I like to think I approach reef keeping differently than most people, maybe because I have never kept a large reef tank, only nano sized reefs. I don’t dose this tank because I feel that with such a small volume of water, dosing can cause large swings in the water chemistry. I am purposely running a low calcium setup. I know it goes against conventional reef tank maintenance principles to run a low calcium setup, but nano-reefs don’t need the fast growth of large reef tanks. I want to slow the growth of the hard corals in my tank & also slow the growth of coralline algae. I like the look of the black background better than a coralline covered background and I feel the LR has more available surface area for beneficial bacteria if it’s not totally covered in coralline. I no longer test my water, not even salinity. I visually check the tank every day for problems, such as coral aggression or other issues. If there is a problem I try to deal with it before I leave the office for the day, whether it’s moving a coral or doing a water change. In a nano tank most problems can be quickly taken care of by doing water changes, since you are dealing with such a small volume, or moving/removing corals. 

The pictures show the nano as close as possible to what it really looks like day in/day out, I didn’t even clean the tank before pics, so you could get an accurate idea of how it looks in my office.

Nano-Cubes have three back chambers, behind the display area
Chamber 1 – 50 watt heater (set @ 80), live rock rubble
Chamber 2 – small mesh bag with (1) spoon of Seachem PhosGuard & (4) spoons of virgin activated carbon.  Chamber 2 – Started out as a Chaeto fuge w/ 48LED lighting, but my LED fuge light failed, so I have not been running a Chaeto fuge for the last few months.Chamber 3 – (2) Rio 90 pumps

My NC6 was setup in June 05 to compete in the Nano-Reef.com Nano-Cube contest. (Click Here)

The NC6 comes stock with an 18-watt 50/50 PC light with the ballast in the hood, along with two LED moonlights and two 12-volt cooling fans. I DIY modified the hood to include two additional 27-watt PC bulbs for a total of 72 watts. The ballasts are all remotely mounted in the stand to make room for the lights. I kept the stock LED moonlights, although I don’t turn them on since it’s an office tank. I upgraded one of the fans to a scroll fan to move more air around inside the hood to help cool the hood. One of the problems with Nano-Cubes is the amount of heat that builds up inside the hood, making it difficult to control water temps. I also added an LED bulb from besthongkong.com for a fuge light that has (48) LEDs and I added a small fan-heat sink to keep it cooled. I removed the stock Nano-Cube pump & replaced it with two Rio 180 pumps. One of the Rio pumps uses the stock outlet & the 2nd Rio is plumbed to the center of the tank & runs on a timer. I also removed the sponges & ceramic rings that come with the Nano-Cubes. I made a DIY surface strainer/skimmer out of a 4MM data cartridge case, because at the time no surface skimmers were available for the NC6. The surface skimmer snaps on & off & slides up & down to adjust the water level in the display area.

The LR was originally from Aquatic Warehouse or came with frags. I’ve had most of the LR for many years and it has made its way from my 1st nano reef to the current NC6.

The majority of the current corals were transferred into the NC6 when I set the tank up in June 05. One of the frogspawn, the toadstool, red mushrooms & GSP came from SDreefers. The green w/pink tip frogspawn & green tip hammer were from Brilliant Reef (old ownership). The Staghorn Acro (yes it was brown when I bought it) & Red Monti Cap were frags from Octopus Garden.  The Yellow rim Turbinaria is a frag from the big cube display tank at AW & the Xenia (also came with flat worms) was from Tri-City.  The blue rics & green zoos were given to me by a friend when he sold his 75-gallon reef & moved back to Oregon a couple of months ago and are the only recent additions.

7:00 am, all lights on
5:00 pm, all lights off

No mechanical filtering

• Done every week day
• Feed Bozo the skunk clown. I usually hand feed him a few pieces of food two or three times per day on weekdays.
• Check over tank for any problems
• Clean glass as needed with Mag-float
• Done weekly
• Feed corals/fish with one cube of frozen Rotifers & Phytoplankton
• Top off evaporation with ro/di water. (approx 1-gallon every 6 months)
• Vacuum the sand with a tiny DIY gravel vac & siphion out flat worms (nutrient export, LOL)  & detrus from LR
• 10% to 20% water change with Scripps water depending on available time & how much SW water I have handy.
• Change out carbon & PhosGuard
• Check lights & clean light splash guard
• Wipe down/dust outside of tank/stand
• Done every 3 or 4 months
• Remove & clean powerheads & heater
• Replace one of the bulbs (I like to stager bulb replacement, so it’s not a big shock to the corals)

Natural seawater from Scripps Pier.
I keep a 5-gallon container of SW under my desk.

Red Mushrooms
Ricordea (blue)
Toadstool Leather
Xenia
Geen Star Polyps

One blue leg hermit crab
Two Astrea snails