OK, I finaly get a project thread! My 120 had been up for a year when I found TR, so it was kinda pointless th start one for that tank, but one of my friends from my local club has given me a JBJ 12 gallon nano deluxe.
The tank looks like this (stock photo).
When I got it, it was pretty filthy. The previous owner had kept a snowflake eel in it that died while he was on vacation. He dumped the water, pulled out the rock, and set it on his deck for 6 months.
I got it home last Thursday, dumped the
CC substrate, and scrubbed the hell out of it. Along with the tank, I got a heater, about 10 pounds of base rock and some Deltec
CA reactor media to use as substrate. With everything clean, I toted it to work with me last Friday and proceded to set it up after work. I mixed 7 gallons of fresh
SW (we have
RO water in the water cooler
) and used 5 gallons of
SW from my 120
DT at home. I used the base rock, several pieces of
LR from my
sump and a good sized piece from my
DT. I also dumped in a cup of sand from my tank and put a sponge I keep in my
sump in the filtrattion department of the nano. I fired it up, tested the 2x24w
PC lights and let it run over the weekend in the dark. I'll be ou of the office all this week at a training calss, so I didn't get a chance to check on it again until Tuesday, when i had to go in to pick up the palys and digi that Carmie sent me. I tested the water, which showed no amonia, .02
nitrite, a trace ammount of
nitrate,
SG was 1.025,
CA was 350,
alk was 9 dkh and
phosphate was .02. Not too bad all in all. Looks like there was a mini cycle. I put the lights on a timer and called it a day.
I won't get a chance to check on it again until Monday probably. If everything tests OK, I'll probably bring in a couple of hardy
frags from my tank at home. Maybe some zoas and button polyps and see how they do.
Of course, I found out today that next month my department is moving to another floor in the building, so I'll need to move it about the time everyting really gets going
.
Im planning a LPS dominated tank with zoas and maybe a few softies/shrooms/ricordia. As far as livestock, I'll probably have a couple of turbos, a few nasarius, a couple of hermits, a couple of peppermint shrimp, and for fish, maybe a pair of percs and a purple firefish or a royal gramma.
I'll try to get a picture Monday or Tuesday so I can track my progress. I must say, I'm a little nervous about not having a
skimmer, but changing 5 gallons a week will be super easy, and hopefuly that volume and frequency of waterchanges will keep everything in check. The back wall of this nano is plastic, and I've been toying with the idea of plumbing in a
sump and using a spare 10 gallon under my desk. I could put in a
DSB,
LR rubble and maybe some cheato. I guess I'll see how it goes with the built in filtration, but I could do SOOOO much more with a
sump/fuge.
Anyone have any commentary, suggestions, ideas, etc?
