Trying a Nano

There's no chance of having anything as cool to show as the experienced reefers around here, but i thought i'd post some pix of my new nano.
Its a 10 gal, with 2 koralia 1's and 13 lbs live rock. I've started off with a bangii cardinal and an sps frag that i think is a xenia species (thats what lfs sold it as) but I'm not 100% sure that's really what it is. The polyps are just starting to come back out after being in the tank for 90 minutes.

 

very nice....

 

what kinds of lights are those

 

it a Current USA 20" Orbit PC unit.

 

great looking start... BUT what do you have for filtration?? any type of HOB filter/sump/refuge is critical in such a small tank. and your "sps" appears to be a flowerpot, they have a terrible success rate in the home aquarium and should be left in the ocean

 

Yup - I think you're right about the goniopora - I just got done looking things up in borneman's book. As far as the filtration - I'm trying to get as much input as possible on nano management. It seems like there's 2 camps - traditional high techers with skimmers and then lo-techers that do just rock and frequent H2O changes.
Regarding the flowerpot, anyone have good experience supporting this coral? It sounds like not having a skimmer may help this one.

 

Speak of the devil. I bought one two days ago, returned it yesterday. There is no way in the world I would ever consider keeping a coral like a flowerpot again.From what I've gathered, they are bad bad bad bad news. haha

Believe it or not, they do better in less than perfect water and this fact conflicts with the necessities of every other coral you will want to have.

Try to return it to the lfs.

Good luck with the tank. I failed at having a 10g a few years back. A 20g is much easier now.

 

thanks for the advice. the lfs won't do returns on coral - they're the only retail shop for 80 miles. There is a local internet coral dealer that I usually get things from and treats customers great, but I got suckered in b/c this one looked great. oh well, lesson learned.

gonna post on coral page to see if anyone has had luck keeping this alive.

 

Yeah, I got suckered in too. When i saw it, it was bright neon yellow. Now i know that it was completely drenched in yellow dye. Sorry to hear that you cant return it.

Good luck!

 

i think gonioporas differ in hardiness by species... the "dirty water" quality is infact a myth, IMO. many people think they do bad in their tanks because of this and that, but the truth is i think in order to keep gonis you have to have a suitable environment in order for them to thrive, perhaps a species only tank. And one of the biggest things that poeple dont realize is that gonis need to be fed, often. If you see those bright yellow ones in stores i think they have purged there zooxanthellea but can come back with months of TLC. i am thinking about setting up a species only tank devoted to them to try and give it a shot, but that is months of research away