Tank of the month: August 2020

CLAUDIO GNACCARINI

Today we are at the home of Claudio Gnaccarini, and we are going to present the lovely little tank we selected this month.

Who said size matters? Our Claudio can prove this cliché wrong. In fact, his aquarium fully meets the standards of a nano reef.
"My passion began four years ago with a pico reef", Claudio tells us. It is only fair to point out that, of all the ways to start, although it may seem cheap and undemanding, this is a branch of marine fishkeeping meant for those who know what they are doing, so... don't try this at home!

"My current aquarium, though, is a 60-litre Dennerle tank, without a sump, run by simply supplementing the triad with Aquaforest products and lit by a Cetus2. Under the bonnet of this little go-kart beats the heart of a Hydor Nano skimmer, while water flow is handled by two Jebao SW2 pumps.

The rest comes from study, keeping my hands in my pockets and waiting. Mine is neither a DSB nor a Berlin system! Mine is an SSB; in the tank I keep only a pair of Ocellaris. As for corals, I mostly keep LPS, Stylopora, Seriatopora, Montipora and two Acropora."

I ask Claudio to tell us a bit more about choosing an SSB over more classic layouts and methods such as Berlin or DSB: "the difference between a DSB, which we all know is a very deep layer of aragonite or live sand, and an SSB is that the latter, on the contrary, is a layer no more than 3 cm deep with 1 kg more live rock than usual, but with more snails, stars and detritivores, precisely to avoid detritus building up! In America they siphon SSBs; I avoid it, but I have 3 Strombus working like tractors. I feed my tank with simple Aquaforest LPS food twice a week and KZ amino acids once a week; I do not dose phyto or anything else, I let the ecosystem and 15% weekly changes do the work. Trace elements every 18 days; for the rest, the tank does it all!"

Since the tank does it all, congratulations to this self-made reef! 😄😄😄

We say goodbye to Claudio and enjoy his lovely photos.