My first attempt at Reefing

[CollinsLL2]

Hello everybody, I've been reading here for a while now, and decided to give reef keeping a go. I'm starting small with only a 20g tank. I plan to upgrade to a larger tank after I gain some experience on a smaller scale.

For now I only have 2 clownfish, and a CuC consisting of an emerald crab, blue leg hermit crabs, red leg hermit crabs, scarlet hermits, some nassarius snails, turbo snails, and cerith snails. I don't plan to add much more until I get a larger tank, most of the fish I really like would enjoy the larger, established tank much more. But I do plan on adding an anemone for my clowns.

Using a canister filter for now because my current stand has no space for a sump. For now it's working for me, I had to use a piece of 2" pvc stuck down into the sand bed with openings cut at the top, then put the intake for the canister filter into that to create the overflow box effect and get rid of the surface slick, not as nice as a drilled overflow but it gets the job done.

Tank params: (api test accuracy level, tested weekly unless something is added)
dKh- 9-13 (struggling to bring it down to 8-11 range)
Ph- 8.2-8.4
Ammonia- 0
No2- 0
No3- 0-5.0
Cal - 420
Phosphate- 0.0-0.25

Only Kent Purple Tech is added, 5ml every other night, on nights I don't feed.
Feeding flake food with brine added (pre mixed) and two little fishies marine snow every other day.

Lighting is T5, Odyssea fixture, ATI bulbs: 1x purple plus 1x aquablue special 1x blue plus 1x actinic. Blues on 12hrs white/purple 4 hrs. Should this be modified for optimal growth?

Some Shots of what will be my Zoa rock, I'd like to fill it up with a couple more varieties (I really love zoas and palys)

This came free with my CuC, the website called it Blued Eyed Monster zoas. They are finally opening slightly more than seen in this picture, after over a month, and have put up with me moving them around, and adjusting my kH from around 15 and cal up from only 350-380.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my tank. As I said I'm new to this and I'm looking forward to learning more about it, so feel free to offer me any tips or pointers if you see anything I'm doing wrong, or not doing that I should be.

 

[MaiReef]

Welcome to R2R! Looks like a good start.

 

[kevin5]

i am new as well but looks nice well done

 

[singleshot]

Welcome to R2R!! I like the scape

 

[CollinsLL2]

Update: Added some new frags after attending my first frag swap this weekend, what a great way to start a tank :)

 

[CollinsLL2]

Week 3: Moved some things around, took some frags off of the rack and placed them, all seem to be happy with their new spots. Tank params are stable, but I'm having an algae outbreak that I cant seem to get under control. I can't figure out where it's coming from. Phosphate testing at 0.0 (api test kit accuracy level) I don't think I'm over feeding, I give a small pinch of flake food that has brine mixed into it and 5ml of marine snow, every other day. (as of yesterday I'm also feeding ReefRoids, will sub it for marine snow when this bottle is gone, very happy with the results I saw from just the first feeding with it) Doing weekly 2 gallon water changes with RO/DI for the last 2 weeks, this is increased from 1 time per month before I started seeing the algae. This week I've added Seachem PhosGuard to the canister filter, and started using API Marine AlgaeFix as directed, so we'll see how that goes. Any tips on this would be really appreciated.

Photo Updates:

My clowns have settled into a spot literally 2 inches in front of my nem, but wont go inside lol. They sleep in the cave to the right of the nem.

Added GSP, and moved a few things around.

Starting to fill out a bit. Bought a good sized chunk of live rock from my LFS and broke it up to help seed the coralline.

sorry for the quality of some of the pics, sometimes I just cant get the phone to focus through the glass.

New mixing station, bigger than I need for my 20g, but will be really nice to already have when I upgrade later. I'm thinking 125 or 180, I have a space picked out where a 72" tank would look really nice.

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Hello everybody, I've been reading here for a while now, and decided to give reef keeping a go. I'm starting small with only a 20g tank. I plan to upgrade to a larger tank after I gain some experience on a smaller scale.

For now I only have 2 clownfish, and a CuC consisting of an emerald crab, blue leg hermit crabs, red leg hermit crabs, scarlet hermits, some nassarius snails, turbo snails, and cerith snails. I don't plan to add much more until I get a larger tank, most of the fish I really like would enjoy the larger, established tank much more. But I do plan on adding an anemone for my clowns.

Using a canister filter for now because my current stand has no space for a sump. For now it's working for me, I had to use a piece of 2" pvc stuck down into the sand bed with openings cut at the top, then put the intake for the canister filter into that to create the overflow box effect and get rid of the surface slick, not as nice as a drilled overflow but it gets the job done.

