UNS 10g 45A tank build

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reefchi

Member
I just wanted to share my 2 and half year journey so far. I've meet some really genuinely nice people on here who are local to me. When I started I never thought there was really a forum for other local reefers in Chicago or nearby area. I wished this site was a little more active since a lot people on here are local to me compared to some other forums. For that reason I'm sharing my tank and post what are my daily struggles and what changes I would like to do. Hopefully get some advice. I'm hoping to start my next build this year since I was extremely lucky enough to have a local reefer give me a 25G AIO as my next build.

When I started I purchased a really small nano tank UNS 45A 10G AIO tank at my LFS. I know everyone tells you to get a big tank as a beginner and every LFS tried to sell me a 60G or more AIO. I just didn't want to get something so big then realize I didn't like the hobby or didn't have enough time to truly keep up with the maintenance. My goals were to understand water chemistry, how maintain a reef tank, what to look for, how to properly make corrections when things go out of wack, and mostly figure out what I truly liked in terms of corals and equipment. Even though people say its a lot harder on such a small nano tank I still went with it. I figured if I could do this and understand things well enough, then I would have enough knowledge to feel confident when upgrading to a bigger tank.

I started with dry rock & dry sand. I also did a fishless cycle with traditional ammonia and live bacteria. This is after it got cycled and I added my first pair of fish

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First coral ever purchased lol a standard mushroom (paid WAY too much for that damn coral, newbie mistake) and added a few snails when there really wasn't much algae lol

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Towards the end of the first year I got some dinos and some nasty golden algae. This lasted for a several months. I tried H2O2 and a temp uv light. I think what helped a lot was adding some live rubble and small piece of live rock along with some clean up crew. This is when I understood the importance of balancing Nitrate and Phosphate and its affects. I basically bottom out on both of them. I think I did feed for several days as I was traveling for work.

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This how things are currently looking at now. I ran into another green film algae issue due to low imbalance nutrients but got them under control after feeding more. This is probably my biggest issue. I need to stick to a feeding schedule that will help my Nitrate and Phosphate stay in balance. Work in progress.

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Welcome! Great little tank you have there, I have the same exact tank but for freshwater, my only gripe is the overflow has no emergency so when the sponge is dirty it can really overflow.

Are you city or burbs?
 
Thanks! I’m on Northside of Chicago but visit the Schaumburg area a lot.

I agree I think the overflow area isn’t the greatest compared to other tanks I’ve seen.
 
Thank you!

Once I redo my aquascape I will. You can really tell its such a newbie aquascape since its just an arch lol which doesn't have the best area to mount frags. I plan on just taking out the rock and breaking it then rearrange it. I didn't want to put new live rock pieces and possibly deal with a mini cycle. I assume I shouldn't have any major issues by just taking it out and breaking right.
 
reefchi said:
Thank you!

Once I redo my aquascape I will. You can really tell its such a newbie aquascape since its just an arch lol which doesn't have the best area to mount frags. I plan on just taking out the rock and breaking it then rearrange it. I didn't want to put new live rock pieces and possibly deal with a mini cycle. I assume I shouldn't have any major issues by just taking it out and breaking right.
Click to expand...

I would not touch that arch! I don’t think you can improve on it much because it’s perfect for your tank. It will look awesome when covered corals.

If anything, I’d just move corals around according to light needs. Move the goni and leather down to a couple of small rocks in the sand and make room for some SPS high up.
 
Sawdonkey said:
I would not touch that arch! I don’t think you can improve on it much because it’s perfect for your tank. It will look awesome when covered corals.

If anything, I’d just move corals around according to light needs. Move the goni and leather down to a couple of small rocks in the sand and make room for some SPS high up.
Click to expand...
I agree with sawdonkey, cover it with corals and it will look amazing ;)
 
Sounds good. I'll try that approach and relocate some coral towards the bottom and free up the top for some future corals.
 
  • Water Parameters:
    • Nitrate:5-15ppm​
    • Phosphates at .1-.2ppm​
    • Alk: 8.5-9.1dkh​
This so far has been working for me even though my phosphates are on the higher side and some consider it "dirty"
  • My weekly maintenance
    • I try to test Nitrate, Phosphate, and Alk every week. When I don't have time, I'll at least just test for Alk
    • Clean glass every 2-3days depending how on how dirty the glass gets
    • I use ESV salt. I do about a 2g water change every weekend, but sometimes I go with 1g if my nitrates and phosphates are close to being low.
  • Feeding:
    • I'm aiming to feed frozen twice a day, but only every other day of the week. I'll substitute frozen with pellets on a few days to mix it up

I've thinking of dosing All for reef just to practice keeping Alkalinity stable and consistent until I do a water change. Based on my monitoring I've noticed my alk drop slowing every day until a water change. It drops about .5-.7dkh in total for the span of 5days so I would say about ~.1 a day. The tank is mainly a LPS/Softy tank with only one monti cap sps.

