My 4.5 Gallon Nano-reef

Ah, yes, the wonderful world of nano-ecologies. Well, folks, my nano-reef is no more. No, I didn't kill everything and flush it all, I merged the tank with my mini-reef and am trying new things.

Actually, not really new things, I just want to re-do my filtration and see if I can get a more "stable" little tank. The tank ran great for about 8 months, and then everything sort of wanted to go haywire, and by month 10 she was asking for a complete water change and a scrubbing. I decided to move everything into my larger tank and re-work.

For those of you interested in setting up your own:

My setup was a 4.5 gallon acrylic tank, with 8 lbs of Fiji live rock, four blue legged hermit crabs, and one fish.

Livestock

1 Yellow Goby
4 blue legged hermit crabs
Polyps of various sorts.

This seemed to be a great combination of low maintenance and a lot of visual interest. The Goby wasn't one of the large guys, though.
The beast was bright yellow and was no more than an inch long. It would readily accept food when added to the tank, and was quite alert and active. It finally fell to harassment from other fish when introduced to the larger tank, but it liked it's little home better than I would have expected.

The hermits were industrious, and cute to watch. Overall the bioload was (I think) probably a bit high, explaining the final instability of the system, but it was not something that better filtration couldn't have handled.

The hardware was:

Lighting

2 9W compact flourecent lamps, 5,500K & 7,000K with remote ballast

Filtration/Water control

1 Marineland Bio-Wheel 110 hang-on-back filter.
1 small heater

In order to install the 110 filter, I had to cut the back of the tank and the hood a little. Because of the spray of the bio-wheel, I had to cut a piece of acrylic, glue an ell in it, and put it over the top to block the outlet of the filter.

What I'll do differently next time

Check your systems out before you go live
The largest problem I had was caused by the lighting system not being fully checked out before the tank went live. The mount for the lights was never right, and you can't really work on that stuff around saltwater, so I had to disassemble, monkey around with the tank dark, reassemble, etc. It was silly, and easily preventable.
build a good Protein Skimmer
There seems to be nothing out there that is right. The closest I've seen recently is a skilter modified to use an airstone, but it is loud, a mess, and not very effective. Build something which goes across the entire back of the tank and uses the maximum hight you have to work with. In beginning to refit my tank, I've figured out that double-strength glass, sold in most hardware stores for a few bucks a sheet, makes great materials for a flat filter pack that fits across the back. Of course, if you are any good with glue, you could build an extended filter back right onto the tank.
Automate some routine maintanence
This isn't the option for everybody, but remember, these little guys are a lot of work. Having some automatic systems, like dosing pumps, is more important here than anywhere else. Water Dosers, Water Changers, feeders, etc. are a great idea.

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