A.T.T.R’s return to the hobby 20 gallon build thread.

a.t.t.r

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After being out of the saltwater hobby since apx 2009 when I had whole rooms dedicated to coral I was clearly Addicted To The Reef.

I have finally settled down a little and have decided to start an addiction back up…. i mean get back into reef aquariums. This is my thread for my 20 gallon mixed reef tank. I can see lots has changed in this hobby since I left and this feels like a strange new world.

I started with a stand I happened to have in the garage that was being used as a shelf and a canister filter that my buddy gave me years ago and was never opened I have since added a in tank overflow box with auto top off sensor and moved the canister Intake into the box.

In the past with multiple big tanks I always had to diy my lighting with this small tank I decided I wanted the best of the best and bought a radion 15.

The rock in the tank is a box of rock from an unknown tank that has been sitting dry for years. It may have been my buddies old reef. I have seeded this rock with under a pound of rubble from a LFS sump.
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a.t.t.r

a.t.t.r

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While I like the screen top mainly for fish jumps and out of fear if the light falls I will eventually remove it and put a wood canopy on the tank I think and mount the light to a rail inside. It will be an open top canopy and the primary goal is to simply hide the lights and other equipment. Under the tank you can see the top off system controller and storage tank that holds a little over a gallon of distilled water.


On order.
-tunze 9001 skimmer
-diffuser for light
-canister to be used as kalk reactor
-kalkwasser
-koralia nano power head
 
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a.t.t.r

a.t.t.r

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Koralia came in I’m still debating it’s placement I would prefer it in the side but it’s too large Maybe a mp10 in the near future.

Interesting growth on this snail shell of a snail that died. I actually popped it off to see if it was alive and it is. Put it back on the shell in the same place and it reattached some type of filter feeder I am guessing.

micro brittle star if you look really close you can see an arm popping out of the rock This was dead rock I seeded the tank with under a pound of rubble a few weeks ago and am shocked to see things already popping up including tons of copepods

Now the bad news. Clowns have ich. Nothing I can really do for them short of setting up a separate 5 gallon tank and treating them. The case is mild right now and I’m hoping they fight it off. Also last time I am going to that LFS they clearly do not run copper in the fish systems.
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a.t.t.r

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Despite the LEDS open top minimal power draw on pumps and cold house the tank is hitting 83 degrees during the day and 78 at night. I have ordered a …rather expensive … fan from ghl. Last time I order stuff at night.
 
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a.t.t.r

a.t.t.r

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Learning today that everyone has apparently stopped caring about temperature under 84 degrees. 10 years ago everyone was flipping out if a tank went above 78. Times have changed.
 
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a.t.t.r

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About to enter the ugly phase I think.
clowns ich looks much better I have been over feeding them to hopfully give energy to over come.
tanks temperature is a high of 83.1 low 79.3 give or take 0.5 since my two meters are in disagreement.
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a.t.t.r

a.t.t.r

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The 9001 is here. Sadly to add the spacer you need to pry off the premounted magnet.
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These Little pins are very weak and once you pull off the original fail to hold the magnet correctly. I used a drop of acetone to glue them on.
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Looks pretty good in the tank and takes up minimal space. I do with it had a side mount however
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a.t.t.r

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Small kalk system hooked to ato. Will just shake it every few days. Also diffuser came in. It is very crappy made but I like the result

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a.t.t.r

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Tank is a little cloudy I thought micro bubbles. Turned off all the pumps planning to turn them on one by one until I found the source. Then I noticed that the cloudiness was particulate and slowly sinking so it is either calcium precipitation. Or far more likely based on the various sizes of the precipitate little tiny copepod bodies. Since I have just had an explosion of copepod life easily over 100 per square inch on the front glass last night
 

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Love the setup . Any ordinary 12v fan should be able to bring that temp down to 78. Although 83 is not too bad unless it’s sudden and very frequent thing . I have had 86 due to some mishap in my picos and things didn’t crash .
 
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a.t.t.r

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Love the setup . Any ordinary 12v fan should be able to bring that temp down to 78. Although 83 is not too bad unless it’s sudden and very frequent thing . I have had 86 due to some mishap in my picos and things didn’t crash .
Actually got a ghl two fan on there today controlled by a Inkbird controller. Comes on at 81 off at 80.
 
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Got the NERO 3 pump today to replace my koralia. WOW this thing is strong. I places it on the back wall and it blends right in. Turning it on and having it default to 100 percent must have been the worst few seconds of my clowns life. I currently have it set to 1-55 percent with low variance what ever all that means. The thing came with no instructions. I also got my new test kit today and have yet to use it. SPS monties seem to be healing up quite well and I am doing all i can to try and keep my tank from actually entering the Ugly phase note the bag of GFO in the corner.

I also ordered a few lens kits today because I am still not happy with how my pictures turn out. They are getting better but even adjusting white balance i am still not happy.
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Starting to get into a little bit of an ugly phase. Upping the skimming and clean up crew a bit. Got more snails and a few lettuce sea slugs to try and wipe out a few patches of bryopsis. If they fail I’ll go the flux route. Got a set of porcelain crabs but sadly both are female. Picked up two more corals.

CA 470 mg 1400 dkh 6.5 Phosphate and nitrate test arriving Tuesday
 
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I don’t think the pretty Monti is going to make it. It retracted polyps for several days. Bleached a bit. Was looking better then today looks 10 times worse. I have turned down the lights to 20 percent and am slowly ramping them back up over the next 5 days to see how it does.
 
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