Tank params: (api test accuracy level, tested weekly unless something is added)
dKh- 9-13 (struggling to bring it down to 8-11 range)
Ph- 8.2-8.4
Ammonia- 0
No2- 0
No3- 0-5.0
Cal - 420
Phosphate- 0.0-0.25

Only Kent Purple Tech is added, 5ml every other night, on nights I don't feed.
Feeding flake food with brine added (pre mixed) and two little fishies marine snow every other day.

Lighting is T5, Odyssea fixture, ATI bulbs: 1x purple plus 1x aquablue special 1x blue plus 1x actinic. Blues on 12hrs white/purple 4 hrs. Should this be modified for optimal growth?

Some Shots of what will be my Zoa rock, I'd like to fill it up with a couple more varieties (I really love zoas and palys)

This came free with my CuC, the website called it Blued Eyed Monster zoas. They are finally opening slightly more than seen in this picture, after over a month, and have put up with me moving them around, and adjusting my kH from around 15 and cal up from only 350-380.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my tank. As I said I'm new to this and I'm looking forward to learning more about it, so feel free to offer me any tips or pointers if you see anything I'm doing wrong, or not doing that I should be.

Hi CollinsLL2,

This is a good start! You have such adorable tank :)
How is it now? Have you made any changes?

Zhenya

 

[Companykid91]

Looking great

 

[ngoodermuth]

The algae is part of a "new tank" it should start to settle down in a few months. Personally, I wouldn't worry about marine snow or other additives like that in 20g. All it does is add unnecessary nutrients to an already small volume of water. Just feed your fish well, and they will feed your corals (poop).

 

[sk8elenex92]

Looks like a good start, but slow it down. The sps corals need stable ALK. One of the most important parameters for SPS. You are going to go through the uglies. The tank will have a diatom/algae out break but let it die off. So far so good. Patient is the hardest part of the hobby.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Beautiful reef!

That's some good frags you picked up.

 

[CollinsLL2]

The algae is part of a "new tank" it should start to settle down in a few months. Personally, I wouldn't worry about marine snow or other additives like that in 20g. All it does is add unnecessary nutrients to an already small volume of water. Just feed your fish well, and they will feed your corals (poop).

Thanks for the advise. Doing this, feeding only flake to the clowns, will still be enough to keep my coral healthy and growing?
Should I be removing algae manually where I can during water changes or should I just leave it and let it suck up the nutes then die?

Looks like a good start, but slow it down. The sps corals need stable ALK. One of the most important parameters for SPS. You are going to go through the uglies. The tank will have a diatom/algae out break but let it die off. So far so good. Patient is the hardest part of the hobby.

Agree I need to slow down, I wasn't supposed to add as much as I have already lol.
When you say stable, do you mean it should stay consistently at 9, or in the 8-11 window? Currently it seems to be slightly higher (around 10-11) for a day or so after water changes, then slightly lower (7-8) just before its time for water changes, I've read that's normal, was I misinformed?

 

[hatrix11]

That nem looks dope.

 

[hatrix11]

You could get a pvc pipe 2-3" and catch a clown and drop him through the pipe onto the nem. Once they touch it they'll know. And once one sees the other in it he'll go in it as well.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Thanks for the advise. Doing this, feeding only flake to the clowns, will still be enough to keep my coral healthy and growing?
Should I be removing algae manually where I can during water changes or should I just leave it and let it suck up the nutes then die?

Yep, you can also mix it up with the clowns feeding. They'll appreciate a variety of foods, maybe rotate in some frozen mysis or spirulina loaded brine. My clowns go nuts for cyclopes. Just be sure to rinse any frozen foods first to reduce adding additional phosphates. You can feed often in small amounts, just only as much as they will eat in a minute or two.

Some people will say to manually remove as much algae as you can. Personally, I'm just cycling an upgrade and have decided to let it go this time around. I feel like stirring it up only made it spread and take longer to clean up.

If you want, you can add a bag of chemi-pure or set-up a GFO reactor to help keep your phosphates down. But, when adding phosphate removers you need to be careful not to add too much too fast because it is possible to make your water *too* clean and hurt your corals and inverts. As with anything in this hobby, start slow...research first, make changes slowly, and observe for several weeks or more before making any changes again.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Oh, and after your tank settles in and the algae subsides you can experiment with coral foods or supplements if that's what you want to do. I just don't suggest it in the beginning, as they don't really *need* it and they have a tendency to muck up your water quality.

 

[roboshark]

Welcome!
Your setup looks nice! Looking forward to seeing future updates!
By the way I really like Zoas/Palys too. :)

 

[ItsAName]

How did you find a frag swap?

 

[Blacktank]

Nice looking tank. Be patient, you are on the right track. Keep up the good work.

 

[CollinsLL2]

How did you find a frag swap?

Pure luck lol. I stopped by my LFS and he had a stack of flyers at the counter, was the first I had ever heard of anything like that happening, and it was only 10 minutes away from my house. It was really cool because we dont really have any saltwater shops around here, so was nice to see such a wide variety in person instead of just online pictures.