12 gallon tank in the office?

[Sea Serpent]

How many of you have small "office tanks"? I have a 72 bowfront at home and have learned a great deal about keeping the water chems and environment stable. Am I ready for a small tank? Any tricks and/or recommedations? Can I take some rock and LS out of my home tank "quick cycle" a small tank? Will it be OK unattended on weekends?

Ah, a new project to work on . . . . don't you love it?

Sea Serpent

 

[Gatortailale1]

A few things to consider are:
1) evaporation. In a small system, a little evaporation has a big impact on salinity. Just calibrate your testing device with refractometer to make sure salinity is at acceptable level prior to adventure with small tank. I bought a refractometer from north coast marines for like $65 or so- look on monthly special page for price- main page will list price at like 85; but generally monthly special price less. Or check with LFS to calibrate.

2) Quality water replacement - using RO/DI to replace evaporated water and not tap water.

3) Co-workers over feeding fish - don't leave food out to temp fate. Everybody likes to watch fish eat.

I have a 125 on main floor of house and a 15 gal. in finished basement. On the 15, I have about 30 lbs of LR and 30 lbs of CC and aragonite sand. No skimmer. I installed a smart light kit into eclipse hood. I have a few leathers and anthelia in there. Everything seems fine with no skimming. I do a small 4 gal water change every 2 weeks. I have to false percs in the tank as well.

You could try to find a small dosing bottle to drip water in on weekends; or buy banana stand and a Kent 1500 ml dosing dripper and hang doser on banana stand on weekends to slowly drip in evaporated water - if it seems to evaporate that fast- depending on how dry office space is. I have let my 15 gal go a few days without top off and all seems fine; but also have 3 other fresh water tanks in basement and that might offset evaporation rate of 15 gal reef - just a theory.

You might be able to keep a few LPS if you are into that; under a smart light kit, I don't think sps would do much unless it was all way at top of water- but even then, it would be slow grow and not very colorful imo.

HTH
Craig

 

[Reef Fever]

I setup a cool tank at my office last month.

I have a 5 Gallon Eclipse similar to the 15 described above. I installed a CustomSeaLife Smartlight 32W into the hood. I removed the filter media, and I am considering modifying the enclosed filter to make it into a skimmer using a small wooden airstone. I have a tiny heater and a small powerfilter to provide the current. I have a timer to provide reliable lighting through the weekend on an 8 hr. photoperiod.

Here is my livestock:

* 8 lbs. Live Sand (2-3 inches deep, I gave up some space for it, but I figure if I have to go skimmerless, I need loads of bio-)
* 10 lbs. of Live Tonga Branch and Fiji Rock, carefully selected for appearance
* Crushed Live Rock Frags in place of filter media
* Gorgeous Trumpet coral broken into 3 pieces to arrange in the tank
* Kenya tree frag from my 75 gallon at home
* ?Litophyton? Sp. frag from home
* Mushroom rock fragged from home
* Baby Xenia fragged from home
* Various Green Star Polyps fraggies glued to Tonga from home
* $5 red mushroom from bottom of LFS tank
* baby Green Brittle Star (I know, I know- he will outgrow it and I will dump him at home!)
* 2 baby tank-raised Percula monkeyboys
* Awesome Hawaiian Feather Duster
* 2 Scarlet Hermits
* 4 Blue Legged Hermits
* 4 small Astrea Snails

I love having it here! Now I can actually look at a reef instead of just reading and looking at pictures all day. I hope I never have to work hard, it will really cut into my addiction!!

BTW, everything seems very happy! The little Smartlight is really kicking in this tiny tank. Evaporation is surprisingly slow, I think the enclosed Eclipse hood helps with this tremendously. I top off with a little RO water once a week.

I don't think my bioload will be very bad- the percs are tiny and the star is probably my biggest contributor.

Oh, BTW- you asked about Jump Starting with established stuff. I used all Live sand and Live rock, mostly from my home tanks (I have 5, not counting the 20 gallon sump!) I put in all the rock and sand on a Friday, used water from home, on Monday I loaded the corals and added fish on Tuesday. Some may disagree with this rush, but since everything was cycled already (rock, water, sand), I saw no reason to wait. :wink:

 

[2poor2reef]

I only keep tanks of 15g or less and the KEY to these tanks is a light bioload. If you overstock you are destined to fail IME.

Second, I would stress what the previous poster mentioned about salinity swings. I try to rig a doser to every one of my small tanks and when I can't afford it I replace evap daily if not twice per day. Your snail will thank you.

Last, some office buildings don't run a/c after business hours. Depending on where you live that can be a big problem during the day on weekends. I would check to see if that is going to be a problem if you haven't chacked already. Enjoy.

