d2mini's Cadlights 8g Mini Office Nano

[d2mini]

This is my first build thread here on R2R! :smile:
Some of you may have seen my big tank builds on RC.
Anyway, after some research and back and forth between a couple different options I decided to pick up a Cadlights 8g Mini last friday.
Ultimately it was the light and starphire bent glass that sold me.
Since this will be at my office I wanted an AIO tank to keep things simple.

I have a ton of rock in my big rubbermaid sump from my 200g home tank, so over the weekend I pilfered some of that and got to work, keeping it in a bucket of saltwater as the epoxy and crazy glue cured after each new piece was attached.
Trying to keep it as live as possible.

Here it is all set up and running.
All the water was pilfered from the home tank as well.
The sand i had to buy... it's CaribSea's AragAlive Hawaiian Black Sand.

And thursday a brown box arrived with my Cobalt NeoTherm 50w heater and MarinePure Spheres.
I've heard great things about MarinePure blocks on larger tanks so figured this would be a good application for the spheres.
I didn't really like the idea of using the biomedia that came with the tank.
I was able to get 21 of them in the middle filter chamber which was a little over half the box. Drfostersmith had a great price on these.
The only other filtration is the stock black sponge that came with the tank.
My plan is to experiment with MASSIVE water changes on this tank... as much as the livestock will permit... at least 80% and will start with once a month and see how that goes.

And that's how it sits right now.
I'm not sure how much of a cycle I'll get.
Probably won't be too long before I start to stock it.
Planning in a small clown, one or two sexy shrimp, couple small hermit and snails... and coral will be mostly zoas/rics for now. Maybe a frag of my frogspawn for some movement.

Too be continued.... :wink:

 

[josh4107]

Slick looking tank, love the design of that led light. Very cool!

 

[d2mini]

Thanks, Josh.

Not sure yet how strong it is and what it will grow, but I do like that it provides real even coverage.
I'm sure softies and lps won't be a problem. Not sure about sps.

 

[QUILLA26]

Nice looking tank, I want one now for my office

 

[Pinhead159]

Wow, I love the rockwork and shape you made, wish I woulda had more forethought to do something similar. I have an 8g at my office as well with very similar curved corners. I am still very new at all this so will be following closely.

 

[SPotter]

tagging along dennis! looks great! I have been looking for a nano for my office so this might be a good option.

 

[underwaterfirefighter]

Very nice!

 

[paintballer768]

I really like your choice in rockscaping, good idea

 

[d2mini]

Thanks, everyone! Should be fun.
oh, and I forgot to mention in my first post, i also mixed in a couple tablespoons of the Fiji Mud from my home display refugium, hoping to further seed the tank and quicken the cycle.

 

[ReefKeeper09]

That looks great! I'm anxious to watch this tank progress.

 

[d2mini]

Well, the tank has been wet for 2.5 weeks now.
I through this hermit in there over a week ago and he's still kicking so I guess that's a good sign. The rock has been getting surface algae too. I also tossed in a tiny porcelain crab and a florida cerith snail at the same time as the hermit. Neither of which I've seen. The crab doesn't surprise me since they like to hide anyway, but i can't find the snail anywhere, not even the shell. lol
I guess if one or both of them didn't make it, its good for the cycle.
The plan is to add a fish and my first zoas end of the month. Going to be out of the office for a week or more so no sense putting anything in there yet, even if it is ready. So far I still don't show any signs of ammonia or nitrates. The rock was from my sump, all the water from my tank (not that this matters much), and the sand was bagged "live" sand. So not sure if I'll see much of a cycle. I've got pods running around too.

 

[cpt]

awesome little setup

This is my first build thread here on R2R! :smile:
Some of you may have seen my big tank builds on RC.
Anyway, after some research and back and forth between a couple different options I decided to pick up a Cadlights 8g Mini last friday.
Ultimately it was the light and starphire bent glass that sold me.
Since this will be at my office I wanted an AIO tank to keep things simple.

I have a ton of rock in my big rubbermaid sump from my 200g home tank, so over the weekend I pilfered some of that and got to work, keeping it in a bucket of saltwater as the epoxy and crazy glue cured after each new piece was attached.
Trying to keep it as live as possible.

Here it is all set up and running.
All the water was pilfered from the home tank as well.
The sand i had to buy... it's CaribSea's AragAlive Hawaiian Black Sand.

And thursday a brown box arrived with my Cobalt NeoTherm 50w heater and MarinePure Spheres.
I've heard great things about MarinePure blocks on larger tanks so figured this would be a good application for the spheres.
I didn't really like the idea of using the biomedia that came with the tank.
I was able to get 21 of them in the middle filter chamber which was a little over half the box. Drfostersmith had a great price on these.
The only other filtration is the stock black sponge that came with the tank.
My plan is to experiment with MASSIVE water changes on this tank... as much as the livestock will permit... at least 80% and will start with once a month and see how that goes.

And that's how it sits right now.
I'm not sure how much of a cycle I'll get.
Probably won't be too long before I start to stock it.
Planning in a small clown, one or two sexy shrimp, couple small hermit and snails... and coral will be mostly zoas/rics for now. Maybe a frag of my frogspawn for some movement.

Too be continued.... :wink:

 

[SloppyJ]

Sleek looking office tank!

 

[Jimbo662]

d2mini, do you have your large tank build thread on this site? I remember following as you set it up but haven't seen anything in a while and couldn't remember if it was this site or not.

 

[d2mini]

awesome little setup

Thanks!

Sleek looking office tank!

Thank you!

d2mini, do you have your large tank build thread on this site? I remember following as you set it up but haven't seen anything in a while and couldn't remember if it was this site or not.

I don't have it here. It's on RC.
*d2mini's new 200g Reeftastic Build* - Reef Central Online Community

 

[d2mini]

And I finally found my cerith snail, on my front glass!

 

[d2mini]

wow... 6 months since i posted. And this is all i have to show for it! :wink:

This was the tank back in April...
Had an Almost Nekid clown at that time but he jumped.

And here it was a few months ago...

This is my office tank so i put like almost zero effort into it other than feeding the tank.
I currently have 1 clown, 1 shrimp and 1 emerald crab who was nice enough to take care of all the green bubble algae i was getting.
I added the MP10 for flow.

But currently the tank actually looks worse than above... most of my zoas slowly melted away. No idea why.
Nitrates seem to stay below 10ppm. The only filtration i have other than water changes is the little bit of LR in the tank and the MarinePure spheres in the filter compartment, along with the sponge that came with the tank.
Two things i'm not sure of with this tank...
1)The substrate. It definitely has some sort of metal in it. The granules are attracted to the magnet cleaner.
2)The lighting. Pretty darn weak imho.

So i may change out the substrate using regular sand from my big tank at home.

 

[nanoman28g]

How is the neotherm heater working out for you? Nice tank! I see that you mentioned you are having trouble? Have you tried using filter floss and Chemipure? They have worked great for me in my two nano tanks. Good luck.

 

[d2mini]

How is the neotherm heater working out for you? Nice tank! I see that you mentioned you are having trouble? Have you tried using filter floss and Chemipure? They have worked great for me in my two nano tanks. Good luck.

The neotherm is working out fine so far!

I haven't had time to really investigate what my "problems" are but basically the few coral I have aren't really doing very well. Too dirty? Too clean? Something else? not really sure.

 

[nanoman28g]

M

The neotherm is working out fine so far!

I haven't had time to really investigate what my "problems" are but basically the few coral I have aren't really doing very well. Too dirty? Too clean? Something else? not really sure.

In that case, you need to test your parameters. Nitrite,nitrates, ammonia, salinity. Etc.