My First Salty Build! 20g Long

Evan West

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*Pictures to come as I progress through the setup!

First off I would like to welcome everyone to my 20g nano reef build and my very first salt tank! I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in my research leading up to the founding of this tank.

A bit about my fish keeping background to begin. I first got into fish keeping 2 years ago after digging up my families old 10g tank that use to sit in our living room on an end table. I remembered how pathetic and frankly neglected it was looking at it. Like most “Family fish tanks” it was way over stocked and improperly cared for when we had it set up. Anyways I got to thinking….and thinking some more….and then research and then that led to 2 years of freshwater fish keeping slowly working my way up to a 37g bow front planted tank. Now with my dad interested in the hobby he has taken on that tank at his house (under my supervision) and I now have an excuse to set up a salt tank!

For this tank I chose a 20g long tank because they are cheap, and you don’t seem to see many 20 longs and being the kind of person I am I like different, sometimes not for the better tho haha! On top of that the nearly 40 gallon tank that the bow front was, was quite frankly a bit too much to put in my tinny college apartment so thus the downsize.

Now on to what you all probably clicked on this to read about! My first Salty! As I said the tank will be a 20g long tank and I plan to keep LPS and softies. The equipment I will be using is as follows:

· 20g long

· Fluval g3 filter (already owned this and due to how I will run it and the ease of maintenance it should be fine for salt even tho it’s a canister)

· Filter will run a simple mechanical filter, Seachem Matrix, and activated carbon/two little fishies phosban mix

· Hydor Pico Evo-Mag 180 Circulation Pump

· Cobalt Neo-Therm 100w heater

· General no name refractometer from Amazon

· Kessil a360we tuna blue

· Kessil goose neck

· Goose neck 90 degree adapter

· Salifert Test kits for all parameters

· I am using Agra-alive special grade Fiji pink sand form Caribsea

· Live rock from the LFS

· IO Biospira to get the cycle moving along

· IO Reef Crystal salt

· APC battery backup and surge protector (got for free from when work updated the offices and its better than nothing)


That should Do it for the equipment I think so now on to the stock!

· 2x Clown fish (probably SA designer clowns of some kind)

· 1x Orange Striped Prawn Goby

· 1x Firefish

· 1x Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

· 1x Porcelain Crab

· 2x Nassarius snail

· 2x Trochus Snail


For corals is still pretty much a tossup but as I said I plan on LPS and softies but here are a few I know I do want.

· Green frogspawn

· Green Hammer Coral

· Green Toadstool (idea is clowns host this)

· Zoas

· Mushrooms

· Fungia

· Candy canes

· Aussie Lord

· Scolymia

· Favia

And whatever else I find that I can like and know I can care for or fit in my tank.


Thanks for reading up to this point if you are still with me! I will post updates and pictures as things arrive in the mail and I begin to set up the tank! Ive got lots of stuff coming in in the next few weeks! Feel free to make general comments, and give advice or voice concerns!
 

jsker

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LOL, your father has the bug now:) keep us posted with your build
 
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Evan West

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LOL, your father has the bug now:) keep us posted with your build

Lol yes he does! It all started when I asked if i could keep my 37 bow there over the summer and when I went to take it back he asked if I could help him set one up and I instantly grinned and knew I was gonna do salt and leave that take there, I had been looking for an excuse.
 

saltyfilmfolks

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Welcome to the hobby. Look into an auto top off if you don't have one. Only thing I saw missing from your list. Salinity is very important.
 
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Evan West

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Welcome to the hobby. Look into an auto top off if you don't have one. Only thing I saw missing from your list. Salinity is very important.

Im planning to pick up an osmolator eventually but I, while possibly not entirely evident due to the high end equipment choices, am operating off a limited budget. I felt the 200 was better used in the lighting and other equipment than the top off when a bit of daily dillegance should take care of it for now. That all said tho yes I plan on getting one as soon as i can, any suggestions? As mentioned currently i plan on getting an osmolatior.
 
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Evan West

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Got my first shipment of goodies today! Some digbat over at amazon decided that it would be a great idea to pack the 20lb bag of sand and my Cobalt heater in the same box so the heater box got beat up but the heater is perfectly fine so in the end its okay. Including a few things I already had I now have:

· Fluval g3 filter

· Hydor Pico Evo-Mag 180 Circulation Pump

· Cobalt Neo-Therm 100w heater

· General no name refractometer from Amazon

· Agra-alive special grade Fiji pink sand form Caribsea

· IO Biospira to get the cycle moving along

· IO Reef Crystal salt

· APC battery backup and surge protector

· Seachem Matrix, and activated carbon/two little fishies phosban mix

I also picked up a tetra brand net and some Hikari seaweed extreme small pellets to feed along with the mysis shrimp. For some reason only my Alk Test kit was in this shipment, apparently the rest will be in the next one!

