Sorry for the length of this first post.
Years ago I had several SW and African fish only tanks. As well as heavily planted FW tanks. My SW tanks had a rock reef but no inverts. Now I see all kinds of small Nano tanks done in SW and am amazed as we never would have tried that 20 years ago. Now that I have moved to Colorado and am retired I do not have the space for the 100 and larger tanks I had in the past so I have been looking around and also researching and visiting various reef shops in the Denver and Ft Collins area. I started a small Aqueon Evolve 8 but only as a FW planted tank. Also equipment recommendations or up grades are very welcomed. Especially if you have on of these and have made upgrades all ready. Also about how much live rock would one want to get to start any of these up with. Or would you make it half live and let the non live rock seed over time. My thoughts are the cost difference between live rock and just rock is probably not to significant a savings that all live would be more immediately beneficial and just speed up the entire cycle process allot. Any help greatly appreciated and will also help me catch up to the new trends much quicker. I don't have room for another one after this so I need to hit a home run.
I pretty much have decided upon the Innovative Marines Nano 16 which measures out at 24"Wx12.2"DX13"H The display area is 24X9Dx13H I have not yet decided if I am going FW or SW Reef. My desire is to do it SW Reef but since I am retired I must keep costs in check and am not sure I can do a nice looking coral reef tank. Although it comes with dual 8w LED lights that IM says are sufficient for low and mod light corals I suspect I will have to go up to a higher cost light like the IM 30w Tablet light. Pump is rated at 211 gph so I do not know if that would need to be bumped up any.
Also are the Spin Stream heads by IM good? They have a desktop Nano tank Reactor that I may incorporate. I would like any suggestions you care to make as I have the luxury to make choices now rather than after the fact.
Also what corals, mushrooms, feather dusters, anemones and fish should I look at to make this a stand out Nano. I would like a small clown and anemone for it. Also alot of reef life and color.
Dont hold back let me have your suggestions and once I break ground on this I will post the build log.
I intend to use cured live rock which is available locally. Am I correct that using cured live rock will basically make the cycle time very short. The shop I am working with is AquaMart in Lakewood.
I will not go with live sand as it should seed pretty quickly with the cured LR.
Also I am not intending to use ruble LR in the filtration but instead bio pellets, purigen and phos sponge.
Here again give the pros and cons.
Thanks for your time and help.
Years ago I had several SW and African fish only tanks. As well as heavily planted FW tanks. My SW tanks had a rock reef but no inverts. Now I see all kinds of small Nano tanks done in SW and am amazed as we never would have tried that 20 years ago. Now that I have moved to Colorado and am retired I do not have the space for the 100 and larger tanks I had in the past so I have been looking around and also researching and visiting various reef shops in the Denver and Ft Collins area. I started a small Aqueon Evolve 8 but only as a FW planted tank. Also equipment recommendations or up grades are very welcomed. Especially if you have on of these and have made upgrades all ready. Also about how much live rock would one want to get to start any of these up with. Or would you make it half live and let the non live rock seed over time. My thoughts are the cost difference between live rock and just rock is probably not to significant a savings that all live would be more immediately beneficial and just speed up the entire cycle process allot. Any help greatly appreciated and will also help me catch up to the new trends much quicker. I don't have room for another one after this so I need to hit a home run.
I pretty much have decided upon the Innovative Marines Nano 16 which measures out at 24"Wx12.2"DX13"H The display area is 24X9Dx13H I have not yet decided if I am going FW or SW Reef. My desire is to do it SW Reef but since I am retired I must keep costs in check and am not sure I can do a nice looking coral reef tank. Although it comes with dual 8w LED lights that IM says are sufficient for low and mod light corals I suspect I will have to go up to a higher cost light like the IM 30w Tablet light. Pump is rated at 211 gph so I do not know if that would need to be bumped up any.
Also are the Spin Stream heads by IM good? They have a desktop Nano tank Reactor that I may incorporate. I would like any suggestions you care to make as I have the luxury to make choices now rather than after the fact.
Also what corals, mushrooms, feather dusters, anemones and fish should I look at to make this a stand out Nano. I would like a small clown and anemone for it. Also alot of reef life and color.
Dont hold back let me have your suggestions and once I break ground on this I will post the build log.
I intend to use cured live rock which is available locally. Am I correct that using cured live rock will basically make the cycle time very short. The shop I am working with is AquaMart in Lakewood.
I will not go with live sand as it should seed pretty quickly with the cured LR.
Also I am not intending to use ruble LR in the filtration but instead bio pellets, purigen and phos sponge.
Here again give the pros and cons.
Thanks for your time and help.
. LR can shorten the cycle time, but it's not like you should add fish the next day. Make sure to get a test kit, API are okay, not that accurate, but work. Yes, use rubble instead of bioballs. What reactor will you be using with the bio pellets? 
