New 20H nano (1 Viewer)

[JoBo]

Petco just ran one of their $1/gallon sales, so I figured after months of thinking about it, it's time to do it. I've spent the last month or so gathering the bare essentials. I think it's time to add some water. Here's what I've got so far:

20g high aqueon glass tank
Aquatic Life 115 mini-skimmer
Aqueon Pro 100W heater
20 lbs CaribSea® Aragamax Select Aragonite
Aqueon 500 gph powerhead
Hydor Koralia Nano 425
Instant Ocean Sea Salt

I am hoping that this should be enough to at least get a small FOWLR going and get familiar with maintaining the water parameters while I spend some more time learning about reef keeping. Right now, I've got the salt water, heater, and aragonite in the tank. Waiting for the dust to settle (even though I spent a good hour washing the substrate first...), and then I'm going to hone in the specific gravity to 1.025.

In the meantime, I'm keeping an eye out for a deal on ~25 lbs live rock and reading up on lighting. Leaning towards a DIY LED setup, but still have a lot of reading to do. FJW has live rock for $4/lb, which is the best deal I've seen so far. Anyone else get LR from them? Still hoping for some cheaper used stuff though.

I'm going to try to go fugeless, at least initially. If I have trouble, I'll probably opt for the AC70 HOB option.

After the LR is in place and water is stable and cycled, I'm going to add a pair of clowns. I'd love to hear some comments/suggestions on the setup, as well as if anyone's got any gear for sale. I'm trying to save as much money as possible on this. I'll send some pics once there's something to actually take pics of...

 

[Copingsaw]

Good start.

I've kept 3 nano's over the years and, for me, the best system had no skimmer and no sump/fuge. In my opinion, they key is to provide regular water changes, good circulation and some sort of mechanical filtration. Carbon, purigen, etc. in the mechanical filtration also help. You can probably get by without filtration but water changes become even more important.

I have found the mini skimmers to be worthless, although its been a few years since I've used one so maybe newer models are better.

Keep us updated, there is no reason you can't have a very successful tank with a little dedication.

 

[padanky]

Watch the classified on this site for Live Rock, people are always selling it and a lot cheaper than in Store.

 

[JoBo]

Just put in my order for a DIY LED set from RapidLED! Expensive, but it should be a lot of fun to put together . Also going to check out some used LR tonight. Now if I can only get that substrate to settle...

 

[JoBo]

Hey all, the tank is up and running! Got the RapidLED package put together, and it looks fantastic. I'm still working on a way to mount the lights above the tank, but in the meantime, I got impatient and found a way to use some coat hangers to suspend it above. Hopefully they don't break and fry what little life exists!

Ignore the dangling aqueon powerhead... It snapped off its suction cup and is about to be replaced by another Koralia nano.

Slayer311 hooked me up with about 18 lbs of some great rock. After almost a week in the dark, most of the unwanted life died off. I even found about 5 starfish that hitch-hiked! Two are about the size of a dime, three are about the size of a pencil eraser or smaller. I didn't see much, if any cycle, likely due to the cured rock. Ammonia and nitrites are zero, nitrates finally started increasing and are at about 20 ppm. I'm going to do a big water change at the end of this week in preparation for a CUC from ReefCleaners that I'm going to schedule for Monday. Hopefully fish in a couple weeks!

As far as livestock goes, the only thing I'm for sure on is a pair of clowns. I'd like to get another little guy, but not really sure what. Any suggestions? I saw a couple of beautiful diadema dottybacks at Fish Gallery, but I hear they're a bit on the aggressive side.

Any comments? I'm kicking around the idea of about 5lbs or so more LR. Think I need it? Any suggestions for the aquascape? I feel like I should build it up a little higher...

 

[ange062]

Looks like you are off to a good start. The clown pair sounds like a great idea. The dottybacks can be aggressive, but clowns can be also so I think the pairing will likely work well especially if you add the dottyback last. I also love blennies, or even a nice dwarf angel! I'm digging the scape so far! You should try to add the rest that you plan to soon though, so that it can all cycle and cure together. Adding more later may cause the tank to recycle.