New to the nano's

[kimkromann]

I currently have an 80 reef which has been pretty successful now for over a year and half. I have decided to donate a biocube 14 nano tank for a reef tank for my son's school. It will be a new tank. I will also be maintining it for them. I was thinking about taking rock, and some water from mine to get this one started as well as buying live sand. Is this the best way to get it started, or should I just start fresh? If I used stuff from my tank do I need to wait until it cycles before putting clown fish, a rose anemone, and a small cleanup crew? How often should I do water changes and how much? Any advice on getting started out there? Please let me know. I don't want to kill the little kiddies fishies

 

[msgmac47]

I just started up a 20 gallon tank. Everything I have in it, minus the sand, was given to me by my dad from his aquarium. I got 40 lbs of LR, corals, inverts and a clown fish from him. Everything made the 9 hour trip and all is alive and doing well.

 

[deltablack22]

Maintaining a nano in a location that you do not frequent will be a challenge I think... You are going to have to do 10% weekly water changes, probably daily evap. top offs in a tank that size. If you are going to take the plunge however, I would jump start the tank from your 80 gal like you said. It shouldnt cycle since you could probably use 10 gallons of old tank water, sand and LR from the established tank. I wouldnt stock it though until I was sure that the tank wasnt going to cycle. Also, lighting in that tank may not be adequate for the anemone, yet I am not familiar with it so I dont actually know. Just wanted to bring it up.

 

[msgmac47]

I did cycle my tank for almost two months. The main reason for such a long cycle was finding the time to visit my parents. I can not give you a opinion on the cycling process, too new to the hobby. Was given advice from my dad to start cycling my tank before coming up.

 

[kimkromann]

The tank has flourescent 10k with actinic. Is that not sufficient? This same rose anemone lived for years with flourescent, but maybe the guy before me who owned it was lucky. Anyways, I go to my son's school twice a day so being there is not a problem. I will just bring buckets once a week for changes. Hopefully a couple gallons will be easy. I will wait a while to stock it. See how it goes. Thanks