# my first tank, 10gallon nano reef :)



## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

how's it going? thought i'd post some pics of how my first tank came about. it's a 10gallon, aquaclear 110 modded, about 14lbs of liverock, 2 clowns, various coral mostly zoa's, some monti's, frogspawn, hammer and a torch etc. i started out with a T5 odyssa quad light, but upgraded to a sol super blue two weeks ago w/controller. got pretty much all my coral from Alex at the frag cave 

the start:










had to deal with some bad hair algae. got my first zoas and cuc.










got the GHA under controll and added a pair of oc.clowns.










there's a emrald crab somewhere in there










picked up two zoa frags and a small head of frogspawn










then i met alex at the frag cave and picked up a bunch of zoa frags and a frag of GSP










more frags from Alex










picked up another frogspawn and a torch coral. had a bit of a diatom outbreak but beefed up the CUC and got it cleaned up.



















i see alex alot..lol picked up some montipora, a ricorda, a red sea star (that my stupid emrald crab ate) skunk cleaner shrimp, and more zoa's.










some random pics




























then got a red monti, pink monti, hammer coral, and couple more zoa frags.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

brings us to about two weeks ago, got the aqua illuminations sol super blue hung. 




























and lastly, got two frags of acro. and another monti from alex.

emrald crab was going ham on it.



















and how it's currently looking 



















the wife and i are house hunting right now so when i close on a place i'm going to be upgrading to a ADA tank. either two ADA 20 longs (custom setup) or a cube, haven't decided yet, with a sump.

thanks for looking


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## Kooka (Feb 8, 2011)

Beautiful tank, very nicely done! Just one question for you, how well does that skimmer attachment for your AC110 work? I was planning on modding mine as well to get rid of the surface film.


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

Flexin
the wife and i are house hunting right now so when i close on a place i'm going to be upgrading to a ADA tank. either two ADA 20 longs (custom setup) or a cube said:


> The volume of the corals will require at least 120G tank. LOL
> Be careful with torch and hammer. They are really nice, but will kill everything that they will be able to reach. Gsp is also aggressive coral
> Buy the way, battles are nice addition and I should introduce them to my stand
> 
> ...


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

I'm with Greg on this one. You have alot of coral in there for a 10 gallon but you can always frag and sell of stuff you might not want later. The frogspawn and torch will overrun the tank eventually so put them in an area where they won't touch any of the other corals

I thought the 4 T5's were overkill but a AI Sol!!! Alex has 3 on his 110g tank and you have 1 on your 10g. Not to say that you can't do it but Greg is right...you'll have to check the ratios and intensity to make sure you don't fry your tank.

It is a beautiful tank though! Good to see another person put in some effort and elbow grease to make their tank look spectacular.

Edit:
The Torch might do better on the left side where those zoas are. The Torch likes more of a neutral/low flow area to live instead of the higher intensity you have it in right now. You can see in the picture that the whole torch is leaning in one direction and eventually you might stress the tentacles to the point of them being torn off. I had this on mine and lost a few pieces. 

Good luck!!


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

Kooka said:


> Beautiful tank, very nicely done! Just one question for you, how well does that skimmer attachment for your AC110 work? I was planning on modding mine as well to get rid of the surface film.


thanks! the skimmer attachment actually works very well. i have no film on the top of the water. it's a cheap solution, i think i saw one at big als for like $20, it also picks up water from the bottom aswell so it catches alot of crab and shrimp molts.

I should warn you tho, i lost one of my first clown fish to it. he was very small, and where you see that dirty looking mesh thing where the 110 meets the tube of the skimmer, he got his face sucked up in there and died.  i just cut an unused media bag and wrapped it around, so far so good.



sig said:


> The volume of the corals will require at least 120G tank. LOL
> Be careful with torch and hammer. They are really nice, but will kill everything that they will be able to reach. Gsp is also aggressive coral
> Buy the way, battles are nice addition and I should introduce them to my stand
> 
> I also suggest you contact Alex for the schedule and ration of blue/white. As I see in pictures you are running the light to powerful. it can result in algae and corals bleaching


Umm..i don't think i'll have to go that big..lol there are people with alot more coral in a 30 breeder than i have in the 10gal. actually alot of 10gals are stocked more than mine is. i research every coral before buying, to make sure it's ok for the tank.

the GSP is on a seperate rock, so if it starts to take over i'll just move it to a part of the sand. 
you are right in that corals can sting, but none of the sweepers are touching anything else.



altcharacter said:


> I'm with Greg on this one. You have alot of coral in there for a 10 gallon but you can always frag and sell of stuff you might not want later. The frogspawn and torch will overrun the tank eventually so put them in an area where they won't touch any of the other corals
> 
> I thought the 4 T5's were overkill but a AI Sol!!! Alex has 3 on his 110g tank and you have 1 on your 10g. Not to say that you can't do it but Greg is right...you'll have to check the ratios and intensity to make sure you don't fry your tank.
> 
> ...


