Let me start off by thanking you for choosing my aquarium as the featured tank for September 2009. I never thought my nano would make a featured tank one day, thanks.

I am Gawie de Jager.  
I work in IT.
My hobbies like photography, fish keeping and kayaking keeps me going. I also love snorkeling but I don’t seem to do a lot of it in the icy cold cape waters.
Recently I’ve started experimenting with soft coral propagation and so far I am finding it quite interesting.

I’ve always had a love for all things aquatic.
I started keeping fish years ago. Eventually got into planted FW aquariums that I ran using the Diana Walstad method.
I kept Rainbow fish, freshwater eels, spotted climbing perch, needle nose gars etc. A friend convinced me to convert my smallest FW tank to marine.
Here we are about a year later and I am looking forward to a lifetime of keeping marine tanks.

I am still a “Noob” but I learn something new every day.

My tank is an AquaH20 76 cm x 40cm x 46cm.
It’s a 133 liter which makes it a little bit bigger than a nano, but I like living on the edge.
I have no sump, refugium etc.
(Like most nanos my tank works because of frequent water changes.)

The tank is in my lounge, on a wood cabinet.
It’s been running since May 2008. Before that it was a freshwater setup I used to breed mollies to feed my needle nose gars.

I have about 20kg of LR
Reef Octopus BH-100 HOB Skimmer
In tank DSB
I run carbon or purigen when needed.

Water changes at least once a week.

.

I keep mostly softies so I do not require a lot of flow.
I have 1 SEIO M1100 powerhead hidden behind the rockwork aimed at the rock work form the back.
I also have a Boyu Wavemaker.
Including the return from my skimmer I feel there’s enough water movement and my softies are not flapping about like washing in the wind.

I started out with 2 x T5 light units each unit had 4 x 14w T5s. The lighting worked well, but I had trouble getting 14w 10 000 kelvin tubes.
I then upgraded to a 150w (14 000 kelvin) and 2 x 24w T5 (Actininc) light unit.
The light unit is suspended from two brackets about 20cm above the water.

I run the Actininc for 2 hours before the MH switches on and for 2 hours after it switches off.
The MH runs for 8 hours.

I have no other equipment, except a RO unit.
Depending on temperatures during summer I might add a chiller.

Water changes once or twice a week 15 to 20 % using “fresh” NSW. I collect the NSW on the West Coast and use it as soon as possible after collection.

Daily top ups between 1 and 2.5l using RO, I have my own RO unit. A good RO unit pays for itself in no time.
Skimmer cup cleaned twice a week.
I clean the glass as and when necessary.
Coralline scraped off every 3 to 4 weeks.
I test water parameters once a week.

Once a month I blast the LR with a powerhead get rid of trapped dertritus.

Every 2 or 3 months I take all the coral and fish out blast every bit of the tank with a powerhead and do a massive waterchange. Clean all the pumps and the skimmer. (one of the advantages of running a nano!!)

Seachem Reef Plus 1 capfull once a week
Seachem Reef Complete as needed
Seachem Reef Buffer with waterchanges / top ups if needed.

I just love mushrooms and ricordeas. My ricordeas love light and have never looked better since I upgraded to MH lighting.

Soft Coral
I have a couple Ricordea Yuma and Florida
Various Mushrooms Rhodactis and actinodiscus
Green Finger Leather
Various Zoas and palys

LPS
Blastomussa
Frogspawn

SPS
Plating monty

R.I.P.
Firefish (One jump too far)
Midas Blenny (Tile Surfing is over rated.)

3 x  Blue Green Chromis

3 x Small Damsels (Will move to my frag setup once cycled)

Tuxedo Urchin
Turbo Snail
Various other snails

Tank Specifications

    Tank Dimensions: 76cm L x 40cm W x 46cm H
    Tank Volume: 133l

Water Parameters

    Temperature: 25/26
    pH: 8.3
    Salinity: 1.025 / 1.024
    Ammonia: 0
    Nitrite: 0
    Nitrate: almost undetectable (As long as I keep up the waterchanges)
    Phosphate: almost undetectable (As long as I keep up the waterchanges)
    Calcium: 430ppm
    KH: 7 DKH

I’ve had a great time this last year learning and experimenting. I have learnt to keep it simple and be patient.
I am very pleased with the switch to NSW; the results have been amazing for me.
The best advice I got initially was to buy a decent skimmer, in those early days it helped a lot.

I’ve had bad luck with fish, they all seem to jump out my tank; except damsels and Chromis. That is one con of open top tanks. I’ll keep this mind if when I design the next setup.

My golden rules for keeping a nano: Don’t skip on maintenance and keep the bio-load low.

Thanks again to all the people here on MASA. Without your comments and compliments my tank would not be what it is today.
Thanks to the Administration for selecting my tank.

Regards

Gawie