Elbeau Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 (edited) Hey ARC...it's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to tell the story of the nano I set up last year. The company I work for moved to Austin one year ago and I came along with them. Once I settled in, one of my first orders of business was to set up a reef tank on my desk at work. Since it's at work, there are several very limiting factors for a tank: *I can't maintain it during business hours, and I don't want to stay late for maintenance *It has to be quiet *It can't make a mess ...so having done a few tanks in the past with varying success, I put my reef experience to work and designed what would turn out to be the easiest to maintain reef tank in the history of reefkeeping. I bought an Eclipse 6 tank with dual bulb compact fluorescent lighting and an extra, small powerhead. Using a 1.5" aragonite base and PLENTY of live rock, I created the landscape that I knew it needed. I was VERY patient with my water cycle and didn't add expensive livestock until the tank had balanced out well. Once my levels were non-toxic, I bought a good clownfish, jawfish, red scooter blenny, cleaner shrimp, and peppermint shrimp...along with various crabs and snails. My only casualty in the last year was the blenny. Investigators have named the clownfish as a "person of interest" in their investigation into his death. I also bought a variety of hardy, soft corals, feather dusters, etc. The tank did well from the start. It had a few cyano and algea breakouts at first, like most tanks, so I decided to try a refugium for the first time. I cannot say enough for how well a refugium balances out a tank. WOW! I haven't done a water change since last October. I haven't added any suppliments whatsoever. All I do is add dried fish food and makup water. Other than that and the lighting, the tank is a self-sufficient ecosystem. It's thriving...without calcium supliments, without trace minerals, without water changes, and I almost never have to even clean any algae off the tank walls (I've only had to clean one wall since last October when I set up the fuge. I have large colonies of micro stars of many varieties. I have a great population of snails. I have little insect buggers galore. It's fun. Anyways, my formula now is: refugium + hardy livestock = easy nano Edited July 25, 2008 by Elbeau Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Entropy Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 That is pretty cool! Do you have issues with your office temps? My office pretty much shuts off the ac about six pm so by midnight it is 80+ in the office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elbeau Posted July 25, 2008 Author Share Posted July 25, 2008 That is pretty cool! Do you have issues with your office temps? My office pretty much shuts off the ac about six pm so by midnight it is 80+ in the office. No, the office we're in stays pretty moderate after hours and weekends. I don't know if it's because they keep the AC on or if it's just well insulated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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