank is pretty heavily stocked up and the natural filtration takes really good care of the tank for me. Honestly, once my saltwater tank got started running well, it is much easier to take care of than my freshwater tanks!

Andyoybna

yea, i know what you mean, my 10 gallon nano reef stays more clear, and more stable than my 29Gallon, and 90 Gallon FW tanks, its almost sad

Radom

I like that leather

Andyoybna

Today i bought a pencil urchin and small ricordia mushroom and did a bit of redecorating, added another rock cave, opened up some extra swimming space behind the LR.


Ricordia


Pencil Urchin


Firefish