15gal SPS dominated nano

[glb]

Great tank! Can you tell me how you run your lights and your water parameters? I haven't had much luck with SPS or LPS in my 12g nano so I'm curious how you make it work.

 

[SCMatt]

Great tank! Can you tell me how you run your lights and your water parameters? I haven't had much luck with SPS or LPS in my 12g nano so I'm curious how you make it work.

Thanks! My light is on 9 hours a day, ramp up on either side of height of the day. Stays "high noon" for 2-3 hours and then ramps down over the end of the day. Never cranked it higher than 85% than what it's at currently. I changed my internet around so it knocked my reeflink offline. Once I get a USB cable I can re-post the newest graph and such. Lighting is an ever evolving aspect in my tank, trying to find the best spot. That's the downside with LEDs like this, you always want to fiddle with them.

As for params gotta be honest, haven't checked Alk or Cal lately. When my new reagents come in for the test in the next couple days I'll update you on that as well! I think they shipped out today.

Other than params what I've found is to just don't mess with it. Let the tank grow in, mainly speaking after you add corals but even before let the tank mature. If I don't have to put my hands in there I never do. I don't rearrange coral, rocks, pumps....nothing really. I think it's an important part of stability for the tank. Let it grow then do things slow. Get your dosing locked down and run a skimmer also. I wasn't always successful, still not 100% successful with SPS given my inability to keep certain types with any real success but I've made great strides from my first tank years ago lol. I also stopped going cheap and actually invested time into it. I've put good money into the equipment and livestock and haven't tried to ghetto rig something together which has taken me further than ever this go round!

 

[Tahoe61]

Other than params what I've found is to just don't mess with it. Let the tank grow in, mainly speaking after you add corals but even before let the tank mature. If I don't have to put my hands in there I never do. I don't rearrange coral, rocks, pumps....nothing really. I think it's an important part of stability for the tank. Let it grow then do things slow. Get your dosing locked down and run a skimmer also. I wasn't always successful, still not 100% successful with SPS given my inability to keep certain types with any real success but I've made great strides from my first tank years ago lol. I also stopped going cheap and actually invested time into it. I've put good money into the equipment and livestock and haven't tried to ghetto rig something together which has taken me further than ever this go round!

Thanks, everyone scuffs at me when I encourage them to leave hands out of tank. No moving things around unless necessary.

In such small tanks it's almost impossible to make all sps happy. There are some I will not even try.

Great tank!

 

[zoacrazy42]

Amazing

 

[SCMatt]

Thanks! Need to get an update. Just been keeping it stable and letting growth do it's thing. Everything good so far!

Still trying to decide if I want to add another fish with the clown pair, feel like I need something else but not sure what.

 

[Bokevince]

Awesome pictures! Following!

 

[SCMatt]

Here is an update! I hadn't done a WC for close to a month. Did one in October, then the SC flooding happened delaying my next one due to boil water advisories and such that I didn't want to risk, and I finally got around to it. Should start to see more growth now. First picture is blurry, I need to get a new one but you can get an idea. I glued a few more frags to the rocks but am running out of room to allow growing space. Shame, guess I need to hurry up and move and get a bigger tank!

It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to trim the green slimer, this thing is massive in a 15gal.

Retina Blaster, broken tip from the water change yesterday. Hawkins Blue to it's right, hard to capture the nice blue color of this one.

Top down of a nice growing Tenuis. Small idaho grape frag top left, strawberry something or other from CC bottem left, Needle in a Haystack from CC bottom, and a milli right above it.

Top down shot of the right side. Love that Crayola Plana. Cali tort up top and a Purple Plasma directly to it's left. Some kind of deepwater aussie something or other like Needle in a hatstack top right, and a nice sunset/sunrise milli below.

Here is a side shot of the Crayola Plana

 

[California Reef Co.]

Incredible little SPS nano tank. That green slimer is known to be a fast growing acro.

Hard to believe you haven't done a water change in over 1 month.

Goes to show, some of these corals even acropora are tougher than we give them credit for.

I was at Reef-a-Palooza Ca 2015 and listened to Jake Adams talk on harvesting corals from the Solomon Islands. The purple monster acropora (a known slow grower and sensitive acro) was harvested and shipped with no water. They literally wrapped the colony in news paper and shipped it dry on its way to a facility in California.

