my humble beginning

[btmedic04]

Howdy folks! I just thought that I would post the start of my saltwater experience here. kind of like a build log if you will My aquarium has been running for 6 days now and its looking really good i think!

here's what I have thus far:
20 Gallon Tall
Aquaclear 50 HOB Filter
100w heater
20lbs aragonite sand
14lbs base rock + 1lb live rock to seed the system

Here's the rest of my shopping list
2x Hydor Koralia Nano 240 powerheads (thinking of going for the nano 425's and modding my Aquaclear 50 into a HOB Refugium)
Looking at the Odyssea T5 quad 24" light fixture
upgrading the bulbs to 2x ATI Coral plus 2x ATI actinic
Refractometer (using a hydrometer for the time being)
RO/DI unit (buying RO/DI water from my LFS in the meantime)
possibly another ~5lbs of live rock for more biodiversity
test kits required for having coral
black background for the back and right side of my tank (due to a nearby window. my fiance wanted the tank there)

My plan:
Im going to start out as a fish only + live rock setup with the intention of getting softies and LPS once I have some more experience and the proper equipment. Im thinking of starting out with a couple of chromi's in 3 weeks or so after my tank has cycled. Eventually I would like to add a clown or two and a goby provided my setup can support them. Im limiting the number of fish in this aquarium to 4-5 max depending on my water parameters. Im also looking at a clean up crew as well. Hopefully this will whet my appetite for getting into the hobby while i save up for my 55 gallon Ill be posting more updates as I progress! in the meantime if you guys have any suggestions, please feel free to post them! I accept any and all advice given

lastly, here's a picture of my current setup.

[terrypercula]

That's a sharp start! My first tank was s standard 20 gallon. I think it's a hood beginner size. Big enough where you have enough water volume to avoid massive swings plus house some cool fish but not so big where it's overwhelming. Good luck!

[btmedic04]

Just a small update folks. got a glass scraper, net and black/blue background for the tank. while lining up the background, i noticed that i had a bunch of tiny little white critters crawling around on the glass. i think i just saw my first copapods! heh i never would have thought i'd be excited over seeing something like that when i first set up

[terrypercula]

That's a good thing to be seeing! I like black backgrounds. The color against a black background is multiplied by 10

[btmedic04]

oh yeah, I like black backgrounds too. Blue just looks too much like a swimming pool for my tastes lol

[btmedic04]

Just installed the background and dug out an old 10 gallon T8 light fixture to get a good look at things. here's a picture of my handy work lol

[terrypercula]

Looking good!

[NanoReefWanabe]

you will want considerably more flow in that tank then a couple k425's my old 20g tank had a modded tunze 6025 (~1200gph i believe) and an old K2 i think it was 600gph, plus my return which was a mag5 i would say after headloss was pumping about 250-300gph..my 20 was a mixed reef with 3 fish...i never had any water problems...well not quality anyway, my sump exploded cause i used acrylic baffles in it, which created a bit of a water problem...at any rate...if you plan on FO right now with some softies etc...i would look into getting one bigger pump rather then 2 little ones, and later when you start adding more coral you can add another pump....there are tonnes to choose from...i have been hearing pretty decent things about the jeabo wp series pumps...which are like vortechs at a fraction of the cost...

as side from that tank is looking great, the black will really make things pop

[btmedic04]

thanks for the input nanoreefwanabe! that sounds like an incredible amount of flow for a 20 gallon! :O being that this is my first SW tank, im not versed in proper flow rates. Im just afraid of blowing fish across the tank like a game of pong lol! with that being said, what kind of GPH should i be shooting at? i think ive read something here about 10-20 gph per gallon for FOWLR, 20gph per gallon for softies, 30 gph per gallon for lps and 40+ for sps. I really do like those jaebos! 2x WP 25s maybe or is that too much?

[terrypercula]

I think one WP25 should be plenty. You can get two if you want but I'm not sure how much you can control the flow in them in comparison to a vortech so two might be over kill.

[btmedic04]

would i need to have another powerhead on the opposite side of the tank to make sure there's different currents or would the wp25 be able to handle that from one side?

[Devaji108]

I think the wp25 might be to much flow even with the 6 volt power step down to cut the flow in 1/2...looks at some vids it is a very powerful pump...

the good news is they are coming out with a WP 10...at least that"s the rumor anyway. I hear it should be out by X mass. looks promising gonna get 1 or 2 for my 40br that I am setting up...

anyway nice tank the black background is nice!
have fun and good luck!

[NanoReefWanabe]

personally i feel there is no such thing as too much flow (unless you are blowing the flesh off the animals..) corals dont move, without water flow they have no O2, food, or way to remove wastes from themselves...as long as the flow is indirect i dont think you can have too much...the fish will swim against the current it wont bother them....(however a lower night time setting would be helpful)

[Mark9]

Originally Posted by btmedic04

Just installed the background and dug out an old 10 gallon T8 light fixture to get a good look at things. here's a picture of my handy work lol

Looking real good!
I wished I had done a black background.

