Video by Reef Builders · Specs extracted by AllCorals · Watch on YouTube ↗

Reef Builders

Setting Up a NANO Tank With Luc Adams

1

Tank Featured

15

Minutes

2023

Released

This video follows Evan Montgomery from Reef Builders as he helps Luke Adams set up his first nano reef tank, a Red Sea Nano model. The setup includes dry rock aquascaping, transferring fragged corals from the studio, and installing essential equipment like the Red Sea ReefLED 50 and a protein skimmer. The video emphasizes starting with corals and a cleanup crew, with plans to add fish and a screen top in the future.

⏭ Skip to a moment

00:01:33Introduction to the Red Sea Nano tank 00:01:50Aquascaping with dry rock 00:02:42Overview of Red Sea Nano filtration and equipment 00:03:03Red Sea ReefLED 50 lighting 00:03:22ATO reservoir and Auto Aqua ATO installation 00:03:50Protein skimmer and single power cord feature 00:04:13Heater and filter sock 00:04:39Removable overflow teeth feature 00:05:34Coral frag selection and preparation 00:09:29Adding biological media and cleanup crew 00:10:38Dosing Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter Start XLM

The Build

Tank Specs

Every spec, brand, and livestock mention pulled from the host's narration. Click any tank tour above to compare.

Tank 01

Luke's Nano Reef

mixed reef

Style

Red Sea Nano

Brand

This video documents the setup of a Red Sea Nano tank for Luke Adams, a new hobbyist. The tank was started with dry rock, pre-mixed saltwater, and a variety of fragged corals from the Reef Builders studio. Biological filtration was initiated with a seasoned bio brick and bottled bacteria, and a cleanup crew was added.

Lighting

Red Sea ReefLED 50 ×1 $50.00in stock

Skimmer

Red Sea $87.99in stock

Return Pump

Red Sea $87.99in stock

ATO

AutoAqua $33.59in stock

Filtration

filter sock

Husbandry & Practices 7

The tank was set up with dry rock, and an aquascape of three rocks was created.
A Polyp Lab Bio Brick, previously in a main studio tank, was added for biological filtration.
Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter Start XLM was dosed at half the recommended dosage to kickstart bacteria.
Corals were cleaned, trimmed of dead parts, and dipped to remove nuisance brown planaria before placement.
A basic Aqueon heater was added, but not plugged in until corals were placed to allow slow temperature acclimation.
A cleanup crew of 10-12 Stomatella snails was added, anticipating diatom and algae growth.
The host plans to find a screen top for the tank before adding any fish to prevent jumping.

Corals

13

MontiporaBird's NestRed Monti CapRed DigitataGreen ClastriaMilk of StyloPalau EstrellaTracy Morgan gorgonianCrystal experimentImmortal Tort AcroporaPink tip Torch coralHollywood Stunner ChaliceGreen Star Polyps

Inverts

1

Stomatella snails

Shop the build

Featured products from our catalogue

Equipment mentioned in this tour that we cover in our gear catalog. Click through for full specs, retailer comparison, and where-to-buy.

Red Sea ReefLED 50

Mentioned as: Red Sea ReefLED 50

Red Sea ReefWave 45

Mentioned as: Red Sea

AutoAqua Smart Stir SS-100

Smart Stir SS-100

Mentioned as: AutoAqua

In their own words

Notable Quotes

This is my first by myself.

Most of you are probably familiar with kind of the general layout of a Red Sea Nano tank, but in case you're not, I'm going to grab the camera here and just kind of show you what's going on behind the scenes.

Everything on this tank, the return pump, the light, and the protein skimmer all run off of one power cord kind of fed into a hub back there, which is a super nice feature if you ask me.

One of my other favorite features about not just the Red Sea Nano tanks, but all the Red Sea tanks, including the large ones, is on the overflow tooth, you can see the groove here, you can actually remove the overflow teeth from this tank.

I'm excited, like you said, my wife, she was involved helping set up the rock and it was really nice just having her engaged to something that we could both share together and just see it grow.