The Chronicles of my 12 Gallon Aquapod

[touchthesky00]

alright so while my tank is sitting and doing nothing! ive been thinking about some fish
i was thinking
1 black saddleback clown and one tangaroa goby
and then of course my cleanup crew complimented with a school of tangs

 

[mkzimms]

your rock work is looking great and i love the tangaroa gobies. in addition pick your self up a cleaner shirmp. they will do a great job picking up scraps and are fun to watch. whenever i throw food into the tank shrimpie scurries around and i think of the song flight of the bumblebees.
this is shrimpie hanging out in my 12g aquapod...

along with that school of tangs you may want to add a few hundred gallons and a white tip shark.

 

[ofc175]

Originally Posted by bs21
http:///forum/post/2566083
here ya go this was from today.

if you decide to make some mods let me know because some I may have gone about doing a different way.
what would u have done different about to start moding mine and am looking for what others have done thanks.

 

[bs21]

Touchthesky: Stocking list sounds good to me! I always wanted some typeof goby but couldn't give up the mated pair of clowns. Make sure you get a bunch of tangs also

cleaner shrimp are really fun to watch also.
Originally Posted by ofc175
http:///forum/post/2576053
what would u have done different about to start moding mine and am looking for what others have done thanks.

Well mods I have made:
*blocked bottom two of 3 vents in first chamber completely and partially blocked the top surface skimmer to make it skim better otherwise I had a film over the water( should have done this first before stocking tank, also I tried to do it with a piece of acrylic in the back chamber but couldn't get a tight seal so underwater epoxy worked for me and is almost covered in algea)
*Shortened lock line returns
* removed sponge/rings etc..... and use rock rubble instead
* instead of sponge just use filter floss changed weekly(may need to make a little shelf for it or just pile rock high in that chamber)
* upgraded pump to MJ900 for a little extra flow and supposedly runs at a lower temp
*before i upgraded to a halide i removed every other vent over the fan to allow for better air movement (I did see a noticeable temp drop from this) others just added a second fan
*and eventually I made a fuge in chamber2 to grow cheato on reverse light cycle from main part of tank. This has really increased the number of pods and also is a place for the baby stomatella sp. snails in my tank to hide
I like all the choices I made some I felt were necessary like the vent and blocking overflows and replacing sponge with filter floss others are just to increase water quality/meet different coral requirements hope thius helps. If I remember right there was a thread where all the aquapod mods were listed you could try a search but not sure what other ones there are I think I did them all

p.s. not sure if this is a mod but I would have gone back and been more patient about adding corals so I never would have bought xenia which would give me more room for cooler stuff

 

[bs21]

Originally Posted by yerboy
http:///forum/post/2572949
one of the best nano pics i have seen , Great job.
Thanks! don't want to hijack this thread though but some of the sps nanos just boggle my mind I don't think I could hang with them but for a mixed reef I like the new aquascape alot. Just tried to get more creative than the stacked wall, but that approach would allow for more coral room than mine would

 

[ofc175]

thanks bs21...i have already removed vents, ordered 2nd fan and turning them both to blow in and removed some of the vents over the lighting to allow the air to vent easier...stole that one from another website...also plan on blocking 1 set of the lower intakes...if anyone else has sugestion on which set is better to block,lower or middle any info is best ive seen it done both ways. also have thrown out all media and plan to put in lr rubble and a protein skimmer in #2. upgraded to mj900 too. How much filter floss do you put in at one time...havent used it b4 any info would help. let me know what u think. also carbon...yes or no some threads seem to swear by it others say take it out??

 

[bs21]

the filter floss comes in a roll and the sheet when unrolled is about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and I usually fold it over to double that and then cut a piece that fits chamber1. Ive used carbon but I prefer chemi-pure or Purigen. Carbon is much cheaper but I may use one of the other two for a while then either run the tank without anything or switch to carbon for a while before buying one of the other ones again. This is mostly a money issue for me. If I had it I would use one of them all the time otherwise carbon. I think the water just looks clearer but have run without it and no difference as long as you stay on your maintenance schedule.

 

[ofc175]

thanks

 

[bs21]

So hows the cycle going? Seen any cool hitch hikers on your live rock?

 

[touchthesky00]

i havent seen any hitch hikers yet, i bit sad. but i guess no hitchhikers is better than bad hitch hikers!
i plan on taking a readfing of my levels either tomorrow or friday

 

[touchthesky00]

so my first testing of the new aquarium!
ammonium-- 5.
nitrites-- .05
nitrates-- 0
ph --- 8.0 (where should it be for a reef)
sg

[hr]
1.028
ik my sg is a little high, so i will be doing some fw top offs
but basically hows it looking and once the cycle is done, what are the ideal paramaters for a nano reef
ill get some pics soon cuz im noticing some neat stuff on my rock

 

[bs21]

lookin good basically once the trite and ammonia drops you will want to get the trates down. mine stay as close to zero as possible. Sg is a bit high mines ~1.026 ph is ok though mines around 8 maybe 8.1 or .2

 

[touchthesky00]

found a nifty feature on my camera called close up, so hopefully they look better.
alright these first pics, what are those little purple things? they go all up and down by one piece of lr.

 

[touchthesky00]

these next two, im trying to figure out wat that mushroom looking thing is

 

[touchthesky00]

this is in one of my caves on the bottom side of a piece of lr
it kind of looks like a cabbage leather or tree coral, or something similar to those.
what do u think?

 

[touchthesky00]

and a full tank shot one week into the cycle

 

[bs21]

looks good. the stuff in the first pic can't remember the name but they are beneficial filter feeders if i remember right. Not sure about the second thing? but the third set could be some kind of sponge maybe?

 

[touchthesky00]

alright thanks. any other guesses from anyone on what it could be

 

[mkzimms]

i still cant get over how well your aquascaping came together. it looks really natural. everything is looking good, cant wait until your cycle is over so you can get down to the stocking!

i really like that piece of rock in the middle on the left side, the brownish piece. it reminds me of gap island rock.

 

[touchthesky00]

Originally Posted by mkzimms
http:///forum/post/2584868
i still cant get over how well your aquascaping came together. it looks really natural. everything is looking good, cant wait until your cycle is over so you can get down to the stocking!

i really like that piece of rock in the middle on the left side, the brownish piece. it reminds me of gap island rock.
thanks
im really starting to like it too
there are a lot of caves/tunnels
ahh tell me about it i cant wait to start adding stuff
during the act i was bored and i wrote out my stocking list on my graphing calculator.
but for now what do you think should be in my clean up crew?
i was thinking:
3 turbos
5 nass
3 astreas
4 hermits
1 cleaner shrimp
2 sexy anemone shrimp (should i add these with the rest of my cleanup crew or wait til the tank is more established?)
what do you think on that list
and mkzimms, thanks for stopping by, youre one of the big reasons that i decided to go with this tank, you convinced me