Wiigelec's KISS 10 gallon mini-reef

The theme of this mini-reef tank is "Keep it Simple". It will house a few varieties of red and green macro algae, a couple species of stony corals, and one fish. Maintenance will center around weekly one gallon water changes.

Here is what I have setup:

Tank - standard 10 gallon glass
Heater - Hydor THEO 50 W
Filter - Aquaclear 50 HOB - filter floss and GAC
Circulation - Hydor Koralia Nano 240gph
Lighting - AquaticLife 24" 2x24W T5HO - 10k K and actinic lamps
Rock - 2 medium pieces reefcleaners base rock
Substrate - CaribSea aragonite reef sand

 

The progression of this tank will proceed in five stages with approximately one month between each stage to allow adequate biological filtration to be established.

The plan:

Stage 1 - Initial setup - COMPLETE
Stage 2 - Macros
Stage 3 - Tank janitors
Stage 4 - First corals
Stage 5 - Fish

 

It sounds like you have a well thought out plan there. I myself love new projects. If you don't mind showing us a few pics along the way that would be great. Good luck and have fun!

 

any pics so far??

 

Stage 1:

 

looks great so far, because of lack of funds i guess all of my tanks could be considered " keep it simple's" lol

 

nice! i'g going to set up somethign very similar in my office...what light you running??

 

looks better then mine lol probably because my LR is so ugly XD. and i just use regular fluorescents

 

Stage 2 - Macros

Well, stage 2 didn't go exactly as I had planned, but I still consider it a success. First a cold snap hit after I ordered and my location is minimum two day shipping from reefcleaners, so when the macros arrived they were not frozen yet but quite cold. The Halimeda however was a total loss. The scroll algae mostly wasted away but there are survivors that have taken hold. The red gracilaria did the best(until stage 3 that is), besides the ulva that must have hitchhiked and has since grown over most of the large rock and some of the sand. Regardless I consider stage 2 a success because the point was to introduce some algae into the tank as algae is a very important part of the marine ecosystem. I have also noticed pods on the glass that must have come with the algae...

Stage 3 - Tank janitors

For stage 3 I purchased some hermits locally to avoid the aforementioned shipping pitfalls. They have been doing a great job on the ulva which, however, they pretty much ignored until they had taken care of all the red gracilaria. Needless to say I have no more red gracilaria...