 

[Chucker]

I'm good at raining on parades (the Devil pays me $15/hour as an Associate Advocate), so let me curb some enthusiasm

I've got a CPR MRT, but didn't set it up at work for some of the following reasons.....

Like 2p2r mentioned, temp swings at the workplace can be a big problem, and are accentuated by the tank's size. Many places kill not just the A/C, but also cut back on the heat over the weekend or evening hours.

Evap and water changes will require good source water. This will require you to either bring pre-mixed SW and top-off from home, or you'll have to make it at work. Big pain in the butt.

Distraction- ppl will constantly be stopping by to check out the tank. If the tank or its inhabitants should happen to go south, you'll be hearing it. Often. "Hey, what's all of the slimy red crap?" "Where'd the cute little orange and white fish go?" "Why are those little flowers all closed up now?"

Just want to make sure you've covered all of the angles.

 

[Anemone]

I have a six gallon eclipse tank set up at work. I removed the eclipse filter and replaced it with a PC light retro fit (1x27 watt daylight, 1x9 watt actinic). It has about 7 lbs live rock, 3" live sand, some caulerpa (for nutrient export) and a couple of other macro algaes. Inhabitants include star polyps, some small hitch hiker polyps, 3 blue legged hermits and a yellow-tailed blue damsel. Circulation is provided by a MJ 1000 (much valved back - it was all I had laying around when the Rio 600 died on me). I have a 25 watt heater, but it rarely goes on. The lighting heats the tank to about 82 in my A/C office building. I bring FW from home and top off daily. I perform about a 3 gallon water change once a week. My 6 gallon has been up for two years, and had a tank crash caused by pesticide spraying on one of my days off (took almost six months to rehab the tank).

Not a very difficult tank, but my inhabitants are hardy. IMO, the two percs in the 5 gallon tank above will eventually crash the tank. They will be too much bioload, and the corals will slowly begin to fail. Also, the 4 astreas may have trouble surviving in such a small tank.

Kevin

 

[Reef Fever]

Oh, I agree that the the Percs will not be able to stay that long. When they are a bit larger, or as soon I have ammonia or nitrite problems, they will go home with me. Same for the Astreas- right now one of the mushroom rocks has some algae on it that will keep them busy, and I will just have to wait and see how they do with whatever algae develops. I always have another home ready for them. I figure two of them long-term should do fine.

 

[Anonymous]

Low tech works well for nanos. I had a 2.5 gallon for quite a while that only held mushrooms, polyps and 1 snail. I used 1 mini-pc lamp and used an external hang-on filter with the media removed for circulation. Never had mushrooms look as good as they did in there....

 

[Sea Serpent]

Wow! Thanks for all of the thoughtful replies. I am still toying with the idea - I can see that there are many considerations. Schlepping RO water in to the office from home is a pain - but would be necessary - until I conviced my boss to let me put in a 100 gallon and do the whole setup in the main lobby! Then I would have an RO unit in our kitchen . . .
We'll see . .
Sea Serpent

 

[Chucker]

Wow! Thanks for all of the thoughtful replies. I am still toying with the idea - I can see that there are many considerations. Schlepping RO water in to the office from home is a pain - but would be necessary - until I conviced my boss to let me put in a 100 gallon and do the whole setup in the main lobby! Then I would have an RO unit in our kitchen . . .
We'll see . .
Sea Serpent

There's always the option of leaving a TWP at work, and then just schlepping a bucket to and from the sink.

 

[npaden]

Quite a few offices (ours for one) have quit buying bottled water for the employees and just set up RO systems at the office because it's lots cheaper and you don't have to have stacks of 5 gallon water bottles sitting around somewhere.

You might check on what your office is doing for drinking water and work on it from that angle. It's not DI but still WAY better than tap.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[Anonymous]

Sure. go with it! My tank is a 15 gal with pc lighting. I have about 20 pounds of LR, and my skimmer (bakpak2) hardly pulls out anything-unless i overfeed or something dies. I change about 4 gals every week or so, depending on my schedule. My bioload will be small for a long time. Currently I have a cleaner shrimp, 2 small hermits, three astrea snails, and that's it. (okay, I bought three small corals today...) and I only plan on putting in two true percs and a purple firefish or a royal gamma. But the fish come later, later, later.

I add about 1 cup of make up water a day. About half in the moring, and half when I get home from work. If you need to schlep water in for make up, a small DEDICATED water bottle will do, just fill it with RO water from home every morning. It's the water changes you will have to work for.

Brett

 

[Anonymous]

along the lines of what Chucker said, You might want to prepare the boss for the unspectacular tank cycle when you first set it up. Maybe show the boss some pictures of a mature reef tank to turn him on first? i don't know. good luck

po