[terrypercula]

There's definitely such a thing as too much flow. You can stress out fish and especially corals if you're constantly blasting them with water. That's what's nice about having random flow either through the ecotechs or many different wave maker options. It's not a constant blasting of water. Yes you need a good amount of flow for nutrient export, 02 transfer, etc but how much you need has a lot of variables.

[btmedic04]

I think ill go with 2 koralia nano 425s for the time being. see how they do and look into upgrading to a jaebo wp10 if and when they come out. I can then repurpose the replaced 425 as a salt water mixing pump. by the way, going to get more gear tonight when I get out of work

[btmedic04]

Another update

Picked up a deep blue solarmax 2 bulb T5HO fixture and one of the Koralia Nano 425s. Next week im going to snag another Koralia nano for the other side of the tank. I was looking around in there lastnight after lights out. turned on the lights and saw that i had so many copapods in there that they were not only on the glass, but in the water column! Did some water testing too. results are

Salinity 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-20 (i think it was closer to 20, my fiance thinks its closer to 10. for reference i used an API test kit)

Also Ive been thinking of stocking. Ive decided on 2 Ocellaris clowns (cant decide if i want orange or black), 1 yellow watchman goby and a tiger pistol shrimp. I also saw a really cool mushroom coral at my LFS that I would like. Its called a watermelon mushroom. beyond that, I havent decided on any other corals.

more pictures! \o/

[btmedic04]

also note that i moved the koralia further away from the heater than what is shown in those pictures. I figured heat is bad for it lol

[btmedic04]

Small update folks. Nitrates hit 40ppm yesterday, so I did a 4 gallon water change. Nitrates dropped down to 10-20ppm (hard to tell with this API test kit, really need to upgrade it)

with that being said, I added a few critters to the tank tonight. 3 nerite snails to deal with the algae and a tank raised Ocellaris clown that my fiance has seen fit to name Burt. (Ernie will come in a couple of weeks dont want to add too much too soon!) Burt is happily munching on the copapods that are everywhere and the nerites are cruising around. I think everyone handled the acclimation pretty well, though Burt scared me when i was removing him from the bag after drip acclimating for 40 minutes. i was pouring the water from the bag and drip acclimation out into a bucket and as soon as he was in the net he went absolutely limp and i thought i had hurt him. little jokester darn near made me have a heart attack lol

new picture of everyone!

[btmedic04]

Added another clown tonight. the first one had been in the tank by himself for a week. they were going at it pretty vigorously until light out, but it looks like the smaller one has submitted. I was a bit worried being that he had been in the tank for a week on his own, but he's only about an inch long. the new addition looks to be about an inch and a half long. Ill still keep a close eye on them the next few days in case i need to separate them.

I also snagged an emerald crab to help with some of the algae and extra pellets that are finding their way to the substrate while i learn how much to feed he seems pretty cool and is definitely fun to watch.

lastly, the owner of my LFS gave me a frag off of a kenya tree coral. it came out a bit before lights out which i thought was pretty cool. i figure if it makes it, i can probably start putting a couple other corals in there. theres a real nice 5-8 cluster of watermellon mushrooms that they have that ive had my eye on now for the last 3 weeks. I hope its there in a week or two!

as you can see, im getting the full swing of diatoms and hair algaes so its time to start getting serious about nitrate control. i brought home a cut to size filter pad thats supposed to remove nitrates. baring that, ive been looking at possibly getting purigen. if all else fails, ill go for a hob skimmer. im thinking of the reef octopus bh-90 or bh-100. i would like the -90 as the pump is on the outside, but its a bit more expensive. we'll see when the time comes. other than what i listed above and water changes, are there any other methods for nitrate removal? i still have yet to modify my AC 50 into a fuge so cheato isnt in the cards just yet.

i think im hooked to this hobby!

[btmedic04]

week 6 and 7 shots. picked up some corals from a fellow reefer a few weeks back. toadstool leather, green ric and xenia. had a couple of aiptasias on them, but a couple of peppermint shrimp handled them like champs. I then got an orange zoa frag and a blue/purple/green colored mushroom frag. zoa's were open on the first day, but my emerald crab had a special interest in the bit of rock it was on and kept flipping it, so i moved them and glued the rock to another. the zoas were pretty mad, but i hope they open up and start spreading. that bit of rock also has what appears to be encrusting and branching coraline on it and its a real nice shade of purple. hope it does well. I've since switched salt to red sea coral pro. next week ill be picking up a red sea kit to test calcium, mag and alk. i added another koralia 425 and a hydor slim-skim nano. its currently day 3 of the break in period, but is producing foam and a bit of green skimmate. i havent seen my nitrates climb since my last water change on monday, so i think they are finally in check. (been testing at 10ppm) however diatoms are in full affect and the cyano is spreading, so now its time to get my phospates under control. probably going to go with some chemipure elite here in the next week. probably will pick up the red sea algae test kits so i can get a better read on nitrates and actually start tracking my phospates. as always, any advice, comments or tips are appreciated!

[btmedic04]

heres FTS with all lights and just actinics