My 20 long experience

#1
I decided on this size after a few parts fell into place from some trades I had through Craigslist. Then some purchases happened and a lot of debate with my wife and kids and I ended up setting this tank up on march 9th 2016.

It's been a wicked curve with a nano, most of my other tanks were 60 gallons or larger with soft corals and lps.

This time I'm trying to stabilize this tank for some sps. I've had my ups and downs with it and my near disasters and my successes individually.

The most success happened when I went on vacation to California for 2.5 weeks and came home to see my gravity feed overflow with kalk mixed in had clogged and my water dang near evaporated all out. Along with an auto feeder dumping too much food in.

During that period my coralline algae and hair algae took off like a rocket and had since not looked so good. I've had my tester acro for almost a year and feel super bad about the torture I've put it through. It's roughed it out with what little flesh it has left and caused me the most heart ache of them all.

Sorry for any typos.



This pic was no water and when I had a halide.



Water and cycling with shrimp and clam



Dry rock and bare bottom with cutting board







Some of the first corals I got. Dbtc style from someone I traded a 150g with.



First fish was a neon dottyback. Went carpet surfing. Next few fish I went through I didn't like too much and ended with a purple pseudochromis I got from elite. Love purple pseudos.



Acropora valida when I first got it.



Gorgonians that caused my first pest attack... red bugs...

I've since then dipped all corals before adding them to the tank. You live and you learn.



2 skunks I got from a fellow reefer. One died mysteriously after a month (never bothered by the neon dottyback, he got mad dogged by the shrimp and never went near them.)



First recession of acro



Recession after adding my leds.



Algae explosion after adding t5 and I'm sure my grocery store water had some tds.



Full tank shot a few months ago



Fts after the vacation explosion



Closer ups of the algae and the acro browned out



New Corals and gorgonian growth



More recent fts



It's lost more flesh than this recently.



My pseudo and monti

That's about as current as it gets.

My shrimp is in the sump cuz the fish and him don't get along.

Equipment is a wet dry sump. Herbie overflow on left side tank. T5 4x24w (soon again to be a better led). Eshopps c-120 skimmer. Jebao dct 8000 return pump. Desk lamp for chaeto growth. Jbj auto top off. I recently got my own rodi and started making my water myself. Apple juice bottom on overflow pipe with filter floss for detritus. Jebao wp-10 for wave action. All plumbing is soon to be hard plumbed. Ran a reactor for a while but stopped when I ran out of carbon but plan to use a powerhead for flow in it when I hard plumb.

I've had most of my disasters happen with kalk in my ato causing alk swings and calcium impaction.

Nitrates went up a bit and phosphates have been low for the majority of the tank.

I run bare bottom because I don't want sand storms with big flow in a small tank.






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Fitz19d

Bat Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
What are you using on the bare bottom or just painted white?

I'd invest in the rodi at some point rather than grocery store water. Esp if it's from the machine you never know when they change filters.

I am jealous of small tanks sometimes because in worst case scenario doing huge or even full water changes are possible, vs my roughly 400g system the most i realistically logistically can do is closer to a hundred.
 

neil82

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
I think it is a white cutting board on the bottom. Correct me if I'm wrong. Don't see a problem with that if the type of plastic is safe and doesn't leach toxins.
 

neil82

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
Looks like the rodi purchase already happened, which was a good call. Thanks for sharing the history of your setup.
 
#5
Thanks! All sound advice I try to follow.

I do have my rodi unit up and running.

It is a plastic hdpe cutting board. I already drilled the bottom of the tank so I thought this would help distribute the load on the bottom pane of glass and prevent my sump instantly filling and flooding my floors.

I redid my plumbing today and switched it out for full pvc lines. That was a crazy task. I didn't account for the diverted flow to the reactor tube that isn't on the pvc version. And then I made new flare nozzles from pvc and soaked my shirt when it blasted water over the side at me. Made my siphon break holes a little high on the return so they sprayed close to the edge of the tank at full force. Then forgot that my herbie siphon wasn't adjusted for the flow coming from the pump so it waved over the edge at me. I think the wp10 I have should just point at the bottom at this point it doesn't make any standing wave anymore lol. Flow is fantastic for sps right now just wish I had some that weren't distressed.


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#6
Well I'm a bad fish owner. I am not quarantining my new arrivals.

I'm going to cross my fingers.

Also super sad I have to work during reefstock.


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Bugaga

Turbo Snail
#7
Welp, bad fish owner got the best of me. Hawkfish was so aggressive it killed the angelfish. Back to the store he went.


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neil82

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Bugaga;n667733 said:
Welp, bad fish owner got the best of me. Hawkfish was so aggressive it killed the angelfish. Back to the store he went.


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Ah man, sorry to hear that. I guess the fish might more aggressive or territorial because of the smaller sized tank. Or that hawkfish could have had a meanstreak in him.
 

Bugaga

Turbo Snail
#9
Yeah, I got a credit and will be getting a new angel next week.

he was so cool, always eating the film algae and even ate nori from a clip the first day.

Im definitely going to go around and check out fish today though.
 
#10
So I got a flame angel a couple weeks ago. Promptly had to quarantine for ich. Moved both fish to a storage container of approximately 10 gallons and have been doing the tank transfer method with them. All good so far, the tank will be fallow for a month or so more as to eradicate the ich parasite.

My new led arrived today and I like it. I can't get the friggin wifi on it to cooperate so I'll be trying to fix that for the next few days while talking with the supplier.




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#14
Ok, will do. I did read a post on rc that states 9 weeks is 99.7% effective. And nine weeks is 63 days


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#16
I saw that brs has some r2r threads I'd like to read. I'm more than likely going into the first week of may with quarantine.


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kutcha

Anthias
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
this is exactly why i would rather quarantine for a month then have to fallow my entire display for 2 and a half months
 

kutcha

Anthias
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
Bugaga;n668972 said:
I'm not trying to be mean, but that wasn't a productive comment. Do you have any advice to give?


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only thing is maybe try the hypo salinity however i dont think it will really work with the display tank as you have snails and crabs and shrimp and corals. only thing i could think of there is set up a hospital tank for your corals and CuC hypo salinity your display tank with your fish in it then once back to normal salinity put your corals back in however coral RX dip all the corals before re entering the main display tank. Then finally fresh water dip your CuC before putting back into the display tank and that SHOULD clear up any and all ICH. (NOTE: the hypo salinity process does take a while)
 
#20
I am actively doing the tank transfer method. I'm almost done with it in fact. Then the fish are going into an all in one quarantine system until the display has been fallow long enough. Fish should be back in the display on may 11th.

Thank you for you advice!


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