 

[surfnsalt]

Awesome tank.

 

[SCMatt]

Thanks!

 

[Derdy88]

What setting are you using on you radion light. I have a 93 cube mixed reef lps dominant and I also run a custom made 24x24x16 tall frag tank on the same system as my display. I'm looking to convert my frag tank into a shallow nano reef sps dominant but with that extra 100 gallons behind it. I have My lights a little brighter on my frag tank for growth but I'm finding it's causing green hair algae to bloom in the small tank ( nothing in my display)

 

[Sebastian Costin]

Amazing tank!

 

[SCMatt]

Thanks all!!

Lighting info can be found here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/15gal-sps-dominated-nano.161673/page-7#post-2199114 I've arched the graph a little bit more smoothly but otherwise it hasn't really changed much at all. Might of bumped the intensity about 5% but nothing drastic. Also changed it from 12 noon start to 9pm off. Keep it simple and keep it steady is my goal.

 

[Newreef15]

Fantastic set up I have a 12 gallon myself and I know first hand just how hard it is to keep everything stable.

So it's been over a year how do you like the jebeo dosing pump?

 

[mmg3938]

Fantastic tank. Love the photography too. You should enter the clownfish shot in competitions.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

That is a beauty!

 

[mirandasoegi]

NOW THIS!! is a tank...
lol

Same size, 15 gallon desktop.
Not shown on this picture is the small clams on the right corner of the tank... the show-stoppers. The big one there has been with me for 4 years.
I also have 6-line wrasse and pink gamma to add color, if that's not enough...

Yours is a GUY tank. You can tell this is a Girl's tank by the meticulous arrangement and detail in placement and pairings.
This is in my office. Countless meetings have delayed our schedules because people sit in front of the tank for long periods of time....

LOL

 

[deedeecmt]

Just wanted to share my 15 (really 14.6ish gallon) gallon tank. Just been trying to keep my hands out of the tank and let it grow.

Outline:

• Tank: PicO Aquariums 15x15" low iron cube
• Filtration: Small Aquafuge 2 HOB Refugium
• Heater: Cobalt Neotherm 50W
• Water movement: Vortech MP10
• Skimmer: Eshopps PSK-75H
• ATO: Tunze Nano ATO
• Lighting: Radion XR15w Pro
• Substrate: Bare bottom
• Fish: 2 Onyx Clowns
• Coral: SPS dominate, very few LPS and some Polyps
• Creatures: None of note

Current FTS:

Extremely humble beginnings.

Early photos, newer photos as the thread progresses.

Hawkins

Red Planet

Rainbow Table

One of my 2 Pink Lemonade frags

Oakland A's

Birds of Paradise

Angels and Demons

Jedi Mind Trick

Retina Blaster

Cali Tort

Absolutely beautiful!! How do you get such good pics? Any suggestions will help. I've been trying for over a year to get good pics!!
P

 

[deedeecmt]

NOW THIS!! is a tank...
lol

Same size, 15 gallon desktop.
Not shown on this picture is the small clams on the right corner of the tank... the show-stoppers. The big one there has been with me for 4 years.
I also have 6-line wrasse and pink gamma to add color, if that's not enough...

Yours is a GUY tank. You can tell this is a Girl's tank by the meticulous arrangement and detail in placement and pairings.
This is in my office. Countless meetings have delayed our schedules because people sit in front of the tank for long periods of time....

LOL

I agree gotta love girl tanks!!

 

[SCMatt]

I thought my tank had pretty good placement myself....just needs to grow in. lol

Thanks all! I like the Jebao dosing pump as a starter and budget doser. It's good for what it is. Going forward I find myself wanting a little more control and precise doses so I've been looking at upgrading it to something a bit more high end.

I've entered the clownfish shot in a few contests, nothing yet lol. It's one I've considered printing to hang on my wall.

As for the photography I still struggle with it in Saltwater. I've honed my skills on FW for years but that is a cake walk compared trying to shoot under blood LEDs, which are the devil for photography. I've found that using a custom WB, like 10k instead of Auto it tends to help and then I can adjust the colors to what is seen easier in post processing. I'm still working on it lol