20g Mistress

[beardedman11]

Well, I’ve been out of the hobby for about a year now and had this opportunity appear so decided it was time to start another tank. My last tank was an IM 20g peninsula so most of the equipment I haven’t sold or didn’t want to sell will be brought over for this build. Planning on a mixed reef with mostly zoas but will have some other things as well.

Equipment:

• Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion Pro 20
• Mighty jet 326gph return pump
• 24” 4 bulb ati fixture with reef brite led stripe controlled with apex jr classic
• AI Nero 3
• Tunze 3155 ATO.
• Neotherm 150W heater controlled with BRS monitor.
• 7 stage BRS 150GPD RO/DI with booster(once I fix it)
• Frankenstein stand. Put together from two existing stands. So definitely not the prettiest but will do just fine for me. Lol

Rock/Sand/Salt/Media

• 20lbs LifeRock Dry Live Rock-Caribsea
• 20lbs Carib-Sea Caribbean Live Sand
• Fritz Blue Box mixed at 35PPT using RO/DI. I just bought a 80g bucket of tropic marin amd will switch once the fritz is gone.
• Blue and white filter floss.
• Some sort of gfo and carbon. Not sure if it’ll just be gfo, AF phosphate minus, or rowa-phos.

Starting up the tank was done with some 1ml of janitorial strength ammonia and will be adding a drop of Aqua forest bio s in for about 2 weeks. Will be testing for nitrites and nitrates and once the rates have gone up and my dirty cycle stage begins it’ll be time for some fish.

 

[beardedman11]

Going to try for fish and coral update list stocking plans for fish would be something like this.

Livestock

• Wyoming White Clownfish
• 
  

Coral List
Black widow anemone

Zoa:

• Bam bam
• Exosphere
• Mesosphere
• Nightmare
• Fairy Farts
• Speckled Kraks
• A** Kraks
• Rainbow Yoda
• Burning Ember
• Aphrodite
• Bozo Birthday
• White Walker
• Rainbow Incinerator
• Electric Oompa Loompa
• 
  

LPS:

• New York Knick
• Dragon Soul
• ASD Holy Grail
• Golden hammer
• Duncan
• Hollywood stunner chalice
• Green Plate
• ER Blue Raspberry

SPS:

• Chili pepper monti

Softies:

• OG Bounce
• Sunkist/reefkoi rhoadactis shroom
• Jawbreaker shroom
• Superman rhodactis shroom
• Orange rhoadactis shroom

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[beardedman11]

Well, I’ve been adding 1 drop of AF bio s in the early afternoon and tested the tank tonight. Ammonia is still up there and haven’t gotten any nitrites yet so didn’t check for nitrates yet. Set up the apex jr and so far only have the led bar on during the day. Don’t need to run the t5 while it’s cycling. Not to much more to report besides looking at all the old photos of the corals I’ve had and tanks as well. Lol

 

[JerryB1232]

Following as well, I want to see those t5s grow some corals.

 

[Tahoe61]

I love that ATI T5 fixture. Wish they were still readily available. Had one over a IM 20, boy did it grow the sps.

 

[beardedman11]

I love that ATI T5 fixture. Wish they were still readily available. Had one over a IM 20, boy did it grow the sps.

Yeah I’ve mostly done halides or t5 for my tanks. I just love the color you get off those. But I’ve had a Few radion g4 pro and probably my favorite a reef breeder value fixture.

Following as well, I want to see those t5s grow some corals.

Thanks. Planning mixed with lots of zoas and we’ll see how it goes and get some easy sps. I know birds of paradise and bubblegum digi are a must.

