Any one have a "set" of nanos?

[treesprite]

I'm starting to think maybe I should do a kind of set of nano tanks plumbed together, instead of one big tank. There are a lot of fish I would not be able to have, but I can make each one a little different theme, or keep fish that are not compatible. I could make a combined stand or a stand set.

 

Is there anyone here who has such a thing? If so, could you post pics and give info about the operation of them and the livestock themes?

[Joshifer]

I'd think you'd like nano. Pico. Reef. I love mine. A lot more then I liked the 65

[treesprite]

I don't want picos. I have temporary tanks up right now (I moved and still haven't set up my 120) which are 16H 16 bow, and a 12g Aquapod. The 16s are plumbed together to a 20L sump. All my rock is crammed into these little tanks,

[mogurnda]

Hi Forrest,

For the office slug system, I have a 20L, 15, 10 and "half-ten" (10X20X6) plumbed into a 10 gallon sump.  It gives a lot of flexibility for trying out different flow patterns, substrates and lighting for the slugs and their food algae.  Plumbing them all into the same sump simplifies dosing, heating and chilling.  Will post pics if you want.

[mogurnda]

A few other notes:  For the moment, I am using a Mag7 as a return, and just delivering through 1/2" vinyl tube with T's and ball valves.  Because the flow is low, most are drained to the sump through 1" bulkheads with strainers, no fancy overflows.  I would drain each tank to the sump, rather than chaining them, because it will allow you to take tanks offline, and you will avoid the problem of the last tank in the chain getting all the detritus and none of the stuff you're dosing.

 

If I magically had the time, I would hard-plumb the drains to a single standpipe, and add a bigger sump.  I had toyed with the idea of a header tank above the rest, so that I could regulate the flow better, but that is not in the cards in the near future.  Maybe when we move to the new building in a few years.

[treesprite]

What I am thinking of is matching nanos, not this mish-mash of temporary stuff:

 

Here are the 16 bow and 16 h

 

which are plumbed to this 20g sump (sump return goes to 16h, 16h goes to 16 bow which goes to sump)

 

Here is the 12g Aquapod which is by itself

 

More of the 16 bow

 

Clown in the 16 bow trying to get food...

 

As you can see, there is a lot of rock because I had to fit in all the rock from my 75g. I only have 2 fish at this point ( the clowns). a serpent star,  a cleaner shrimp, and only a few snails and 1 hermit (snails mostly died from an accidental lowering of salinity). I had lost a lot of coral ages ago, so don't have much (that lovely large yellow acro from FF RTNed after the power outage - makes me mad because it was really nice). 

 

Here is something very interesting: One rock got left in a bucket from April 23rd until last week (4 months); I thought it was an empty bucket and found a rock in disgusting water. I rinsed the rock in the faucet and sat it on a counter to dry out. Several hours later, I discovered a still-living bristle worm on the counter. I wanted to see if the worm would still live, so I put the rock and worm in clean new saltwater and the worm crawled back into the rock (I  haven't checked it yet to see if it is still living). How on earth did that worm live like that? I should have tested the parameters of that nasty water before I dumped it, but at the time, I didn't know there was something alive in it.

 

Here is something else interesting. My clowns seem to like the small tank better than they liked having the 75g all to themselves.

Edited September 4, 2016 by treesprite

[treesprite]

Since Joshifer alerted us about the upcoming sale, I'm thinking about getting 3 x 20 highs. Does anyone know if 20H are usually included in those sales?

 

Since those tanks have clear silicon, would it look bad if I stripped off the clear stuff from the surface of the glass  to re-do with black, but leaving the panels sealed intact with the clear stuff?