• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

The Nano Reef Cube - The Salty Side on a budget

Joined
22 Feb 2021
Messages
88
Location
London
So, I've started reef tanks a few times, but never held onto them for long periods of time. My first tank was too big and I realised it was going to cost me about £2000 to fill with corals. My second tank got cycled and then taken down because I found out I was moving house and realised I couldn't take it with me (easily) and that brings us to today.

The goals of this Nano Reef are as follows:
  1. Don't over spend. I want to explore the salty side without a huge financial commitment.
  2. Minimise equipment. This is not only a good way to save money, but marine is absolutely chock full of hardware you can buy to control or stabilise all types of parameters. On small tanks you can ditch most of this and replace with....you've guessed it, large frequent water changes.
  3. Success in growing two types of corals - Soft and LPS (Large Polyp Stony). For those who don't know, when it comes to corals, generally speaking it goes Soft > LPS > SPS >NPS in terms of difficulty. I'll also be keeping a few inverts.
  4. Low maintenance. I think about this with every single tank I build. I enjoy having a few tanks on the go at once, so I can't afford to spend hours cleaning or adjusting things.
  5. My final goal is that I want to ensure that this tank is portable, so that when I move I can take it with me. I've actually already created a freshwater scape that's entirely portable (all epiphytes on a single piece of wood)... but that's a story for another day.

First things first, you can't do anything without equipment so lets get that out of the way:
  • Tank is a Opti white Dennerle Nano Cube (30l). It cost me £25 used. Importantly it comes with a lid to limit evaporation.
  • Light is a Kessil A80. I bloody love shimmer, and at 15w it should be perfect for this tank. It cost me £80 used. An alternative option would be the Marine Asta A20 which can be found for about £50 new on Amazon.
  • Wavemaker is a NewJet Wave Nano 900 - it cost me £23 but you also need a smart plug/timer if you don't want it on 24/7
  • Skimmer/Filter is an All Pond Solutions Skim 2 - it cost £13. You may be thinking that that isn't an appropriate filter, but actually, in small marine systems the porous rock will provide most of the surface for your beneficial bacteria. I've cut a small pad of coarse foam out, and popped it in skimmer, and then filter floss on top. The filter floss can be replaced weekly or as needed and takes 5 seconds.
  • Heater is a AqueEl Ultra 200w. Total overkill but I had it lying around. It cost £30 but you could get a 50w heater and save a lot of cash.
Total cost of my hardware was £172.

Now, on top of that you will also obviously need rock and sand.
  • Sand wise, I opted for Caribsea Arag-Alive which supposedly is a "live" sand that contains bacteria that helps your filter mature.... difficult to prove whether it actually works, but can't hurt. You can use any sand you like in theory.
  • For rocks there are loads of cool choices and shapes. I love to build my own hardscape so I went for Dry Ocean Reef Rock. Its cheap at £3 per kg, and you'll probably only need 5kg or so - however mine came in a 20kg box so I have a lot left over!
Now for the fun part - building the hardscape. I can't tell you how to do this as its deeply personal, but I applied the usual freshwater Aquascaping principles of the rule of thirds, as well as creating lines that flow between disparate parts of the hardscape. Remember though, that when you are building your structure, consider coral placement - you need plenty of large, flattish surfaces to stick your coral frags onto (which will come on small round disks). Also, many corals are happy/prefer low light, so create areas for coral placement at high/medium and low parts of your hardscape. Marine rock is usually very uniform in its colour, so it is hard but, I think, important, to try and create a dramatic 3D structure to offset that.

In my opinion by far the best way to build any rockscape is to follow the process below
  1. Once you have a rough idea of the structure, apply gel type super glue at various contact points between rocks
  2. Spray with super glue accelerator to bond them instantly
  3. After a few minutes apply some kind of reef putty between the rocks (I use the DD one but there are many others).
Worth noting putty comes in purple or grey. Purple will look more natural as your aquarium matures, and coraline algae builds up but I hide my cement anyway so doesn't make any difference. The combination of super glue + accelerator and then putty will allow you to build complex and awesome rock work at speed, and with ease. If you don't like something you've done, just use a big hammer to break off the bits you don't like. HAMMER TIME. One thing that a lot of marine hobbyist overlook, which we do not in freshwater, is details. Typically a marine hardscape will be a load of rocks glued to one another (or even worse, just piled on top of each other) and that's that. However, using smaller bits of rock you can add loads of cool little ledges, spikes and more. They not only add interest to your scape, but also offer you the opportunity to place more corals.

