OffTopic's 20 Gallon SPS Reef Tank

[Katrina71]

If you think your experience was odd, try being a female reefer...

 

[OffTopic]

If you think your experience was odd, try being a female reefer...

Can't even imagine, with that guy he might not even sell you salt water

 

[BadPanda]

Great stocking list for corals. I would recommend maybe 3-4 at a time so your parameters don't dip too low. Anemone's on the other hand, I bought an anemone for the very same reason and my clowns ended up hosting my torch instead. My anemone was three inches away from the torch.

 

[OffTopic]

Last update for the day, so I got the 3.5 jack adapter and now the lights/controller are up and running. When I took the picture it was unfortunately right after the lights ramped down for the day. The lighting schedule is from 10-11 am to ramp up to 30% intensity and 30% color and the from 6-7 pm ramp down 0% intensity and 0% color. I might change it however to make the lights be one more when I get home and not when I am not home. As I was talking to the LFS owner and he cleverly pointed out with my original plan of 8-6 pm I will never see the aquarium while its on. I usually leave home at 8:00 am every morning and not home till 7:00-8:00 ish so with both lighting schedules I will miss the aquarium lit up entirely. I am considering switching it up to ramping up at 1 to 2 and ramping down from 9 to 10 just so I can be there to enjoy the tank! And with the fancy controller I got this wont be that hard to switch up now that I think about it.

Also now the skimmer isn't making much of a sound anymore, I think it must of just needed to break in. It trickles now but the sound is a lot more pleasing!

Also I just picked up the Smart ATO and the Tunze Powerhead. Oh and how can I forget I also snatched the heater I have been talking about. Exciting stuff! I still need to cut the cable ties excess off but here is what the tank is looking like with the lights off.

Also I would love any and all feedback on the coral situation with this tank as we all wait anxiously for the "ugly period" of the tank to happen!

 

[Ranjib]

On lighting, now that you have already got probably the best equipment you can have
- Dont change the intensity wildly ... whenever you feel you want to update the intensity channel.. think of your target intensity, and reach to it in two weeks, slowly ramping up. Its very very easy to induce stress by arbitrarily changing LED colors, since its just too easy with LEDs , which was harder to do with metal halides and T5. With kessil its somewhat safer, since you cant really produce a very bad spectrum/color (kessils color /spectrum adjust ment is purely for your visual aesthetics,, the corals are almost always getting the required 450nm range spectrum. Spectrum changes in kessil will only impact visual aesthetics and algae growth (higher with more whiter light). So, instead your main concern will be intensity.
- Second thing to remember is whenever you are adding new coral, you should always do a proper light acclamation. This is more true for the corals that will go on top and are hardest to keep. In the beginning, when you go with easy to keep corals, it may not be an issue

I'll recommend introducing plating montipora capricornis and a purple stylophora as the first two coral, once the algae settle in. I think the plating capricornis can go at the bottom (but attached to the rockwork), you dont want it in the top, as it will shade everything below (which is good if you keep it in the bottom, since it will prevent light on sandbed, reducing the chances of algae and cyano). The purple stylophora can go anywhere in the middle. It will encrust, other than branching. but its very timid coral, and will loose to almost any other acro in terms of aggression, so even if it encrusts some real estate, you are can recover it naturally.

I think you have a lot of sand, it can be hard to keep it clean. Lets see how things go as time progress, but if you do get cyano issue, dont hesitate to siphon some sand off (particularly the patches of thick cyano).

Lastly, its a good time to think if you want to add some "purple up" or not... purple up is a liquid calcium additive that can radically expedite the coralline algae formation in your tank. It looks nice, and reduced real estate available for algae, and really effective. But start dosing it only after the algae has started appearing,
Hope this helps,
ranjib

 

[OffTopic]

Interesting thank you for the advice, I will go onto the controller tomorrow and set up that acclimation schedule for two weeks to have the lights acclimate up to 30%. I will also switch up the schedule to do what I mentioned of having the lights be on more when I am home.

For the corals thanks for the advice, paitnently waiting for the algae outbreak to occur. I will read more into lighting acclimation, I assume it isn’t rocket science but I am not very versed in it.

I agree with you on the sand, if I would do it again I would have gone for no sand, honestly I don’t mind the bare bottom appeal and the sand moving all over already is a bit annoying. I think I might slowly start siphoning it out and probably by the end of the year has little to no sand left.

I will look into that purple up stuff while I am somewhat in a holding period, waiting for algae to progress.

Should I pick up something to monitor pH and temp? Or is this not really needed for what I am doing here?

