Continuing in this, our third month of the series, Advanced Aquarist is hosting a series of unique featured aquariums. These aquariums are nano-reefs – more specifically tanks that contain no more than 20 US gallons in total system volume. Each is one of top five contestants and an independent result of a “Nano Tank Buildoff” hosted by Reefs.Org in a contest that ran for 9 months ending in December 2005.

If you wish to see the rules framework or view any of over 30 entries as they progress from concept and design through to the complete nano reef, please see the following thread on Reefs.Org’s bulletin board: http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=80

Our third entry is from oceans ferevh, detailing her entry to the contest:

The Nano Tank of Oceans Ferevh

Hello, I’m Bethany Bick or otherwise known as Oceans Ferevh at reefs.org. I started this hobby April 2004. So, I haven’t been at it for very long and am still a “newbie”. The fact that I could be in this contest was really great and to be one of the finalists was exciting. So this has been a wonderful experience for me. I had wanted to try my hand at a nano tank for a little while when the announcement for the build-off was posted. After a little research, my husband and I started the tank march 20, 2005.

Equipment

• Tank: 16 gallon All-Glass bow front
• Skimmer: AquaC Remora plus AquaC Remora Filter Box for Maxi-Jet 1200
• Heater: 75W Visi-Therm Stealth Heater
• Powerhead: Maxi-jet 400
• Grounding probe: Coralife Titanium Ground Probe

Maintenance and feeding

• Water changes: 5 gallons once every 6 weeks using Oceanic salt and DI water
• Algae: Wiped off glass daily and plucked manually off rocks with tweezers and scrubbed off with a toothbrush once a week (what a pain).

Fish feedings

Fish were fed a combo of spectrum marine flake and frozen mysis that had been soaked in selco, Kent garlic extreme extract, and Vita-Chem.

Coral feeding and supplements

Corals and fish were fed cyclop-eeze three times a week.

• Reef Solution 4 ml a week
• DT Phytoplankton 4 ml a week

Average parameters

• Temp 79.0-79.9 F
• Salinity 1.024
• pH 8.0
• Alkalinity 300 ppm
• Nitrite 0 ppm
• Nitrate 10-15 ppm
• Ammonia 0 ppm
• Calcium 500 ppm
• Phosphate .5-1.0 ppm

In retrospect I would have done some things differently. As you can see my parameters were less then ideal. I attribute this to infrequent water changes, feedings, and to my skimmer believe it or not. I was really busy those semesters and unfortunately was not able to do the water changes as much as needed. I did try to target feed as well as I could, but it was difficult in such a small system. If I did it again I would not have put a skimmer on the tank and would have used a HOT refugium with chaetomorpha algae instead. The skimmer is a good brand and was more then adequately sized to handle the job, but didn’t give me the results I wanted. Algae would have been able to take out thephosphate and nitrates easily as it has in my 30 gallon cube.

I would like to thank everyone who viewed my tank (and voted for it), my husband, and the Reefs.org staff for making this event possible. Thank you, I really got a kick out of this event.