Then all you have to do is setup your hardware and fill it with water! When it comes to saltwater you can either buy your saltwater premixed from your LFS (most expensive at about £7 per 25l), buy RO from your LFS and mix it with marine salt (about £3.50 per 25l) or make your own RO and mix it with salt (I don't know what this cost but its by far the cheapest). Salt wise, I use Iquatics Ocean Reef Pro which is about £20 for 10kg. That will probably make about 250l - and last me about 10 months at a rate of 25% water changes every week.

Cycling wise - its the same as freshwater. Just keep dosing ammonia to 2pmm and it will do its thang! However, the use of products containing live bacteria to speed up the cycling process is very popular in marine. I used an evolution aqua pure aquarium bomb (which was free from Aquarium Gardens because it was out of date) and also some ATM Colony which I had left over from last time. However, these are not necessary.
 

Attachments

  • 20220510_105258.jpg
    20220510_105258.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 669
  • 20220510_105249.jpg
    20220510_105249.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 192
  • 20220510_105221.jpg
    20220510_105221.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 197
Last edited:
Good luck with the setup mate. I’d of personally cured the rock for a couple weeks. Nano reefs where always more fun than keeping a larger reef but now I’m fully freshwater and don’t miss those blue lights at all.
 
Good luck with the setup mate. I’d of personally cured the rock for a couple weeks. Nano reefs where always more fun than keeping a larger reef but now I’m fully freshwater and don’t miss those blue lights at all.

Yep that would be good, but the issue is I only built the scape this weekend, selecting pieces from a 20kg box - so I'd have had to cure the whole box! Also, you are then limited by time because you have to construct it before all the bacteria die off. However, the cycling part is quite relaxing as really, all I have to do is sit back and pop in a few drops of ammonia now, and just wait a month or so for it to cycle.
 
Yep that would be good, but the issue is I only built the scape this weekend, selecting pieces from a 20kg box - so I'd have had to cure the whole box! Also, you are then limited by time because you have to construct it before all the bacteria die off. However, the cycling part is quite relaxing as really, all I have to do is sit back and pop in a few drops of ammonia now, and just wait a month or so for it to cycle.
If could of been cured once built. It’s just dry rock isn’t it, so no bacteria on there. Same for the sand, it’s not exactly live sand, it’s just crushed shells.
 
Watching this.

I have had the itch to get a reef tank again after a few years of not keeping one, the price of livestock is really putting me off though (for how long i don't know :) ) and finding some decent quality real live rock.

Thinking maybe macroalgae and anemone setup could be good.
 
Looks awesome! Can't wait to see what you do with it. I'm gonna be next after all this marine influence 😅

Good luck with the setup mate. I’d of personally cured the rock for a couple weeks. Nano reefs where always more fun than keeping a larger reef but now I’m fully freshwater and don’t miss those blue lights at all.
Do you cure all rock? I thought it was just for smelly rock, but tbh I'm just in "beginner research mode"
 
Good luck with the setup mate. I’d of personally cured the rock for a couple weeks. Nano reefs where always more fun than keeping a larger reef but now I’m fully freshwater and don’t miss those blue lights at all.

Maybe we are talking about different things! What do you mean by cure in this instance?

Watching this.

I have had the itch to get a reef tank again after a few years of not keeping one, the price of livestock is really putting me off though (for how long i don't know :) ) and finding some decent quality real live rock.

Thinking maybe macroalgae and anemone setup could be good.

Yep! Well if you get a 5gallon there aren't many fish you can fit in there so that helps. There is a green goby I've got my eye on, but I may just go invert only.

Also, I personally prefer dry rock instead of live rock, sure you're cycled straight away, but you're also risking bringing in all kinds of pests, and the time you have to spend trying to eliminate them can be painful. I remove all of the corals I buy from their frags and reseat them on fresh ones, and then dip the corals before they go in. I'm sure some stuff still gets through but it eliminates 90% of the risk.
 
Looks awesome! Can't wait to see what you do with it. I'm gonna be next after all this marine influence 😅


Do you cure all rock? I thought it was just for smelly rock, but tbh I'm just in "beginner research mode"
Not with a a freshwater tank, but with a reef tank yes. Unless it’s proper live rock (which is extremely rare) then I cure everything for a few weeks in RO water using a powerhead for water movement.
This gives the rock time to cure and allows all the excess nutrients to leech out so you’re not getting issues later on.
PO4 and NO3 are a big thing in a reef tank. More so PO4 as too little will starve corals and too much will kill them.
 