Also I was now just thinking this but should I pick up some epoxy and next week when I do my water change also epoxy the rocks down? I am happy with the rock structure now and I don’t want it falling down!

Thanks

 

[Ranjib]

I dont think you need ph monitor and checks right now. The thing with nano tanks, if your water change schedule is steady,, its hard to go off unless you do something proactively (like adding stuff).
It is good to know your daily ph cycle (like highs and lows and overall range) since pH 7.8-> 8.1 is a sweet spots, but this is really too early for those type of fine optimization. We'll revisit this once you have some sps growing, and venturing into intermediate sps (like tricolor valida or green slimer), and only if they are not showing fast growth. Currently, its mostly stare at the tank and research. To me, hardest thing was to wait patiently (and i did introduce several things that i later regretted )
Get some handy tools, like sea squirt, those long twizzer thingy, nano magnet (two little fishies) etc.. if you have not. They are very very handy and you'll use them more than anything.
I would not glue the rock, I have a feeling you'll want to change it once you get a hold of things. But its not a big risk, things can be changed later ,

 

[Ranjib]

When you switch on the a160s, do you see any dark zone in the middle? Reason I am asking, I think they are mounted too close to the lid, like less than 8 inches.

 

[OffTopic]

When you switch on the a160s, do you see any dark zone in the middle? Reason I am asking, I think they are mounted too close to the lid, like less than 8 inches.

There isn’t any noticeable dark spots, but I did wonder if it was mounted way to close to the water... How far above the water am I shooting for?

Yeah and with just sitting watching the tank, I am trying to just sit down and look at the tank for a while every evening, been a bit tough because the room has been such a mess, from one all the aquarium stuff, shifting around furniture, my impulse to switch out the case for my Pc all had made a huge mess. Once I get everything flowing again I think it will be good!

 

[Ranjib]

There isn’t any noticeable dark spots, but I did wonder if it was mounted way to close to the water... How far above the water am I shooting for?

Yeah and with just sitting watching the tank, I am trying to just sit down and look at the tank for a while every evening, been a bit tough because the room has been such a mess, from one all the aquarium stuff, shifting around furniture, my impulse to switch out the case for my Pc all had made a huge mess. Once I get everything flowing again I think it will be good!

6-8 inches is fine. You have ample light , you can afford to keep them far, and it will give more coverage and less point/pendant effect

 

[Janci]

Great thread. Happy to follow this one.
For the coralline algae, it looks great purplish, but if I could, I would avoid it in the tank honestly.
In the end it covers all rocks and even glass (i am not sure about acrylic) and it will be a pain to removed it all the time.

Digging the coral selection.
Be patient. You are off with a great start.

 

[fabutahoun]

Taging along, nice tank. please keep it up !!
can't wait to see it filled with corals.

Beautiful Coral selection, but I'll Advice against adding the anemone, it will move a lot and will sting any corals that will have contact with it.

 

[OffTopic]

Well a bit of an update... I got my first case of the uglies in the tank. What can I do to clean it up?

 

[fabutahoun]

Well a bit of an update... I got my first case of the uglies in the tank. What can I do to clean it up?

a sand sifting goby ,like the diamond goby will keep your sand nice and clean.

 

[ReeferMadness0347]

Following along

 

[dgruic0712]

I’m pretty sure that it’s just diatoms. If you want immediate results a goby will help but diatoms eventually go away on their own as they usually show up at the beginning of a new tank.

 

[OffTopic]

a sand sifting goby ,like the diamond goby will keep your sand nice and clean.

I’m pretty sure that it’s just diatoms. If you want immediate results a goby will help but diatoms eventually go away on their own as they usually show up at the beginning of a new tank.

Yeah that’s what I though, I am pretty sure I will pick up a diamond goby to clean them up/I like the Gobbies as fish! Thank you

Following along

Thanks, you will get to see my struggle until I find eventual success!

 

[Fudsey]

Tagging along, good read about the "Manager" I have met people like him at different LFS over the years

 

[OffTopic]

Tagging along, good read about the "Manager" I have met people like him at different LFS over the years

The saddest part of the whole thing is that he must have been sacked. Recently I been going there and there has been a lot of new recruits and when I talk about the "marine manager" the most I can gather is he is on a extended vacation

 

[OffTopic]

Also I want to pose a question to everyone, for a system of this size should I go with Two-Part Dosing or Kalkwasser? I was originally toying with the idea of dosing kalkwasser via the ato but I have become increasingly cautious of that idea. Just wanting to hear everyone's idea what would you all would do in this situation