Complete Nano On Ebay?

[Spinal]

I live about an hours drive from this chap:

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=260167560947

Is it worth it? I've only ever kept sweewater tropicals and was planning to swap to marine next year (in the mean-time I was planning to make and core rocks). Then I stumbled across this...

How important is it to have a skimmer? Calcium-reactor? Anything else that isn't included in this auction?

Realistically, I have a small tank and a powerhead; going by his list:

BUILT IN FILTER /PUMP (do I need a filter or just a powerhead? If a filter, will a fluval2 do in a 10gallon octagon tank? otherwise my powerhead is 1100lph)

HEATER (got 3 of these lying around)

5KG LIVE ROCK (I can buy this)

3 CORALS OF YOUR CHOICE (FROM MY SELECTION IN MY TANK ) (what would you recomend as a starter coral? Do I need metal halides or will T5s do? Which bulbs? Tri-plus or anything more specialised?)

5 SNAILS (are these a "must"? I have a snail problem in my freshwater tank!)

LIVE SAND (I'll beg for this from somewhere... )

SALTED R.O WATER (lfs)

More importantly, I think my question is - how far can I go with a setup like this? (Can I introduce a fish? an anemone? a coral? shrimps? worms?) And do I need a skimmer/reactor?

Thanks again,
Michele

 

[demonmagus]

snails are part of the clean up crew, they eat left over food e.t.c. and look nice unlike pest freshies lol. I think it looks alright but I'd wait for someone else to come along. Also, live sand isn't really needed.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Wow, my whole post like didnt even show up. Whatever, ill do it again. Skimmers are nice to have, but they arent really needed as long as you do your water changes, same goes for the reactor. Most of the time, people have those in like bigger tanks. As long as you have live rock, you wont be needing a filter. All you need is flow for the tank, about 20x is a good number. You will need 1.5 pounds of lr for every gallon of water. Metal halides are always nice, but they arent really required. You can still grow plenty of coral with t5s. Most of the time snails are a good thing in SW. You can make your own live sand by using aragonite in your tank and just waiting for it to become "live".

 

[Spinal]

Thanks! So, if I were to take my 10gallon octagonal tank,

• pressure wash it (I'm a firm believer in not using chemical soaps for tanks),
• put about 1-inch of aragonite (will crushed coral things do?)
• buy about 7kg of live rock and put the 1100 lph powerhead (which equates to roughly 30gph)
• 100W heater and a 55W T5 (I'm thinking tri-plus)
• 5 snails or so

Would that be a "reasonable" set up? Would I need to feed this setup? if so, what? Also, is the 1100lph pump too strong?

Next step, if I wanted to put a coral/anemone into the mix, would I need anything different? What would be considered an "easy" thing to grow? What about a fish? What fish would be easy? I saw this amazingly cute little metallic green puffer-like thing...

Thanks,
Michele

 

[Spinal]

I've been reading through the sticky and now I feel embarassed ! I should have read that first!

Ok, so I'm going to go with 1/2inches or Arag-Aline (however deep a bag makes it); I'll see if I can find a colour I like.

Live rock, I'm buying from my lfs. I'll post a quick dary on when I make the live rock for my big tank (I've done a few trial runs that come out quite well!)

Michele

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Looks like your on the right track now. One very quick word of caution. I wouldnt use a pressure washer to clean the tank as it will most likely end up messing up the seals (or at least weakening them).

Just give it a good clean with hot water and a soft cloth then let it dry. If you want you can use a VERY dilute bleech solution or washing up liquid and then just make sure you rinse it out a good few times (I always just use hot water on its own).

I'm in the same situation as you (just setting up my first marine tank) and while it all seemed really complicated when I was ready about it it really isnt much more difficult then a regular FW tank (and a LOT less complicated then my planted tank ).

Some brief "simple" pointers:
Live rock is your filter. You dont need a wet/dry or canister filter. As above 1.5lbs per gallon is a good mid way number.

Good water flow is a must. Depending on what you keep you need somewhere between 10-30 times the volume of water being circulated around the tank per hour. IE a 10g tank needs enough powerheads to produce 100-300gph circulation.

Looks at soft corals, zoo's and mushrooms first as these are often hardier and require less lighting the "hard" corals (LPS and SPS). Also soft corals will tend to be a lot less aggressive to each other so can live close together without killing each other (check out each coral first though).

Dont get any Nem's for at least the first year.

Stock levels for fish a lot less then for Freshwater. Many of the common marine fish are more aggressive and larger then the common FW fish. They also require much more water volume per fish.