Is it recommended to clean out the back chamber of a AIO? Where I have a bag of media? There always seems to be green film algae growing since the light is always hitting it. I read somewhere that it should just be left alone. Is that true?

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Here’s a shot after a water change. Nothing impressive compared to what others on here have. As you can see I have a Goni that got bleached from putting it too high up. It may not recover based on how it looks like.

Next weekend I’m going to rearrange the corals. The plan: I’m going to go with moving my biggest leather in the center and have the lower parts of the rock covered with hammers/frog and gonis and keep the top for future SPS like Sawdonkey mentioned.

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I'd personally skip AFR if your demand is that low, just be consistent on water changes. Also your levels are fine, I run the same and have some colonies of SPS that do well. More important is stability than chasing a certain number.

Also, I'd only vacuum the back chamber of detritus, algae will grow back quick so nothing to worry about there.
 
Thanks for the input. So if I start the week at 9dkh and it gradually drops everyday, and by the time I need to do my water change, it's at around ~8.4 or 8.5. Safe to say a .5-.6 jump after a water change should be considered fine?

Sounds good, I'll just vacuum the top layer algae in the back chamber, next time I do a water change.
 
I'll swing .5 a day when my SPS are sucking it all up. So .5 a week is a walk in the park and in my opinion you should be fine.
 
Quick update

A lot growth out of my soft corals in the last 6 months. I had two Polyp Sinularia Mollis on the left side of the tank that got really huge for this tank and I had to get rid of them. I sold them to someone locally and just kept a small piece as a frag.

Last time I checked my water parameters was about a week and half ago. Below are the numbers I tested. Since then I've done 2 water changes to bring them down. Regardless even those numbers all the corals looked good. Algae hasn't been bad. A little bit of bubble algae but nothing out of control. I think my water changes keep it check.

Nitrate: 24 ppm
Phosphate: 3.23 ppm
Alk: 7.8 dkh


Polyp Sinularia Mollis.jpg


After removing it, it has freed a lot of space but now I have these yellow fiji corals that growing like crazy. I have this one in the left corner that is about 5-6inch wide. As you can see I have another one that on the top that's growing like crazy and almost coming out if the water! I'll post one for sale as I don't need three of the same coral lol.

I also acquired a coco warm that I won recently. I think it looks pretty cool but need to research what it needs in order to keep it thriving.


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Looks great. Are you sure your PO4 isn’t .323 rather than 3.23. That’s super high…but maybe it works for your tank.

I just hit .4 and I’m using GFO to bring it down a tad. My nitrates are in the 40s too…and I need to get those down a bit as well. My coral all looks happy, but my rocks and glas get dirty super quickly at elevated levels.

Nice work on the tank. Keep the updates coming and my offer still stands if you want some coral. I have some easy/cheap SPS you could try…some torches too.
 
Yeah I missed typed as I was trying to remember off the top of my head. It was .38ppm to be exact. Normally I try to realistically stay within .1 -.2ppm. Its on the higher end but I tried like a tablespoon of GFO and it striped all my phosphates so I just try to manage my feeding and water changes.
 
UPDATE 2/12/2025

I was fortunate enough to get some nice corals from Sawdoney! a few weeks ago. I wanted to redo my aquascape so this was the perfect time for me to do it and add them. Normally for the last three years or so I mainly had leathers and a few LPS. I been wanting to try some Stylos so this was perfecting timing. I really liked the colors and growth pattern of these corals. The green psammocora really stands out and interested how it grows out in my tank. At this point my tank turned to mainly SPS and LPS. I now have to pay more attention to my phosphates. I normally have my Alk around 8dkh but since adding the corals, it was slowly decreasing each day. I've increased my all for reef dose and still dailing it in. I dose about 5ml every morning.

The Torch looks great which the family really liked! I know this tank is too small but I'll be doing my best to keep my numbers in check. Its my first offical attempt at keeping SPS corals besides a Monti cap. Once my other tank is ready I'll be transferring some there.

Shout out to Sawdoney! His tank looks amazing in person and really inspired me to attempt SPS and LPS on my 25 lagoon instead of my planned Ritter\Magnifica idea. I've never seen a tank like that in person other than on youtube from WWC or TSA. I'll provide more updates on my other build thread as I have to update it as well.


NanoTank.jpg
 
Looking good. I know you’ll move these corals to the new tank, but pay very close attention to the placement. I looks like you have some of the same corals, because I gave you multiple chunks of some, in different locations. You’re going to ant to put those together. Basically glue them up with the bases touching. As your tank fills in, you won’t want three colonies of the same corals taking up valuable space.
 
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