Tropical Fish Keeping banner

20G Nano Reef Tank (Diary)

26K views 102 replies 9 participants last post by  Roccus 
#1 ·
Hi TFK!

After much debate and research, I have finally decided to plunge into Saltwater after many years of Freshwater tanks. I've seen a ton of controversy as far as "What size is the easiest to start off with?" With many people saying smaller is easier, and others saying that maintaining a reef setup in a smaller tank is much more difficult. Anywho, I decided on a smaller tank to start off with to avoid the higher costs involved considering the price of rock and the equipment required for larger tanks.

I'm still in the 6-week cycling stage right now and only have my basic setup but can't wait to start adding coral after the cycling period. I have all of my necessities, so this isn't a help thread, just something to document my journey.

So far I have: Live Sand, Live Rock, Lights (2x 36W 1x 10k & 1x Actinic) My Heaters, Filters, Power Heads, and some simple base rock I used to build on.

I still have to get my circulation pumps installed and test for dead spots, but so far I'm having a pretty good time (despite the expenses).

I have a few low-res pics from after adding the live rock, it's a little stirred up due to the sand though.





Looking forward to documenting and sharing this experience with you guys ;-)

Any suggestions or recommendations? Feel free to tell me, I'm pretty new to SW so I'll be happy with any advice you can offer!
 
See less See more
2
#67 ·
I am glad you really like those polyps,I will be posting more in the DBTC soon.

Remember that the coral I have given you,once grown out, has to be given to another salt water hobbyist capable of caring for it.

You will have quite the zoa garden going on here soon,they all look like they are adjusting just fine and going to start growing for you soon.
 
#68 ·
Remember that the coral I have given you,once grown out, has to be given to another salt water hobbyist capable of caring for it.
.
Hopefully it'll split up soon so I can go ahead and get it over to another reefer.

----

I decided to swap over and go full ATI. I went with 2x true blues and 2x purple plus, not sure if I want to swap out the true blue in the future for a coral plus or not, but we'll see.

I'll get some new photos up soon!
 
#71 ·
Yeah I want to swap out one of the other acintic bulbs for a coral plus, which is a cooler white. We'll see what combos work out I suppose.

Maybe you can help me fill it up? :lol:
 
#77 ·
I'm workin' on it! Haven't made any new additions in months, mostly just been sitting back and letting it do its thing.

My Kenya tree decided it was [finally] time to split.



Not much has changed, but here's a FTS anywho~ You can see my `not so bubbly` bubble tip 'nem. ' It is now "the attack of corraline"; because i'm too lazy to scrape.

 
#78 ·
Looks good. My kenya trees dont stop splitting. I had one, now i have a forest and they are everywhere. Sometimes i have to remove some cuz they bother my sps and lps. They ric and the radioactive dragon eyes are my favorite, in this tank.

Do you have any stonys?
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#79 ·
I have favites and psammacora, there's some photos somewhere in this thread... not sure where though, not much though. Tons of polyps/softies though.

The dragon eyes were a great addition -- and the Ric is still my favorite in the tank. I have some green rhodactis growing out of my rocks somewhere, I can't for the life of my find it anymore though :cry:

My kenya decided to split on top of my lunars, so i'll probably eventually end up having to move those around.

I'll try to get some better photos up soon (phone photos are always bad).
 
#81 ·
I did a little bit of cleaning today in the salty, decided it was time to scrape the glass. Got some decent shots of stuff in full bloom; May do some horse-trading at the local fish store tomorrow, if he's got anything decent.




I don't remember what these are, but they are growing everywhere. May be time to do a clean-up.



Couldn't really scrape near my 'nem since he likes to stay flush against the glass, and I don't like moving him so I decided to leave it be until he goes into hiding.



Love my toadstool, not sure if it's time to trade it in though.





Crabs being Crabs.


I'm debating on a new fish addition; I have a six-line and a clown now, any thoughts? (nothing big please!)
 