Ah I see - I thought you meant cycling. I've not heard of that before! Good info though. Perhaps next time.
It’s far more common when people have old rock. Or dead live lock. The rock would be bleached for a period of time to cleanse it, then cured in RO water for a few weeks and it’s ready to go.

I don’t know if you’re planning to dose anything, but I’d highly recommend larger water changes than 25% I ran an LPS only 30cm cube and didn’t do anything below a 50% waterchange weekly. I never had any algae issues. And the waterchange was sufficient enough to replenish nutrients, Ca, Mg, Alk etc……
 
Also, I personally prefer dry rock instead of live rock, sure you're cycled straight away, but you're also risking bringing in all kinds of pests, and the time you have to spend trying to eliminate them can be painful.

Oh, this is at least 50% of keeping a reef for me, I don't think I have ever had one in 15 years without LR. You can't beat the life that comes in on LR, yes there can be pests but the diversity is amazing and what sets it apart from FW for me.

Another plus for me is the other half will sit and stare at rock for hours looking at all the little critters and always best if they are on board with a reef 😁😄
 
It’s far more common when people have old rock. Or dead live lock. The rock would be bleached for a period of time to cleanse it, then cured in RO water for a few weeks and it’s ready to go.

I don’t know if you’re planning to dose anything, but I’d highly recommend larger water changes than 25% I ran an LPS only 30cm cube and didn’t do anything below a 50% waterchange weekly. I never had any algae issues. And the waterchange was sufficient enough to replenish nutrients, Ca, Mg, Alk etc……
I am not averse to larger water changes. However, WWC run 10gal waterbox on 25% weekly water change and it is fantastic!
 
I am not averse to larger water changes. However, WWC run 10gal waterbox on 25% weekly water change and it is fantastic!

Yeah they’re hassle, each to their own, and whatever works for you.
I know they also have a 3gal that if I remember rightly they do daily, or at least every other day a 50-100% water change on.

Then Jake Adam’s has a Max nano in the reef builders studio, and I don’t think he’s done one in 2 years.
 
Yeah they’re hassle, each to their own, and whatever works for you.
I know they also have a 3gal that if I remember rightly they do daily, or at least every other day a 50-100% water change on.

Then Jake Adam’s has a Max nano in the reef builders studio, and I don’t think he’s done one in 2 years.

TBH they are not too much of a hassle on such low volumes. My freshwater changes take about 5 minutes on my small tanks which is great! Obviously with reef tanks you also have to make the water with an RO unit and salt which definitely is more work, but if I make up 50l at a time, not so bad.

I've seen Jakes Max Nano too - I feel like you can probably get away with that as a bit more of an advanced hobbyist, but its too risky for me!
 
I've seen Jakes Max Nano too - I feel like you can probably get away with that as a bit more of an advanced hobbyist, but its too risky for me
There’s nothing demanding in his tank at all, most of the corals in there are bomb proof, and being soft coral they take up very little in means of Alk, Ca, Mg consumption.
The fish stocking is very minimal, thus feeding and waste will be.
It’s very achievable.

I always used NSW (natural sea water), from a supplier, 50L would be dropped off every 4 weeks. So easy !!
The IQuatics salt is really good for the price point though and you’ll have no issues with it. I really liked ATI absolute ocean too, it’s expensive, but very convenient.
 
Couple of small updates to this:
  • Cycle is proceeding nicely, with ammonia sitting at 1.5 due to a decaying piece of Base in a bag. I'm already seeing Nitrite, so that means Ammonia eating bacteria are already present. Typically Nitrite eating bacteria take a lot longer to establish, so I think it'll be a good few weeks before I start seeing Nitrate.
  • Had to add way more salt than the recommended amount to get my salinity to 1.026. Luckily, since there isn't anything in the tank, I could just dump it in.
  • The All ponds solutions skimmer is working very nicely as a filter, and probably helps with oxygenation, as the water is being pulled from the surface.
  • Kessil Recommend that you mount the light 4" off the surface if you're using it for corals. All very well but with the gooseneck they provide, you can't actually position it at that height unless its hanging over the front of the tank. Luckily there is a set of wooden blinds behind my tank with a convenient mounting point. I've currently got it about 3" above, to account for the extra diffusion etc as the light has to also travel through my glass lid.
  • Speaking of glass lids, I'm really impressed with the lack of evaporation. I went away for 5 days last week, and came back and the tank had probably lost less than 1cm of water volume. Really enjoying not having to worry about an ATO.
All in all, apart from occasional testing, I'm having to do absolutely nothing to this tank and things are proceeding nicely.
 
Back
Top