thanks for the compliment  yea if the torch and FS get tooooo big i can always frag it, maybe put it in a coral only pico with the old T5 on it just for safe keeping until i upgrade, but i don't think i'll have too just yet. that torch i got from big als. funny thing about it was that it had 6 heads, and one never extended (even in the store), brought it home, stuck it in the tank, turns out that the one head had brown jelly diesease. i pulled it out quickly, and cut off that head. lucky for me it diden't spread. it seems happy in that corner, it's been there for a couple months now, always extended, never seen a loss of tenticles? (Im never buying coral from big als again..lol)

as for the lights, the 4 T5's were ok. they did the job just fine up until now. i actually was going to get the AI nano unit with only two lenses, but for an extra $100 for the sol, i thought i would just get that since i'm going to use it on the new bigger tank. right now the light is only at 34% at peak with long 120min ramps. i'm just slowley increasing it by about 2% week by week.

thanks for the replys!


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## kuopan (Sep 6, 2010)

very beautiful.. i gotta go salt water one day..


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## fiftyfive (Feb 12, 2012)

congrats, that's a great start, loving the dosing setup beneath the tank but i'm assuming that's for you lol


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## darthvictor (Aug 16, 2011)

It is lovely, Great job!


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

Yes great start, just IMO I would choose smaller pieces of rock for you aquascape that would fit better your tank dimension and have more room to place your corals Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!bigger..bigger lol


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

^I agree. 

when i started, and was buying the rocks, i had no idea on what shape to get, so i thought i picked out some good ones, but the flat pieces are too big. 

i want to re-aquascape,but i don't want to start a cycle or anything, and i don't know what to do with all the coral while i'm re-scaping...is it possible to just break up my current big pieces? you might have to give me a hand with that alex! haha


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

thought i'd throw up an update...got the new aquascape going on.

before:










now:


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

that looks stunning!!!!!!


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## kylel (Feb 20, 2011)

Nice work on the new layout! looks stellar. I love your stand btw, very functional


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## darthvictor (Aug 16, 2011)

Love the new aquascape!


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

thanks for the compliments fellas


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

Much better now, keep it up


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

more frags from alex  thanks again buddy!










this was pretty nice imo, purple/blue w/green tips










teal









purple









green









and a FTS









and a side shot


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Looks like a great start  I like the AI Sol ont he 10g - who said overkill?

One thing that you'll have to watch out for with stocking really fast and with so many different varieties in a tank as small as this is your parameters will start to move fast - Ca, Alk will get used up faster and faster, so I'd keep an eye on them if you aren't already. 

Great start though


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Yeah, looking good. Re-scape was definately the way to go.

...I see a larger tank in your future...


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

overkill? ok mayble a little..LOL my odessya T5 light was great before, nice little light expecially for the price, but i liked the shimmer and the timer features of the AI sol. i figured i'll get the sol now, and when i upgrade as soon as i can i'll just get another one and link them together. (i'm thinking about a long shallow tank) 

my params are pretty stable. must be the salt that i'm using (instant ocean reef coral) but i have good cal 500ish, but my alk was low at about 3dkh. since then i've been keeping a constant watch on it and dosing with the reef fusion 2nd part, keeps it at a nice constant 7dkh.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

got bored tonight, thought i'd toss up some progress of my macro work


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## PACMAN (Mar 4, 2010)

Flexin5 said:


> got bored tonight, thought i'd toss up some progress of my macro work


one of these things is not like the other lol


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

^lol ya that random red one, those green ones are spreading so fast! i wish the red ones did.

little update, been getting alot of stuff, some more sps and a couple more zoa's. yesterday i picked up a purple hammer off of alex. 










and a updated fts:










turns out that one of my clowns is actually a onyx clown. parts of him are getting blacker, i thought i was coral burns but they never went away..lol not bad since i got him for $17.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Awesome tank dude! I totally have to check it out one day.

I told my wife about the hammer and I was thinking I should have picked one up also.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

thanks buddy!  

ya i have a thing now that i don't want anymore green, so when i saw that alex had the purple hammer i had to get a frag of it, even tho i wasen't planning for anymore LPS..haha


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

i'm doing a little experiment, aside from the ai sol's W/B/RB spectrum i got a LED strip that you can adjust to any color. so i tried to get a magenta spectrum to see how it will effect the color of the SPS.


