34g

[Carrera75]

Hello everyone,

It was time to downsize tanks and after much thought and checking out different potential tanks I decided to go for a 34g Solana. The Mini Elos was also a contestant but I just could not justify paying that kind of money for such small tank when the Solana is almost identical but bigger. The other set up that I considered was the Cadlights but it didn't take me long to discard that option.

I thought I would start a thread to show and track the progress of this set up. The transferred from the 50g into the 34g Solana was done in June. It basically took me all day to successfully take down the 50g and set up the 34g Solana. There were buckets with corals and liverock all over my apt. Luckily, I didn't lose any fish or coral during this process. I should mention that the 50g tank was my first saltwater reef tank and it ran skimmerless and sumpless extremely successfully for over 6 years. All the corals that you guys see in there started from a tiny little frag. I was sad to see the 50 gallon tank go but at the same time excited about the Solana.

50g thread is here. There are lots of pics of the tank before it was taken apart
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=75799



I want to run the Solana in the same way as the bigger tank. It will be a very simple set up with no skimmer. The goal is to have the liverock as the main biological filtration system. This is what worked for me very well for 6 years and am planning to stick to this formula again.


New tank and stand shots









Next, is a list of the equipment I'll be using for this set up and as you guys can see, it's all very basic and simple.

Equipment

34G Solana Skimmerless
Custom made stand
24" 5 bulb Aquactinics T5 fixture
Ecotech Vortech MP10
Nano Glow LED (for refugium)
Heater

Livestock

Fish
Black Saddle Clown
Tailspot Blenny
Red Mandarin Dragonet (eats frozen food)
Still looking for other couple of fish that would do well in this small set up.


Corals

4 Rock flower Anemones
Lots of Ricordeas
Coco Worm
Softies
LPS


34g Solana after the transfer.

This is what the tank looks like right now.

These shots were taken with all bulbs on.







These shots were taken with only ATI Blue+ on.