Hey guys, I'm new here, found you through a link on another site. I'm happy to see theres more forums devoted to nanos out there 
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Just thought I'd post some pics of my new nano tank. Its a 12"x12"x12" custom acrylic tank with 4" of that partitioned as an overflow off at the back to hide a small maxijet 600 return pump a 50W heater and bag of carbon. Its total water volume is about 7.5 gallons with 5g of that being the display part.
I spent a great deal of time waffling on the light for this setup and finally settled on a coralife 2x18" watt unit that I had special ordered. Its a great little unit that provides a ton of light (50/50 bulbs), I'm surprised nobody carries them in this size but I'm glad it was available. Originally I had the light sitting right on the tank but found that it heated the tank too much (82+F)so I bought the coralife mounting legs that raises the light about 2" up off the tank which keeps it much cooler (about 78-79F) (I'm still waffling on going to metal halide but the 70W aren't commonly available around here and I'm thinking 150W would be overkill).
I also found that keeping up with the evaporation on a smaller tank can be challenging. This tank evaporates only about 250-300ml per day but if I don't keep on top of it it doesn't take long for the salinity to change. So I set up an old Kent Aquadoser to keep the water level in check. This way I only have to be organized enough to fill it once a week
Most of the contents were moved over from a 5 gallon tank I had running barebones to salvage my half eaten zoos and ricordea from my big tank (90 gallon SPS dominant tank). I had some nasty crabs having a lovely and very expensive buffet. The big tank no longer has any soft corals in it.
Ok on to some photos
Originally I discovered this tank through mikeguerrero's "tru-vu evolution" thread. I couldn't find anyone intersted in shipping to Canada though and eventually a friend volunteered to build a tank for me. This is what he came up with, and he didn't charge me for it :love4: I must say, I was pretty impressed!!
rock and sand:
livestock moved over:
and a pic from a couple days ago:
Originally I wanted to keep things simple looking in my tank and have minimal amount of rock. However I soon ran out of real estate and added more rock (plus I found another rock with some sweet zoos on it at the LFS :wink. It didn't really help as I still don't have enough room for everything and am thinking about putting even more rock in now :razz:
The neon goby was a rescue from my 90 gallon, he was being harassed by another goby and ended up in my sump. He isn't purple, he's blue. (My camera seems to have some difficulties with blue and actinic lighting.) I haven't decided if he will stay in there but for now he seems to be doing fine and I haven't seen any strange behavior on his part that would indicate the tank is too small for him. Ideally I'd like to put a couple of different gobies in there of the Eviota or Trimma species but I haven't found any available so far.
Thanks for looking!
Christy
.Just thought I'd post some pics of my new nano tank. Its a 12"x12"x12" custom acrylic tank with 4" of that partitioned as an overflow off at the back to hide a small maxijet 600 return pump a 50W heater and bag of carbon. Its total water volume is about 7.5 gallons with 5g of that being the display part.
I spent a great deal of time waffling on the light for this setup and finally settled on a coralife 2x18" watt unit that I had special ordered. Its a great little unit that provides a ton of light (50/50 bulbs), I'm surprised nobody carries them in this size but I'm glad it was available. Originally I had the light sitting right on the tank but found that it heated the tank too much (82+F)so I bought the coralife mounting legs that raises the light about 2" up off the tank which keeps it much cooler (about 78-79F) (I'm still waffling on going to metal halide but the 70W aren't commonly available around here and I'm thinking 150W would be overkill).
I also found that keeping up with the evaporation on a smaller tank can be challenging. This tank evaporates only about 250-300ml per day but if I don't keep on top of it it doesn't take long for the salinity to change. So I set up an old Kent Aquadoser to keep the water level in check. This way I only have to be organized enough to fill it once a week
Most of the contents were moved over from a 5 gallon tank I had running barebones to salvage my half eaten zoos and ricordea from my big tank (90 gallon SPS dominant tank). I had some nasty crabs having a lovely and very expensive buffet. The big tank no longer has any soft corals in it.
Ok on to some photos
Originally I discovered this tank through mikeguerrero's "tru-vu evolution" thread. I couldn't find anyone intersted in shipping to Canada though and eventually a friend volunteered to build a tank for me. This is what he came up with, and he didn't charge me for it :love4: I must say, I was pretty impressed!!
rock and sand:
livestock moved over:
and a pic from a couple days ago:
Originally I wanted to keep things simple looking in my tank and have minimal amount of rock. However I soon ran out of real estate and added more rock (plus I found another rock with some sweet zoos on it at the LFS :wink
. It didn't really help as I still don't have enough room for everything and am thinking about putting even more rock in now :razz: The neon goby was a rescue from my 90 gallon, he was being harassed by another goby and ended up in my sump. He isn't purple, he's blue. (My camera seems to have some difficulties with blue and actinic lighting.) I haven't decided if he will stay in there but for now he seems to be doing fine and I haven't seen any strange behavior on his part that would indicate the tank is too small for him. Ideally I'd like to put a couple of different gobies in there of the Eviota or Trimma species but I haven't found any available so far.
Thanks for looking!
Christy
