Niels' RSM Nano

NielsC · Jul 23, 2019

Hi everyone!

After a 9 year long break with the reefer hobby, I decided to start over.
Due to space constraints, the only possibility was a nano tank for me, and living in Belgium, that made the RSM Nano (16;5-20g) the easiest system to get my hands on.

I've spend quite a few months preparing for the start-up of this tank, as a lot has changed over time in this beautiful hobby.
Last week I did a freshwater testrun to validate if everything worked correctly, and yesterday I finally started working on the aquascape.
I chose to work with RRR over real life rock because the latter is more difficult to buy here, plus I've had bad experiences with hitchhiking pests.

This is what I came up with....

I'm quite happy with the results, especially considering that the speedcement I intended to use to create an open structure, failed to do its job of holding the rock together. The scape is a little more open than it looks in the pictures.

Next up will be the cycling of the tank, and I'm planning to give the tank as much time as I possibly can. After that I'm going to swap my AquaMedic LED for a AI HD Prime (trying to spread out the costs a little bit

)

Eventually, I want this little reef to become LPS heavy, with a few simple SPS and Zoa's mixed in. Fish-wise I'm not sure what I want just yet. The tank is so small the fish have to be both pretty, stay small and have a function in the tank. Any tips on fish that you deem cool and a little out of the box, are more than welcome!

Thanks for checking out my thread

I'll update this from time to time

Cheers

Niels

Sandyego reeyfur · Jul 23, 2019

Interestingly enough im in the same position as you i crashed a tank and am now starting up again. Good luck!

Ky_acc · Jul 26, 2019

the scape looks great! how many lbs of rock did you end up with in there ?

WiscoFishNut · Jul 26, 2019

Looks like a real nice start! Yasha Goby is a nice small cool option

NielsC · Jul 28, 2019

Hey all

Thanks for the replies

I used around 12-13lbs real reef rock. I might swap out a rock with a real life rock, for seeding purposes. I haven't decided yet, but I'm a little sceptical only bacteria from a jar and some chemicals (Red Sea Reef Mature pro kit) will do the job. Thoughts?

A Yasha combined with a shrimp is definitely a cool option! Thanks for the input

Ky_acc · Jul 31, 2019

NielsC said:
Hey all

Thanks for the replies

I used around 12-13lbs real reef rock. I might swap out a rock with a real life rock, for seeding purposes. I haven't decided yet, but I'm a little sceptical only bacteria from a jar and some chemicals (Red Sea Reef Mature pro kit) will do the job. Thoughts?

A Yasha combined with a shrimp is definitely a cool option! Thanks for the input

It looks great!

I would not worry about seeding with real "live rock" as you will increase your chances of adding unwanted pests or algae to the tank. If you go to the trouble of starting with dry rock I wouldn't take the chance as it will ultimately have a negligible impact on your cycle in the grand scheme of things.

The bacteria in a bottle stuff like Dr. Tims / Red sea mature, etc. are used very commonly and are well accepted within the hobby. they are not a magic bullet, but will certainly help kickstart your tank's cycle. I'd reccomend reading about doing a fishless cycle with Dr. Tims and buying a small bottle of the ammonia they sell to have a clean, easy cycle.

NielsC · Aug 16, 2019

Ky_acc said:
It looks great!

I would not worry about seeding with real "live rock" as you will increase your chances of adding unwanted pests or algae to the tank. If you go to the trouble of starting with dry rock I wouldn't take the chance as it will ultimately have a negligible impact on your cycle in the grand scheme of things.

The bacteria in a bottle stuff like Dr. Tims / Red sea mature, etc. are used very commonly and are well accepted within the hobby. they are not a magic bullet, but will certainly help kickstart your tank's cycle. I'd reccomend reading about doing a fishless cycle with Dr. Tims and buying a small bottle of the ammonia they sell to have a clean, easy cycle.

Hi!

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking about doing that (Dr Tims) but it doesnt seem to be available over here. The Red Sea kit was the only thing I could easily get my hands on, but I'm starting to think it was a mistake...

I'm using Salifert testkits to measure my ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and for the last two weeks (I started only three weeks ago) these are my measurements:

Ammonia 0 - <0,15ppm
Nitrites 0 -0,05ppm
Nitrates <50ppm

It seems as if I sped through the cycling proces as both ammonia and nitrites are as good as zero (and the values have been stable like this for almost two weeks now)
Thats why I'm quite sceptical about the kit I use. What would y'all do? Wait it out, or should I dose 2ppm ammonia and track how the tank is processing this, in order to really figure out what part of the cycle I'm in?

jasonrusso · Aug 16, 2019

Fritz Turbostart 900 is the best bacteria. I never had luck with Dr. Tims.

NielsC · Feb 19, 2020

I was planning on NOT becoming one of those members that started a thread to not maintain it. LOL
Let me give you guys an update, because a lot happened since I started this thread...

---The ugly period
I gave the tank quite some time to cycle. After about two months and a half, the water parameters seemed to be ok, plus, my partner was getting extremely annoyed by the sight of an empty watercube. This made me buy the first inhabitants of the tank: a pair of Occelaris fish. The tank seemed to be able to handle the little buggars, but when I added a CUC and some of the snails died, the situation went downhill, rapidly. The tank became extremely cloudy and I was able to measure nitrites again. The horror. This is what the tank looked like for a while. Not exactly something to get happy about... I also lost the little Ricordea that I was using as an "indicator organism". Losing this little coral was indeed indicating things were way off.

This is what the tank looked like. Cloudy and dirty, with measurable NO2 and very high NO3

---Things were getting better
Ive been trying several different things, but in the end just waiting it out seemed to resolve the issue. The tank got clear again, NO2 dissapeared and NO3 dropped down to decent levels.

The tank was starting to get through the difficult period

Eventually it got time to start adding corals to the tank. I took advantage of some great black friday deals.

First corals arrived

---The situation right now
I replaced my shabby AquaMedic LED with a ReefLed50 unit and in the meanwhile added more coral to the tank. My partner gradually started to like the hobby more and more and also took some corals home from time to time (he luckily is good at doing his research!) He has quite an expensive taste (Lobophyllia, Scolymia and Euphyllia), but I'm not complaining

I on the other hand seem to have a thing for Acans.

Below you can see some pictures of the tank as of today. Everything seems to be happy. Everything but the reddish Chalice you could see on the picture above (in the middle of the tank). I somehow dont seem to be able to make that one feel at home. I moved it to the back of the tank because it wasnt looking great. Its still alive, but not happy at all. My apologies for the very blue pictures. Its due to the ReefLed settings.

The tank is getting quite bottom heavy with all the corals in the mid/lower half, so eventually I want to add some easy SPS (mainly Stylos, Montis and Seriatoporas) on the upper region of the tank.

Thats it for now! Thanks for checking out my thread