20G red sea nano - first reef tank

[Lyngsaa]

I decided to make my first journal on reef2reef. I am currently almost 4 weeks into the build of my very first reef tank. Have had freshwater for years, but reefing is a completely different animal with a very steep learning curve. But here is my current tank:

Red Sea nano 20G with reefled50
Tunze 9001dc skimmer
Jebao dow10 cirkulation
Tunze ato

My plan for this tank is pretty ordinary with a pair of clown fish, maybe a wrasse or blenny.

As for corals the initial plan would be
- blastomussa
- euphyllia (frogspawn, hammer and Maybe torch)
- acans
- gsp
- rico's

So in a nutshell lps and softies. Not ready to even think about sps. Just want something relatively easy to manager. Plan is to fill up with smaller frags and build from there.

I am planning to run Triton 'other method' as i do not have refugium. But that will come when i start to add corals.

So far i have completed my nitrogen cycle with amonia and nitrite at 0 for the past few days, but my nitrate is through the roof. Done a few 25% water changes and today i started vodka dosing in order to get my nitrate under control. So far i have not seen any algea but pretty sure they

will show their ugly face soon enough.

Picture of the tank as of today.

 

[Montiman]

Awesome build! Following.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Short update. 5 weeks into the process and 1 week into vodka dosing, and seeing small decrease in nitrate but still close to 100, so some way to go still. I testet my other parameters as well and 2 of them a bit off

Alk. 10.2 - puzzled since my salt mixes to 8.5. Suspect my rocks (real reef rock) are releasing alk. But honestly no clue why it is this high.

Phos 0.0 - for me a bit more concerning. Guess reason would be 100% lack of life Stock (still no cuc or fish in the tank). Could Also be my test kit thats off (red sea pro)

Spent last few days trying to plan corals for the tank. Will start making a proper coral scape plan. Yes i like to plan ahead but since im a complete beginner there is a steep learning curve and trying to cover all bases as well as i can....

 

[Lyngsaa]

Sometimes I am just such a tool. In my infinitte wisdom I decided that I should increase my biological filtration and added 2 Brightwell bio cubes to the tank. This bright idea led to my tank did a new cycle.

So it's back to square one with Nitrite at 0,5 (Ammonia is 0). Good news is my Nitrate is going down nicely and is at 50 at the moment. When it get's below 10 I will add a pair of clown fish.

Note to self: If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

 

[Lyngsaa]

After 2 month of waiting and stabilizing my parameters i finally added the first fish. Not very original but it had to be a pair of clown fish. My son named them Find & Nemo (makes more sense in Denmark as Find is an actual male name).

But first real milestone done, and very nice to finally having life in the tank!

 

[Lyngsaa]

A week ago, i added my first test corals: blastomussa and 2 zoas (scrambled eggs, and a bbeb). Think i killed the bbeb, by being a "bit" generous with the glue (read - i drowned the poor thing). But the other corals are doing fine, at least to my eyes.

Next addition is a pink streaked wrasse that should arrive later this week.

Only things that puzzle me is a complete lack of algaes!! None what so ever. So not Even put any cuc in the tank yet.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Things are moving forward. Blastos still alive and to my eye seems Happy. Melted a few zoas but also bought a few more frags:

Zoa, utter Chaos
Zoa, bam bam
Ricordea florida

All frags are
right now resting in the sand getting used to their new home.

Parameters are stable and currently for carbon dosing using aqua forrest NP-. Have a bit of diatoms but my snails seems to do a good job keeping it under control.

 

[SaltTankMan]

Nice work!

 

[Lyngsaa]

Wow! Just learned that you need to be vigilant. All started with i found out my refractometer was off calibration even though i calibrated it less than 2 weeks ago. It meant my salinity in reality was only 32 ppm. So i started mixing New sw to make a small waterchange to start bringing salinity back in check.

My dkh have been puzzling me for a while as it test at 10.4-11 even though the salt Should mix to 7.8-8.3 according to the bucket but i thought my rock or sand was leaching calcium. But i decided to test the new saltwater i just made and it read 20dkh!!!! After a few hours of panic and googling i found out i somehow managed to put the ro filter Into the canister the Wrong way so it didn't filter out anything. So in reality i have been putting tab water Into my tank....

holy crap, all this because I did not pay attention.

Fixed my ro/di unit, mixed New saltwater which is now mixing perfect dkh. And replaced my ato water. So now I can start slowly raising my salinity.

Stupid, stupid, stupid man....

 

[Lyngsaa]

Slow and steady moving forward. Past few weeks spend battling diatom outbreak but it's almost gone. An army of snails made short work of the diatoms. Got a green hammer and my first acans. My newest zoa are growing nicely with several New Heads and hopefully next week i will get a frag of sunny d. Then I can start to mount my zoas permanent.

So right now things are moving ahead quite nicely.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Short update. Tank been up for almost 5 month now. Added a few new corals and a cleaner shrimp , and last week i got a few sps (2 acroporas and 1 monti) for free from a fellow reefer. So far they are still alive, but will be interesting to see how this will play out as my tank is still new and not very mature.

But everything is growing and apart from battling with low phos (dosing quite a bit the last week or so) all moving along nicely.

 

[champtain]

Awesome tank! How do you like that light & skimmer? I’m still using the stock skimmer, but it’s fairly inconsistent.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Thank you! As for light i'm pretty happy with the stock reef led 50. Easy to setup and corals seems happy. Only minus is red coulors does not really 'pop' with this light. I replaced the skimmer to a tunze 9001, a lot smaller and leaves the possibility to add a reactor/uv if needed. Stock skimmer is excellent, but need to break in.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Short update. Tank just turned 7 month old and is moving on nicely without major issues. Corals are growing nicely and just started dosing Tropic Marin all-for-reef. Getting it dialed in is still work in progress.

Had an icp done at the 6 month mark. Only issue was low iodine, which i have been slowly increasing

My Bali slimer acro died unfortunately, pretty sure due to too low light but got a acro gomezi which seems Very Happy and growing. Plan is to get a grafted monti i will mount om the back wall. But starting to struggle with real estate for more corals....

A few bad pictures.

 

[mazaeus]

Wow, it is amazing how your reef is evolving! Looking forward to seeing more pictures! I am awaiting my Nano Max and yours inspire me a lot! ;P

 

[Lyngsaa]

Wow, it is amazing how your reef is evolving! Looking forward to seeing more pictures! I am awaiting my Nano Max and yours inspire me a lot! ;P

Thanks, for the kind words and best of luck with your Max nano

it has so far been a good learning experience for me and fortunately without any major issues.

 

[Lyngsaa]

Small update. Tank is now 9 month old, and still going strong. Though having a few issues.

First off is i have won a nice selection of bryopsis. Bought some reef flux rx i will try for treatment. Hopefully it will kill the dang things.

I am battling like many others with low ph. Mine is running 7.7-8. Installed a co2 scrubber which helped but not there yes, so next week i will start dosing kalkwasser- Going to start slow and supplement with 2-part to keep alk/ca in check.

All the joys of a nano reef

 

[Lyngsaa]

Had my first death :-( My sea hare, Nuddi died today. Was sleeping a lot the last few days but was eating just fine. But long story short this morning he was dead. Obviously he was laid to rest in a small ceremoni and my son picked some flowers. Amazing how your pets grow on you.