For soft corals an average of about 3-5 watts per gallon lighting will surfice. For some reason I haven't yet figured out most marine keepers dont seem to think much of using Watts per gallon as a general guide. Coming from keeping high-tech planted tanks though 10-30wpg makes a lot more sense to me then the vague "moderate-high lighting" that I see everywhere (maybe someone can explain to me why WPG is not a good guide for martine tanks?)

 

[Spinal]

Thanks! I've gone to my LFS had a chat with the very firendly chap there and decided to return to my old plan of gathering equipment over time and then going full SW in a year or so...

So, I've ordered a CO2 system for my planted FW tank, and 50kg of crushed oyster shell (oh, and a marine "bible").

I'll make my rocks over the coming weeks and cure them for 6/7 months in an inflatable pool in the shed. Hopefully by then I'll have found a skimmer, a few more powerheads and a reactor... oh yeah, and some metal halides...

I rarely like back-burner things, but from a wallet and a sanity perspective I think I better wait a bit! Thanks again for all the advice!

Michele

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Just to give you an idea I just got a nano system and with everything included (except the corals/fish) it has cost me under £300 (including the LR which cost the most).
I did this the lazy way though and got everything at my LFS. If you got stuff online (ebay, aqua classifieds, sell section of this site) and shopped smart you could probably do it for at least £100 less then that (maybe even less).

Good site for second hand bits is:
http/www.aquarist-classifieds.co.uk/php/...ish_inverts.php

If you find someone who is moving or just got bored with the hobby you can get some amazing deals.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Yeah, dont use pressure washer, that is just a recipe for disaster. 6 months seems like a long time for curing I think 1 month is plenty already, and if you are still like worried, go for like 2 months. Good luck in resisting for 6 months

 

[Spinal]

Yeah, dont use pressure washer, that is just a recipe for disaster. 6 months seems like a long time for curing I think 1 month is plenty already, and if you are still like worried, go for like 2 months. Good luck in resisting for 6 months

I know, I know... I really doubt I'll resist 6 months but I'll try! I'm already scouring eBay for some metal halides (confusing things they are! I can't seem to find any that fit ON the tank as a pose to hanging over it)

The 6 months curing is because of the cement - it tends to leech chemicals over time; it can be cured faster with vinegar (or any acidic solution) but it makes it more brittle.

I'm thinking,
35% cement
50% crushed oyster shell
15% pumice rock fragments

Thats my base recepie - I'll then play with adding rice, rice krispies, pasta and other random goop to make it more porous...

Ideally, I would have the cement "beater" my father's company had when I grew up - it basically whisks white cement into a froth full of tiny air bubbles making it ultra-light and ultra-porous. This hardens into a pretty solid mass, but is still light enough to make the layers between floors on multi-storey buildings. Sadly, these cost more than buying the live rock from a store (as much as I'm against buying wild-harvested rock)

Michele

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I have heard that some people that make their own rock use something in it that can later be disolved leaving lots of bubbles within the concrete. Not sure what was used (was just something that was mentioned in passing).

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Oh, i thought you were just buying uncured lr from the lfs The only thing i have against cement rock is that it doesnt look as nice.

 

[Musho3210]

Oh, i thought you were just buying uncured lr from the lfs The only thing i have against cement rock is that it doesnt look as nice.

well you can carve it to your own liking as well though...

 

[Spinal]

I have heard that some people that make their own rock use something in it that can later be disolved leaving lots of bubbles within the concrete. Not sure what was used (was just something that was mentioned in passing).

Yups, thats where you start throwing food in Raw rice expands, thus cracking the rocks so isn't great. Rice krispies melt too quickly (I'm thinking of coating them with some laquer or something...) Pasta works well, but is too "large" - I might try risini (a type of pasta that looks like rice) (I'm Italian btw)

Oh, i thought you were just buying uncured lr from the lfs The only thing i have against cement rock is that it doesnt look as nice.

Cement alone looks horrid... But once you mix oyster shells and other rocks, you can get it to look like anything really - the cement is just a binding agent. As for shape, it allows much more variation (caves, branches, slates, stands - you name it, I'm gonna make it )

Michele

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Ahh that makes sense (I was trying to think of what could be used which would disolve/break down but not cause problems later on ).

One other cool thing I saw the other day was someone that took PVC piping and melted/twisted it into branch like shapes. He then stuck a course material around it (to give a good bonding surface and covered it with concreate). It looked pretty cool and was a clever way to get some interestingly shaped "rocks".