SeaHorse_Fanatic's 2012 nano contest entry

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

since everyone else has jumped in with both feet, I thought I should at least get my toes wet. Still not 100% decided yet, but I have a 2g Fluval Spec sitting on my desk for the last 2 months begging to be set up. Comes with a stock LED light, but its just white, so I will have to add a blue LED moonlight/actinic to turn it into a proper reef light.

With my busy schedule, this will have to be a low maintenance nano but being only 2 g, it'll be easy enough to take some water out and add some from one of my other bigger reef tanks. 30 second water changes, wooohoo.

I also plan to not spend almost anything on it, just "borrowing" stuff from my other reef tanks or from my huge store of excess equipment, sand, etc. I've accumulated over the last 10 years. The only purchase I foresee right now is a small piece of Tonga branching from my friend Franklin. Live rock will be fully cured so little to no cycle is expected.

Fish will be limited to baby captive breds. Coral frags and other livestock will also come from other tanks. I plan to have it completely stocked with aquacultured specimens, except maybe a Hawaiian feather duster.

I will post pics when I have more time.

Cheers,

Anthony

[reefwars]

love the captive bred idea , following along for sure:)

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I may also decide to go bigger and change my Fluval Flora (8 g) back into a sw nano reef. Decisions, decisions.

[Enigma]

I'm really looking forward to this build. I Became frustrated with my Spec and gave up on it.

[fishoholic]

Cool. I did the same thing with my rock, went digging in my other tank and Doug's tank for some.

[Acipenser]

Looking forward to see what you come up with Anthony !

[Tom R]

Go Anthony Go

Tom R

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Well, now I have to decide whether to do the 2g Spec or 8g Flora since Felicia has asked that one of her fw tanks become a nano-reef. Totally HER idea, just out of the blue. I guess she's bored with 3 fw tanks on her desk. I hadn't even mentioned the nano contest to anyone at home or tried to talk to Felicia about converting her tank (yet). Wow, I did a great job raising my mini-me reefer ;)

So now to rethink my nano project to go bigger, but same ideas.

[Enigma]

While I'd love to see you work with the Spec, the Flora has four times the water volume and would probably be the better choice in the long run. It doesn't have back chambers though, does it?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

No it doesn't. May look at another alternative to the Spec or Flora but we'll see. Operating on 3 hours sleep so now is not a good time to make a decision.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

So now my newest concept is to use the 8g Fluval Flora but have a canister filter filled with biomedia and purigen and with an attached surface skimmer to pump water into a 2g above tank sump that will house my Saffire skimmer and be drilled to gravity feed the cleaned water back into the Flora. The lighting will probably end up being a DIY LED nano unit that I'll have to build later on. Probably use a different light that I already have in storage in the meantime.

[Nano]

Neat my first reef was a flora :razz:
I just used the stock light for zoas and leathers for about 4 months until moving it to my 16g

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

OK. Tore down the fw, cleaned the Flora and it now is a sw nano. Took pics but won't have time till Monday or Tuesday to post pics.

This is only version 1. Using a very basic LED light with some blue moonlights at the moment. Getting a custom "DIY" light built after tracking down most of the components last week.

V2 will be "blinged" out with the new LED lights. We have to do some testing. Will be trying out 2 x 10w emitters (1 6500k or 10000k; 1 blue 455 nm blue); 3 x 10w (1 white; 2 blue); or a combination of 1w to 5w emitters on small heatsinks with built in fans. These will be hanging off custom stainless steel bent pipe holders.

V3 will be the final evolution of the nano for this contest but won't have time to complete the other "DIY" projects till Christmas break. This one will have new pump and heating system, to go with the new LEDs. V3 will be a full-on technology tester for my friend and I to tinker with. If it works out, then I will upscale the new tech onto my other bigger reef tanks.

Anthony

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Finally some pics:

Fluval Flora as fw planted - piece of wood leached a lot of tannins into the water

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a322/SeaHorse_Fanatic/DSC_0084-2.jpg


Empty tank with some saltwater

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a322/SeaHorse_Fanatic/DSC_0085-2.jpg


Empty tank with shallow sand bed (never got used to bb look)

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a322/SeaHorse_Fanatic/DSC_0086-1.jpg


Added a couple of pieces of live rock, but later changed out aquascaping

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a322/SeaHorse_Fanatic/DSC_0088-1.jpg


Topped up water

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a322/SeaHorse_Fanatic/DSC_0089-2.jpg

[fishoholic]

Cool!