My Six Gallon

[forestal]

Hi all.

wanted to share my new 6 gallon eclipse nano tank. It's been up only a short while.
Please feel free to offer criticism (constructive or otherwise).
This is the third nano i have setup (i took the others down to consolidate my tanks, but then had to restart one, just love the look)
Plan on just a softie tank

I have the tank turned backwards, so my emperor 400 can fit as a hang on filter and gives great water flow.

Lighting currently is a corallife 2x9 watt 50/50, looking to upgrade to a 2x24watt from nanocustom.com, once hood is built

8 pounds of live rock (fiji), very porous with good coralline, lots of tube worms.

bare bottom (my first) trying it out.

a couple of frags from my growout rack, xenia, some mushrooms, clavularia, and gorgonian. Small piece of halimeda and some chaeto are in the tank, along with 1 redlegged hermit, 2 trochus and 1 nerite snail.

I plan on no fish, just inverts, relatively low bioload with frequent trimming of coral (once it is up and running well)

auto top off with minimal amount of kalkwasser/ro

Plan weekly 75%water changes

Full Tank Shot: (i plan on putting black backing)










if the hairy shroom looks lopsided, it is has been cut in half for fragging (2 weeks ago)

[Loverotties]

Looks good!

[wharyat]

75% waterchanges? Is that a mistype?

Sounds and looks good, no fish is a lot nicer to deal with in a small tank, less feeding/detritus.

[forestal]

no mistype, anthony calfo's nano he does weekly 100%, I want to keep water quality pristine but keep some of the water with the bacteria and stuff

[forestal]

Put together a hood for the tank, not the fanciest but is functional. i took 2 of the corallife small lights apart and installed them side by side over the tank, now 4x9 watts, 50/50, lighting is much better. I don't need anything stronger, as i do not plan on anything but softies.
Added a background, hopefully subtle enough...

already getting coralline growth which is surprising as well.

pics next post

[forestal]

Clavularia:

Green Mushroom (2nd one appears to be splitting)

[dobejazz]

looking good!!

[forestal]

finally got decent pics of the tubipora and hairy shroom:

[rong666]

looking good, but i would put a snail guard on that float switch, if you havnt allready.

-Ron

[forestal]

good point, have one on my bigger reef, it could be disastrous...thanks

[forestal]

question for y'all... any suggstions for additions to the tank, non coral? i do not want to add a lot, the 3 snails and 2 hermits are nice, just curious what else there is ...

[kharn101]

first off, why are you doing a 75% percent change. I heard doing more than 20 percent is bad, another thing i really like your placement with the corals. Are you using RO water?

[forestal]

I am using RO/DI tds=0 and have pre mixed salt water with same parameters as the tank.

the water changes are not stress ful to the tank, and this helps get rid of a lot of the nitrates. I have read others with nanos doing this or even 100% changes....i am doing this in place of having a sump as their is no room currently for this.

[ickypimp]

A snd bed would help enormously with your water quality, once established it will knobble your nitrates..

[512148048]

but at the same time could be a time bomb if not kept propely like 6 inches deep with tons of criters constantly turning it over. In nanos its better imo to not have a sand bed.