my little ocean - nano reef

[ischel1]

Outstanding Fren. I don't dare show these pics to my OH. He'd sell his first born to have one of these. Hehehehe. Good work!

[smartie2000]

Wow Fren. That is absolutely spectacular. I can't believe that you did that in 5 months. I know introducing anything into an aquaurium takes forever.

Just looking at the screen, I can imagine the whole system throbbing and swaying. That goby's tail against that purple/blue ?coral?? is gorgeous.

Is it possible to take a photo of the inner workings of the tank, seeing as you have a nano and pico. With all the junk on other forums, I just can't visualize it, especially for nanos and picos. I would really love to start reef keeping but lack of $$ (or should I say RR), and off course knowledge prevents me.

I know it was put together faster than the normal (not good usually). My nightmare is if it self destructs... The coraline algae is growing well including the more sensitive red ones (a good sign), and the Euphyllia (the corals that have long tenticles) are water quality indicators. I won't be putting another fish in there just in case the system goes off balance. I do have to take off some of the green algaes from aesthetic reasons, but these algaes go away as the tank ages. During initial set up nasty algae (like cyanobacteria) of all sorts took over.

It's hard to take photos of the back because the tank is inside a cabinet. Also feather duster worms decided to make babies and have encrusted the back of the tank. Basically I have a pump with a swaying head for water circulation (on the left corner) and a hang on Rio protein skimmer (on the right side)(It's somewhat noisy b/c it blows air into the water to collect particles but it is really helpful), two heaters (in case one fails and I had a extra one anyway) behind all the rock. I've kept the tank simple though the are all sorts of expensive tools I could get.

The goby is on a blue mushroom. The blue mushrooms far too over priced locally so I had this one imported from USA with zooanthids (impossible to kill) before the weather got cold as divisions of another reefers collection. They are not quite a coral and not quite an anemone. It is one of the first things I put in as they are hardy and clones themself fast. I think the 2.5 will have mostly mushrooms because they like nutrient rich waters too and low lighting. My 2.5 is even simplier in design, just a protein skimmer and heater and a 9W reef bulb. And cheap reef rubble (broken chunks of live rock that is left over in the live rock tank) as the base

I agree I had to read through a lot of crap on the reef forums. I barely visit them now

[Gin]

Beautiful ! Your photos are amazing . Gin

[JUDIUK]

Beautiful! So calming, and you found Nemo!

[Molly Taco]

Wow that is wonderful. I love NEMO !!!!
Cin

[Kerry]

Congratulatiosn Fren, Fishkeeping can be such an expensive hobby. One of the reasons that me and Mr Kerry did not go for a reef aquarium was the money and the time that you need to spend on them, although we certainly didn't go for the easiest option by choosing discus, we do have much greater leeway. However, there is a little part of me that hankers after emporer angelfish (the juvenile anyway) and lots of other gorgeous hued gems whose names I can't remember at the moment. Seems to me it might be time for me to plan another trip to Sharm El Sheikh and go snorkelling for hours and days on end!

Glad to see your tanks doing so well.

[jfrizz743]

WOW!! That is absolutely breathtaking. I know absolutely nothing about reefs and reef-keeping, but it seems very cool. Way to go...

[Lizgeo]

Does your startfish take care of some snails? Love to know how is your tank doing.
We had a salt water tank (50 gallons) for 6 years with all sorts of things in it. When hurricane Rita hit Gulf coast, we left home for Austin (16 hour drive!), power were out for days in my neighborhood, and eveything in the tank died. We didn't rebuild the tank and gave the whole setup to a friend.
Most people think salt water is hard. Actually as the tank matures, it's not bad at all. When at the end, we only changed water every 4 weeks. We only added new member the tank after we did research about it first. Two of the fishes we had were tank-breakers, meaning we got them when we setup the tank. Those two fishes were more than 6 years old.

[smartie2000]

My tank its going great I have a photosynthetic flatworm pest issue to deal with though...I'll be sucking them out one by one I guess.
No that star doesn't do much to snails that I know of. I think my starfish is a Echinaster luzonicus, though it is only my best guess. It grazes on microganisms,...actually many claim they do not have a clue what they really eat and I have not found any scientific papers regarding the subject. I did find a paper about them being induced to feed in the presence of glucose. It will feed on flake food when I can get it under it before my shrimp comes, because my tank is small and there aren't enough microrganisms. I sure hope my starfish is not starving slowly. Here is its inverted stomach on flake.


I agree, salt water is not difficult as it was perceived by me for so long

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Cool shot of your star-fish! I too hope he is getting enough to eat!

Cheers,
BD