Also something I didn't intend on but discovered was that my Hydor pico mag can actually fit in my 5g Uline water jugs so that makes mixing salt easy as I dont have to buy 5g buckets now and ill pick up another pico mag just for this purpose! Thought I would share this as perhaps its a useful tip for a few people.

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Evan West

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Just for a discussion topic seeming how I bought one and have pictures of it above, how do you guys feel about the Neo-Therm heaters? Ive used them for 2 years in my fresh tanks and never had an issue so thats why I bought another and i still trust them however I hear high wattage ones are prone to exploding?! Seems everyone either hates or loves them, what do you think?
 
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Evan West

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WE HAVE A TANK!

I got my stand in yesterday as well as the rest of my test kits (excuse the dirty car, its my daily and need a clean badly but living in an apartment makes getting a vacuum to it hard and im to cheap to pay for a detailing lol!) I also went and picked up the tank (Built by Jessica apparently haha!) and got it situated on the stand. I started mixing salt water as well and as soon as I have 20g mixed up I will take a trip to the LFS to get live rock and then we will have water in this tank (lets hope Jessica's handy work holds up!) I also did a bit of modification to my power head to increase flow. The stock intake strainer for the pump restricted the flow to 180gph however I could use a little more so I took a dremel to the strainer and opened it up a bit. This helped some but I think ill eventually need to get a bigger power head for the tank, all is not lost tho as this one works well for mixing my water in the small 5g jugs so ill keep it for that purpose.

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Evan West

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I had the same tank and stand as a frag tank, now it's been used as my QT.
One suggestion would be to get one of these paper blinds from homedepot to cover the stand. I think I paid less than $8
Welcome to R2R:)

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What skimmer is that? Ive been trying to decide if I want to run one or not but with no sump it needs to go in tank and I really dont want to put a large piece of equipment in the tank unless I have to.

I was also contemplating getting a sheet of wood, painting it black and then screwing it to the back side of the stand. This would give me a place to mount that APC back up so I could properly manage drip loops and wires. Your idea tho would look good on the other 3 sides, ill have to look into that!
 

Salty1962

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Looks like a great start! Watch that heater, there have been many people that have reported those heaters to burst and ruin their tank. Just an FYI;) Keep us posted.
 

Salty1962

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What skimmer is that? Ive been trying to decide if I want to run one or not but with no sump it needs to go in tank and I really dont want to put a large piece of equipment in the tank unless I have to.

I was also contemplating getting a sheet of wood, painting it black and then screwing it to the back side of the stand. This would give me a place to mount that APC back up so I could properly manage drip loops and wires. Your idea tho would look good on the other 3 sides, ill have to look into that!
Looks like a Tunze 9000 series PS.
 
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Evan West

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Looks like a great start! Watch that heater, there have been many people that have reported those heaters to burst and ruin their tank. Just an FYI;) Keep us posted.

Im aware of the issues, per my research it seems to be just the 200w model that had the issue and they have since pulled it from market. I have another cobalt 100w thats been going for 2 years now in the freshwater tank that is now my fathers. So I trust the heater but we will have to see!
 

Brian Kim

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What skimmer is that? Ive been trying to decide if I want to run one or not but with no sump it needs to go in tank and I really dont want to put a large piece of equipment in the tank unless I have to.

I was also contemplating getting a sheet of wood, painting it black and then screwing it to the back side of the stand. This would give me a place to mount that APC back up so I could properly manage drip loops and wires. Your idea tho would look good on the other 3 sides, ill have to look into that!
It's a Tunze 9004, I would use a skimmer, maybe you can find something smaller, as those Tunze are rated for 75 gallon, I know they have 9002 so you might want to look into that
 

Brian Kim

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Looks like a great start! Watch that heater, there have been many people that have reported those heaters to burst and ruin their tank. Just an FYI;) Keep us posted.
Yeah, DIY King lost a beautiful stingray due to one of those heaters catching on fire
 
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Evan West

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It's a Tunze 9004, I would use a skimmer, maybe you can find something smaller, as those Tunze are rated for 75 gallon, I know they have 9002 so you might want to look into that

Basically ill be looking for the smallest one I can find that will still handle the 20g. Currently my main plan for nutrient export is a weekly 25% water change, but ill have my eye out for a skimmer once I save up a bit more cash.
 
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Evan West

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Yeah, DIY King lost a beautiful stingray due to one of those heaters catching on fire

I remember the video well as that when I heard of the issue, like I said tho as per my research it was just the high wattage models with that issue but ill be keeping an eye on it.
 

Brian Kim

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Well, I am selling mine as I no longer need them. It's a $149 skimmer and I can sell it for $80 shipped.
About 8 months old but missing one of the magnet that can eaasily be replace with any sort of a round glass magnet
 

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