help with my 15 gallon nano

Nano1,

My best advice is to read and talk to folks in this forum. There are a ton of very experienced and knowledgeable folks on here. Second, start doing your shopping at stores with great reputation such as those owned by a few of the members on here. They will steer you in the right direction. Third, relax, slow down and relax some more. This is a $$ and frustrating hobby. You will learn from mistakes. In fact, we all learn and continue to learn from our mistakes.

Now, that light you mentioned is really a great light. It will support any and all corals you would desire to get. I would suggest getting your tank set up, getting some pieces of rubble rock or coralline scrapings from one of us and then just sit back and let the tank mature. The coralline will come with time. Take things slow (notice the pattern). If you add stuff too fast, you will lose some and get all sorts of bad algae, etc. Nano tanks can be unforgiving.

Welcome to the club, where are you from? If you are in the Cedar Rapids area, I would gladly donate you some goods. I have all sorts of things like scrapers, frag plugs, tools, etc. acquired through full tank acquisitions that I will gladly give you. Once you get up and running, I also will give you many zoo and other frags to get you started. Let me know. In the meantime, take it slow!

 

Purple up is basically calcium, no magic there at all.

Stop by coral haven in Bettendorf since you live in the area and see what we have to offer you there.

 

Basically a scraping of coralline algae, purple stuff to seed your tank. One of those things I feel is not needed.

I also live in east moline maybe we can get together and I can help you out some.

 

Lol you all dismiss purple up. It is not just calc. It has Carolline alga in it to seed for quicker start to the growth of it. It has proven its results ti me. I have put just strait calc for dosing in a tank and it does not grow Carolline alga. I got no results. After using purple up it started growing in about 4 weeks.
Just my two cents
P.S take the build slow. Meaning take your time.
Sent via App 2

 

+1 on taking it slow. The smaller the tank, the more sensitive it will be to changing conditions.

Remember the #1 rule of reef keeping: Nothing good happens fast.

 

I would do no filtration at all. I have a 22 gal CAD light tank, couple small fish, couple shrimp, 20 or so each of assorted snails and crabs. 4-5 acans, 20+ zoo colonies couple chalices and other corals and one nice sized live rock. I have 2" sand bed, no skimmer. 4-T-5 lighting, 2 mp10's as low as they go, 2 really cool marco algeas (one red one purple) and I do a 5 gallon water change weekly, religiously, and trim the macro algae. I feed this tank 2 times a day, once for the fish, once a super food mix at night after lights out for everyone. Tank looks amazing and always has. No nuisance algae or bad stuff ever going on. My cell is 319-361-6307. Shoot me a message and I will send you some pics, they speak for themselves.

Regarding your sand and rock needs, I can give you some.

 

Hey bud,

Keep asking the needed questions. In my personal opinion when I started a small tank was hard. Each change you make on a small tank makes a big change.

With a small tank, I would echo the fact that taking it slow is important!!!!!! You have a great new store up in your area also! Go visit with them. The owner is a member of the club and is a good guy!

 

Highly recommend going into coral haven and talking with them and looking at their tanks and setup. Great guys awesome store and its close to you!

 

Hey man, I think you're better off putting up a list of what you HAVE and then we can pick it apart from there as to what you'll need. Good thinking on a schroom and zoa tank, they're great beginner corals. I'll warn you, once you get everything stabilized and going well, you just might get bit by the reef bug and end up with a tank full of SPS, LPS, or softies! lol

Now, I'll have to repeat what everyone else has said here, patience is key. Also know, there are many ways of doing things correctly and just as many of doing things incorrectly. It's tough to differentiate between the two when being so new in this hobby. I, for example, am NOWHERE near an expert, but I know what works or has worked for my tank. Some things are trial and error, others are tried and true methods. It just depends on how much time, money, and effort you want to put into your tank. To be a responsible reef keeper requires very frequent, if not constant, research into the inhabitants of your tank. Now with that being said, it's a very fun hobby and you can meet a lot of different people with hugely varying backgrounds here! The best part is, we all have at least one common interest, and that is beautiful saltwater aquariums. So, with that being said, welcome to GIRS man!

 

Alright man, it looks like you have a firm basis. Here's a list of what I'd recommend you get for your system. Now, this is just for a zoa/schroom tank. If you want to keep SPS or LPS, you'll need more than this.

You'll need:
2 or so powerheads for circulation
Lights (try out t5, they'll grow zoas and schrooms no problem)
HOB skimmer (a buddy of mine uses CPR Bak-Pak skimmer and says it works great!)
Back-up heater
Auto-Top Off (check out Tunze Osmolator Nano, it's kinda spendy, but it'll be worth the cost)
Test kits for: Nitrate, Phosphate, Ammonia (go with quality kits like Elos or Red Sea)
Probably another 7 to 8 pounds of rock
Possibly some sand, some people go bare bottom without issue! I'd go with about 20 lbs of sand though, CaribSea Special Grade sand is what I like the best. It doesn't get blown around by powerheads.

All of these things should get you a pretty solid basis. Since you have dry rock, it's going to take quite a while to get coralline algae to grow on it. You'll also have to let your tank cycle for a bit longer as well, just in case to rock releases phosphates into your tank. Now, you can get your tank cycle started without lights. Get all the rock, sand, filtration, and water in your tank and just let it go. Top off as it's needed. Test twice a week for nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, and ammonia. When all these are pretty much undetectable, the tank has cycled. You can also add Dr. Tim's One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria to help kick off the cycle. I've had good luck with Instant Ocean BioSpira, which is essentially the same product. Good luck man, you have a lot of good resources in your neck of the woods!