#83 ·
Well, after seeing this ; It was hard not to go out and get one, such an amazing fish.

I was thinking about a fuscus or bicolor, but not sure yet. It'll be the last addition (I decided on a 3 limit-small fish max for my tank), so I kinda want to get it right.

I enjoy clowns in-general, I have a ton of fun with mine (he loves the camera, although often the feeling isn't mutual since I can never get a good shot).



here's a close-up. The Chaeto is kinda taking over and I need to trim it (although I knew this was going to happen, but what can ya do). I've been having a lot of "sand-algae" issues lately due to my being out of town and it suffered some neglect, so I need to do some cleaning on the sand eventually.



you can see the massive growth on the yuma on the rock from afar, it's gotten pretty huge. and there's some favites in the sand down there somewhere.
 
#84 ·
Well;;

Long story short, I ended up moving states and couldn't bring any of my aquariums with me, so this aquarium has ended (as with all others).

Will hopefully start up again in the future.
 
#88 ·
This is sad, I know I never commented on the tanks, it's kind of my nature to admire in silence and not repeat what others are saying.. but I will miss this... hope all is well and I'm sure it wont be long before it "begins"
 
#86 ·
It was job related. I was offered a new position with the company I work for, the position is in Miami, FL (9 hours away). It was a quick move, without much wiggle room to make plans/adjustments, so I had no choice but to give away my aquariums.

I'm looking to start another salty up again soon. Still deciding on when/how I want to start back up, we'll see what the future holds.
 
#89 ·
Im so jealous. Even the pics of the early days makes me itch to set up a reef again. The last one I had crashed and I didn't even want to bother again. I have some empty tanks that would be perfect right now and an aqua illuminations led just sitting around that is begging to be used again.....soo soo jealous.
 
#92 ·
I agree, I learned a lot from my initial build. I've been slowly working to acquire my parts since I got here (ebay/cl/etc). I wanted to take a break but it was very depressing to wake up and not see my aquariums, nor being able to see them at night.

Since most of my older pieces came from you, I'll probably be hitting you up soon to order some pieces once everything has been setup and cycled.
 
#94 ·
As my initial aquarium decided to spring a leak during stress testing, I went out today and picked up a 55G during the Petco $1/gal sale. Hopefully I'll have this machine back up and operating in the next few months.
 
#95 ·
Thats the ticket, just dust yourself off and get back on that horse.

Building a stand?

I heard the new petco tanks are all tempered, do you know if that is correct? if it is then no drilling the tank, only external overflows I suppose.

I look forward to seeing some new progress when you get to accumulating rock and equipment.
 
#96 ·
I'm torn right now on what I want to do with the 55G because it's tempered and I can't drill it, the LFS here has a nice pre-drilled 30G long (I had a 30G long for my other setup) except it wasn't drilled. I'm more about coral and not fish (2 clowns works for me) so I don't really need anything extravagant as far as size goes. The $1/Gal deal was too good to pass up, tempered or not and it was a perfect deal to make me really hop back into the hobby.

Likely case here is I'll setup the 55G as a Cichlid and go snag the 30G pre-drilled so I can properly setup my reef system this time (Live and learn). I'm a fan of both worlds (FW/SW) so I'd like to do both, and probably will.
 
#98 ·
I like the premise of the idea, I just dislike the clutter (which is why I'd rather drill, and hide everything) since these are show aquariums in my living room. Though, I can say it would be nice to have a 55G reef (Just due to extra coral space).

I've got a few weeks before I make a final decision, I'll do some research on the external setup and see if I can make it a viable setup (as far as looks go).

Thanks Bert!
 
#99 ·
I started a small rebuild and I added some more LR to it today so I figured I'd shoot up a photo; It's been running solid for a little while now and it should be ready for some corals soon, I decided to start out with a smaller build so I can "ease" myself back into the saltwater side of things, as to not blow up a large aquarium and screw something up :p. Apologies on the cloudiness, I tend to make a mess when I add stuff.

 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top