Nano Reefs

[Launch]

I was thinking about starting a Nano Reef and I was wondering if anyone has tried this. I am looking at the JBJ Picotope and the Dymax iQ3 tanks. I mostly want to do soft corals and inverts and maybe a clown goby. Any suggestions would be helpful.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Launch

[seggsy]

Oooh, I would do a clown goby and shrimp combo - they are so cool to watch together. Enjoy

[Deleted]

Not sure if your still considering getting a the Dymax IQ3 (this post is several months ago), but I currently have one and I LOVE it . I'll be posting a writeup in the Journal section of my IQ3 so you could get an idea of the tank itself. I myself have no livestock though, which is probably boring for many of us, but at this stage I'm content to just stuff this thing full of corals at the moment.

[Deleted]

A shrimp and goby combo would be neat tho! Every time I see a shrimp at the store I come close to buying one lol.

[Launch]

I am still thinking about it. What kind of coral do you have in the tank. How do you find the LED lights with growing the coral?

[Che]

I had a 12 gal bio cube a few years ago it was my very first reef tank. They are harder to keep because of how little water is held in them. Water fluctuations and temp changes happen faster but it was fun. I had to mount and external fan to blow on the top to keep the temp down the bulbs would hear the water too much. they are all probably LED now anyways.

I had a pair of clowns , a yellow watchman and a yellow belly damsel. For corals it was mushrooms and zoas, leathers, xeina, Haitian anemone, frogspawn and green star polyp. It ran very well for a few years until a big move.

I personally had a hard time with acros, candycanes and anything cup or plating. None of them lasted long so I abandoned trying and stuck with the soft stuff.

[Deleted]

Launch,

The LED's work awesome and don't heat the tank much. I use the stock LED's which are 26 little white LED's, Dymax doesn't give the exact specs (which kinda sucks), I just know its 1.6 watts. Now that alone could probably only grow a few soft corals. But I also bought a the EcoPico (made by Ecoxotic) Led Arm Light which has 2 x 12k white LED's, and 1x 453nm Actinic Blue LED. The great thing about this light is you can add up to three strips (the 5 gallon AIO ecoxotic tank is advertised with all three strips). As of yesterday I added a actinic LED strip to run separately to simulate dusk and dawn. But my corals have been growing fine without, I just like the all blue colour some times lol.

My tank is 2 gallons, so like Che said, temperature fluctuates from 76-78 on most days, but I have an open top and it probably would be less if I didn't, but my corals have been growing much bigger than when I bought them in the short time I have had them.

I have a Candycane frag which is doing great, I actually want to get a few more of them because they look amazing under the actinic (as I'm sure you know). At the moment I also have a few zoa's, hairy mushroom, and a paly. I plan on getting more but I'm only a few months in. I would for sure recommend an LED setup, and the stock LED probably won't cut it alone.

This is what it looks like at the moment (the placement is really random at the moment, next water change ill be moving them around and adding a few more):

[Deleted]

I really don't know about the tougher corals, but I have seen other picos online that have keep Monti's. But I'm going to try a few cheaper LPS, to see how it does. The CandyCane has been doing good tho, so fingers crossed!

[Launch]

Thanks for the tips. Your tank looks great so far!

[Deleted]

Thanks Launch. Hey what tank is that in your avatar? It looks awesome, id love to see a few pictures of the tanks you have listed in your signature.