 

[beardedman11]

Well, going to check the parameters today but should be ready for the first water change. Probably start it off with a 5g water change depending on how high the nitrates are. Other news I won a tunze ato off eBay for $100 of course that’s after I bought a cheap one off Amazon so I’ll be sending that one back to buy a wave maker. Order of floss came in as well. Intanks does a great job and like supporting them out when I can.
Guy gave me a few sps for trading some parts off a mp10 I had and so far by a huge surprise it’s doing ok. The acro died next day but the green hydnaphora is doing well. Bright green

 

[beardedman11]

Well, tested the water and ammonia was still at 0.25-0.50 but nitrates were up in the 30’s so mixed up 5g of Fritz and did a quick water change. The blue devil has been a pita already kicking up sand all over the place and digging or just swimming fast enough to move the sand and causing particles to stir up and I hate that so he’s getting deported with the water change. Had to take all 4 pieces of rock out of the tank to catch him and figure it’s easier doing that before it’s filled with coral. He’s sitting in the net till someone picks him up for free. lol
Speaking of coral i ended up stopping at the madreefer and saw a few nice shrooms so I bought 2 annd he ended up giving me another one so have some corals now. Also bought 6 snails to start the clean up process for the new tank syndrome. And bought a 80g bucket of tropic Marin for when the Fritz is all gone. Figured I would splurge with the better salt since I’ll only be doing 5g water changes every other week or so. Here a few photos of the shroom.

 

[Anna K]

Did you ever figure out which fancy clowns you wanted to get? Love the update on seeing the frags you picked up

 

[beardedman11]

Did you ever figure out which fancy clowns you wanted to get? Love the update on seeing the frags you picked up

Haven’t figured that out. Saw a few at petco and madreefer while I was down there. Maybe a nice bullet pair or snowstorm. I usually go with a premium pair of snowflakes with some good blue streaks but we’ll see what I find. lol pic of a nice clown at petco. They were on sale for $37.

 

[beardedman11]

Well, tank has been doing well the shrooms are all pretty big and fluffy and happy. Had a friend go to a meeting and traded some zoas for a mini colony of golden hammer and he ended up cutting a few heads off for me. And had another buddy doing a water change and gave me some more coral. Huge chalice, chili pepper monti, bam bam zoas, and couple green shrooms.

 

[beardedman11]

Well, it’s been a busy week. Buddy gave me a huge piece of Hollywood stunner and I found a guy wanting to trade me 4 JB babies off this colony for a huge piece. And another guy traded a nice 6 head Duncan for a piece. Also found a guy selling 25g rimless tank with a black widow anemone and other stuff for cheap so I ended up buying all of that to sell or trade for some more stuff. It came with a golden nugget maroon clown which I don’t want so probably going to give him away.

 

[beardedman11]

Wow has a lot happened over the last month. I'm thinking my PO4 went up after I crushed up some dry rock I had in the garage, to put in a small homemade basket. I kept having a JB shroom wandering off from the others and wanted to get him to attach to a rock. Couple days after adding the rock my zoas seem to get ticked off and close up and started to get algae on the plugs. Tested the water and everything seems fine but nitrates and PO4. So did a quick 5g water change along with changing the fliter floss out everyday for a week and finally started to see some of them opening up the next couple days. Talk about being nervous. All the hammers and torches are looking great along with the green plate. Duncan is getting bigger and black widow needs to move out of the box.

Now for some exciting news going to look at a reefer 200 tomoorw and maybe upgrading this 20g to that if everything looks well. Plus, I've started a 45g frag tank. and have a 90g rimless reef savvy sitting in the garage waiting to be set up as well. Things are starting to take off here.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Wow has a lot happened over the last month. I'm thinking my PO4 went up after I crushed up some dry rock I had in the garage, to put in a small homemade basket. I kept having a JB shroom wandering off from the others and wanted to get him to attach to a rock. Couple days after adding the rock my zoas seem to get ticked off and close up and started to get algae on the plugs. Tested the water and everything seems fine but nitrates and PO4. So did a quick 5g water change along with changing the fliter floss out everyday for a week and finally started to see some of them opening up the next couple days. Talk about being nervous. All the hammers and torches are looking great along with the green plate. Duncan is getting bigger and black widow needs to move out of the box.

Now for some exciting news going to look at a reefer 200 tomoorw and maybe upgrading this 20g to that if everything looks well. Plus, I've started a 45g frag tank. and have a 90g rimless reef savvy sitting in the garage waiting to be set up as well. Things are starting to take off here.

That will be an awesome upgrade if you can get that!

 

[beardedman11]

Wow! forgot I had this going. And was starting to put together a new thread to start documenting the reef tank again. Or attempt too. lol Going to make a new one with the upgrade.