20 gallon office tank

[thomas_neil]

Hello everyone,

Starting a new tank in my office and decided to start a build thread so you all can give me input and see progress along the way.

I have a 75 gallon tank at home and made a lot of mistakes on it and I’m hoping to take everything I learned from that and use it on this tank.

I want to make this tank as low maintenance as possible with just a water changes every other week and I might dose all for reef as needed as I add coral.

I’ve cycled the tank, currently in the ugly stage of a bacterial bloom and algae bloom.

The tank is a 20 gallon jbj cube. For equipment I have:
Lighting-Fluval marine but have an AI prime 16hd coming in this week.
Flow- hygger mini wave maker
Heater- hygger 100watt titanium
I use a mixture of Hanna and salifert test kits I bring into the office with me on Monday's and Thursdays.
Currently not running a skimmer, not sure how my coworkers would feel about the skimate.
Auto feeder feeding mini pellets twice a day

Livestock:
2 clowns
YWG and tiger pistol pair
5 blue leg hermits

future livestock
Tail spot
Fire fish
More snails and hermits
Peppermint shrimp
Possibly tuxedo urchin
Possibly tiger conch

I got a pipe organ, acan, and a zoa as a test coral to make sure the tank is ready. I’m hoping WWC does a Black Friday live sale to expand my corals.

I want to stay in the softy and LPS Cora’s to keep it low maintenance. I’m planning on doing a zoa garden on the small rocks in the front of the tank, with a acan/mushroom garden mid to lower level of the main rock structure. I’d also like to get another pipe organ or 2 for the top of the tank with some hammers and torches mixed in.

Any suggestions on coral placement and what I should get. I want to pack as much color and movement into the small tank as I can. I’m also considering putting pulsing Xenia and GSP on the back glass.

My plan is to get enough coral in the tank for nutrient uptake I have no need for a skimmer or fuge.

 

[1armfish]

Good luck Tom! Looks great so far! Is that a JBJ stand?? It's different from the one they sent me.

 

[thomas_neil]

No, it was a premade plywood stand my LFS had. It was cheaper than the JBJ stand and fits the tank perfectly.

 

[kevgib67]

Love your rockscape! Following.

 

[thomas_neil]

Had to remove one of the smaller ones in the front for glass cleaning. Looking back on it I wish I would have made them smaller for more zoas. I'm also concerned about making a zoa garden up there. The pistol and YWG live in those rocks now and every morning the piles of sand move around the rocks.

I'd much rather keep the pistol happy than a couple zoa's. Time will tell I guess when I start to add more zoa's.

Pretty funny thing happened in the tank this morning. Usually, my pistol shrimp is dead silent, and I never hear him throughout the day, just digs and reworks my scape for me. This morning right after the lights started to turn on, I heard him just going crazy. I couldn't see him, but he was just shooting up the place in his little burrow. He was nonstop snapping for probably 5 min. I then see a hermit walking out holding a piece of food and my pistol and YWG came following him out (still snapping like crazy) and chased him away.

It was fun to watch them both chasing off the thief.

I also saw the leaning tower of hermits this afternoon. I tried to get a picture, but it tumbled before I could snap a picture. I had 4 of my 5 hermits all on top of each other. It looked like they were trying to get up higher to reach a rock.

 

[thomas_neil]

Update from over the weekend.

Did a 20% water change, starting this week I’m going to change to weekly 10% changes.

I also installed the new light. Love the shimmer and the color from the AI prime.

For new inhabitants I got a couple Astoria snails and a couple more hermits.

I also got a cleaner shrimp and a bi color blenny.

Everyone seems to be getting along. Waited about 10 min trying to get a good picture with everyone up front.

Ill be adding more coral soon. Any suggestions? I know I want to do a zoa harder up front and maybe a acan garden half way up the rock. I’m not a huge fan of shrooms but any other suggestions would be appreciated. I have my light running at the BRS recommended lps settings. My main goal with the tank is mostly softies and lps.

 

[thomas_neil]

Looking for some input on flow. Currently only have the return pump and the hygger nano (1600GPH) on the right glass pane blowing behind the rock work. I have some decent movement on the pipe organ on the top of the rock work and my sand doesn't blow around at all after the initial set up.

I just placed an order with WWC for another pipe organ, some more zoas, GSP and Xenia for the back panel for nutrient uptake (since I'm trying to make this tank as natural as possible). I also ordered one of their LPS random packs.

Should I get another wave maker or see how the one I have works first? I ordered a frag rack and plan on growing everything out on that for a little bit before I move them to the rocks.

 

[thomas_neil]

Sorry for bad pictures. WWC order came today. Had to let them float for about 3 hours until my lunch break so everyone’s a little upset. Once they open up I’ll spot feed some reef roids to hopefully help them out.
Order:
Green Duncan
Juicy fruit pipe organ
GSP (for nutrient uptake, going on the mid to upper back panel)
Xenia( also for nutrients and going on the lower back panel)
Winters pipe organ
Bob Marley zoa
Scrambled eggs zoa
Dragon soul goniastrea
Christmas favia
Lemon lime favites

Once they open up and get comfortable I’ll post more pictures.

 

[thomas_neil]

Quick question, Ive noticed my water is starting to get cloudy. I think some if it might be from my pistol shrimp but some might be from water quality?

I don't run a skimmer since the tank is in my office but I do run carbon and filter floss. Any suggestions?

 

[thomas_neil]

Wanted to get a tank update in mainly for me to follow along on how things have changed.

Since my last update I've mounted all the coral that where in the frag rack to the scape. I also picked up another acan, a daisy clove, a torch, and a branching hammer.

I've also introduced the last fish to the set up - a red fire fish.

For equipment upgrades I added an Mp-10 set to reef crest during the day at 50% max and 10% constant flow at night.

I've also beefed up the cleanup crew to 6 astria snails, 4 nassarius snails, one hitch hiker snail that lives in the sand but eats algae, and whatever hermits I still have crawling around. I plan on doing an order from reef cleaners to get a couple more snails my LFS doesn't carry.

I'm switching salt from red sea black bucket to blue bucket. It's been a lot harder sustaining the elevated Alk levels with just all for reef.

I've also started using GFO to keep phosphates around .08 and stopped feeding pellet food and switch to rods food.

I've uploaded a couple photos to track progression.