Nano Reef Tank Daily Report: Day 150
Mostly 150 days of high points with a only a few low points:
- Death: 1 Blue Leg Hermit
- Death: Bubble Tip Anemone
- Coral War: Hydnophora vs Turbinaria - the Turbinaria took a beating (no surprise there)
- Acropora: Went brown because I took my eye off the dKH and let it go too low for too long (dKH 7.0).
- Sun Coral: I'm not sure if mine is starting to starve but I will come back to this on its own page
Nano Reef Tank Day 150 Slide Show
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Bad stuff aside – I’m still happy but the housekeeping needs to be tightened up and if I had been extra vigilant I could have possibly avoided the last three things on the list. The real lesson overall is water. Change water, change regularly (every 7 days) and change between 15% – 25%. Use the highest quality salt you can afford and your tank will behave (as long as you have not stocked with too many fish – keep the bio load down)
Water:
- Clarity: Excellent
- SG: 1.026
- Temp 26.4 ˚C
- dKH: 10.2
The most obvious point to make and repeat is that the water changes are the lifeblood of the tank. It’s also the biggest issue as the comment that you may come across on a regular basis is that a Nano Reef Tank is difficult to keep because the water volume is low and therefore unforgiving. Bigger tanks have an issue whereby you have to dose to maintain healthy levels of magnesium, strontium or iodine to name a few parameters and the water changes are therefore not as crucial but still advisable. For the Nano Reef, if you are using decent salt as mentioned then I have found that only the pH tends to need watching – as long as you make consistent water changes.
At some point over the next few weeks I’m going to break down everything from cost of setup to running and have a section of the site dedicated to sharing what I have been through so far. I think it will give a good insight into what is really involved versus what you think might be involved in setting up a Nano Reef Tank!