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

Great idea, taging along


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

nice tank Man and it looks big with the properly taken photos

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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

haha, ya camera tricks..it's really a 60gallon...lol jk

my onyx clownfish wanted to see my hardwood floor and jumped out. 

but i replaced him with a black oc.clown and a regular oc.clown. they are all getting along great! nobody is chasing or showing any kind of aggression toward eachother.










also, i got a big colony of purple/green zoas from the BBQ meet, thanks to NAFB, it was too big to fit anywhere in my tank properly, so i cut it up last night and stuck all the peices to the rock work on the sps "island" haha


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Alright man, I think it's time to upgrade to a 20g. I'll drop it off and we'll turn your 10g into a fuge. Lets do it! It's only 4 inches wider but you'll double your space!


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

Flexin5 said:


> overkill? ok mayble a little..LOL my odessya T5 light was great before, nice little light expecially for the price, but i liked the shimmer and the timer features of the AI sol. i figured i'll get the sol now, and when i upgrade as soon as i can i'll just get another one and link them together. (i'm thinking about a long shallow tank)
> 
> my params are pretty stable. must be the salt that i'm using (instant ocean reef coral) but i have good cal 500ish, but my alk was low at about 3dkh. since then i've been keeping a constant watch on it and dosing with the reef fusion 2nd part, keeps it at a nice constant 7dkh.


alk was low because of the high calcium. Check you PH when you adding ALC

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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

i've been watching it pretty good. still at 7dkh for alk and about 450ppm for cal. ph is at 8.2 and that's checked at about the same time of day.

and dave, i want too so bad! but i have nowhere to put the current stand that it's on now. the way i see it, i have to hold myself back on upgrading just a little bit inorder to upgrade to something big when the house is done.


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## cablemike (Jan 7, 2009)

This is not a problem, its normal. You have a lot of sps and they are consuming talk and calcium faster then you can replenish it. I had this in my 90 gallon as well. The bigger tank will only delay this but as your corals growth accelerate you will have the same problem. My advice is to buy a doser . Or do what I did and spend the hour every other night to test and dose as needed.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

it started maybe just before or as i was getting all the sps, so once i had it corrected then i started to get more. i thought about a doser but i'm only dosing for alk, so i just do it manually every night when i feed the fish and top off. my guess is that it was low because of the high cal from the IO reef crystals because it tested at about 600cal before. now that the alk is at 6-7 the cal is at about 450 and things seem to be doing well. some decent growth going on expecially in the birdsnest.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

thought i'd toss up a update since i had the camera out. things are doing well, had a bit of a setback and bleached some sps because i cranked the whites on the sol too high. lowered them and things have been coloring up alot better now, some pieces are still recovering but some have some great color on them. just keeping a close eye on params and just letting the tank mature now, it'll be 1 year next month 

sps island:



















moved some things around and decided to make a little zoa garden in the corner:



















and a FTS:










i also pre-ordered one of these, should be here next week. can't wait to play with it (that's what she said  )


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

dude that is awesome! When are you moving? I wanna come back over one day and check out the tank.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

you're always welcome to come by man! still house hunting, wedding is on saturday and then going to vegas for a couple of days but as soon as i come back it's on the hunt hard for a house.


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## TAL (Aug 12, 2011)

not sure how I didn't see this, seriously impressive tank!


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Nice healthy tank, bro; I like your SPS island! Once they start to mature, that will really be something else. Nice photo update!


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

^thanks fellas! 

well good news, i finally closed on a house! the basement isn't finished but i budgeted for it to be done so that should be in the works soon, i close on the house on nov.30th and construction will start shortly after we move in. 

sooo, that means that i can start to plan on building my next, nice big ass tank! i'm excited. 

not to copy you alex, but i think the dimentions will be similar to your setup, at first i was thinking about making a little room under the stairs to hide the sump but the layout won't work too well with that, i'm making a man cave so i want to have the tank off to the side, the big ass TV infront and the sofa in the middle/back of the room.

now i have the joy of figuring out how the hell to move my 10 gallon.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Just an opinion, setup a 10 gallon at the house first and cycle the water with some of the water out of your tank, then put everything in buckets and move it that way....but this is just an opinion

Grats on the house dude! If you ever need some tile work done give me a shout


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Flexin5 said:


> now i have the joy of figuring out how the hell to move my 10 gallon.


It's 10 freaking gallons! That weighs about 80 pounds. Disconnect the pump and light and take a few cups of water out and cover it with saran wrap, then pick it up and carry it on your lap to your new house!

Just an idea. 

I apologize. It's friday night and I am on a sugar and caffiene induced high


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Funny, when I was at Jay's house Im pretty sure he said the exact same thing Kevin...and I think he pretty much said it in the same words


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

Congrats my friend on the house and more important on the new proyect!!!!
Go as big as you can


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## riggles17 (Jan 4, 2011)

What do you have running your tank? Just an ac110 and a heater and powerhead


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

^pretty much, except 2 power heads now.


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