SPS nano

lamaface

lamaface

Member
Hey guys, i plan to make a small little nano tank into an nano SPS. Could i do it or am i crazy?I'll hang a 75ww 7500k Halide over the little tank. Now all i have to do is win it...
This is the good version of this post...
Could i do it and if so could you SPS keepers give my some advice?
 
lamaface

lamaface

Member
10-15 G, im not completely sure. Its one of the those acrylic bow front tanks with filter built into the hood and a 10000K PC for light. I'll just change the PC for my halide and put live rock segments into the filter. I'll also put 2 powerheads into the tiny tank for maximum current and i have an old downdraft skimmer which e'll modify for the tank.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
Sure it's possible. Watch out for the heat though, in the water and the canopy. The halide bulb can melt the plastic canopy if you plan on using it. Also, I'd recommend you go for a 70w 10,000k bulb instead of 7,500. There's nothing wrong with using a 7,500, except that I doubt you'd be satisfied with the color especially without actinic supplements. A lower kelvin rating will provide better growth but less intense of colors, and a higher kelvin rating would give better color but sacrafice some growth.
 
latino277

latino277

Member
it's possible... you may want to looking into a chiller... Heat & evaperation will be your biggest problem.
 
shoreliner11

shoreliner11

Active Member
IMO the best way for you to go would be to get a mh pendant. 150 would work great. Now get a small fan to blow across the surface of the water and you shouldn't have much in the way of heat issues. I had this setup on a 20 gal with sps and I never had problems. Calcium consumption does get to be a bare though. If I were to do it over again and had some money I'd look into one of those nano sized calcium reactors.
Aaron
 
lamaface

lamaface

Member
ok guys thanks!!! im now convinced to try!!! I'll hang the MH about 15-30cm above the tank to prevent to much heat + i'll put 2 fans in just under the MH to make sure heat is dispersed and for calcium, i have a kalk stirrer and will just take the dripper thats normally drips into to my big reef and once a week or so use the kalk water to top up. For evaporation, i would love to have auto topup but im a bit broke at the moment.... I may hang a bucket of RO water above the tank and drip in water continusly... I'll think of something when i have got the tank setup. It wont have a sump, just a little filter in the hood and a skimmer made for a 50G tank. It'll be a heavely skimmed, fishless, sumpless, live rock packed nano sps tank. Will be getting the tank over the weekend i hope and will start constuction on saturday afternoon.
 
golfish

golfish

Active Member
:eek: what was it that convinced you? I really didn't see any positive comments other then "its possible". Bad things happen real fast in small tanks, IMO, your wasting your money setting up a tank that size for SPS..They need the best STABLE water quality you can give em, the smaller the tank the hard that's going to be.
 
lamaface

lamaface

Member
well even though there were no positive comments, it is possible. And im not wasting any money other than the cost of the live rock. Won the nano and got the MH for my old 25 G in which i kept quite a few hard corals and a bunch of random softies. The sps that im gonna put into the are frags from the "mother" sps in my big reef. I started off on a small tank, 10G then moved up to a 25G in which i struggled a bit, im not gonna lie stocking fish was a major problem in such a small tank and eventually moved up to my current reef, 100G. I need abit of a challenge and im sure with lots of time i'll be able to do it. I know where you coming from man but im sure i'll succeed. Could i put a bunch of snails in to the nano to keep the glass clean? I have a massive skimmer so i dont think organics will be a problem.
 
shoreliner11

shoreliner11

Active Member
As Golfish stated stable water is key. As this is harder to reproduce in a small tank I would suggest an almost daily dosing (or whatever your means of calcium dosing) to keep things stable. For me I dosed c-balance every night. This worked well until I had to leave for a couple days on a trip and had nobody to dose. Made things a little difficult.
Aaron
 
lamaface

lamaface

Member
ok, i'll dose daily and keep my water stable and if i go on holiday i'll just hook the little tank up to my 100g reef which has a Kalk unit + autotop up water with added minerals ect. I wanted to start this tank for a challenge, i didn't want it to be as easy as my big tank. i wanted a challenge!!!
Thanks for the help guys, if i go away for more than a day, i'll hook it up to my big tank.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
Unless you test the water often, I wouldn't dose anything daily. I say just do weekly water changes to replace much of the used minerals and elements.
 
shoreliner11

shoreliner11

Active Member
Viper does have a good point. I personally did test quite a bit. I figured out my daily consumption of calcium and alkalinity and dosed accordingly. It is more work to do this but ultimately if you have a high calcium load which eventually will happen with sps if things go well. But if I had a smaller tank around 10gal I would personally just do bi- weekly water changes instead. There is no one way to do it obviously. Either way will work but the dosing will take more work to fine-tune.
Aaron
 
lamaface

lamaface

Member
i agree with you Viper, i would have to measure how much of an element im using before dosing. I'll fine tune the dosing thing when i get around to actually getting the tank. I'll be testing the water once a day or once every 2 days. With precious little sps frags in there, really wont want to mess up! Nemo lover i live in south africa which is in the middle of nowhere... well not really but where not nearly as technically advanced as the US. Finding the more advanced aquatic components like the (electic valves ect) is a mission so i normally end up building them with my dad.
 
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