My Adventure Into SaltWater With a 20 Gallon

[Sesa]

Hey, I've found this thread very interesting and useful and I'm just wondering if there are any updates? Ty

[cheseboy]

Not much yet. I've set up my QT tank made my filter to go in it and such. I am cycling the tank right now with a dead shrimp from the super market. I fixed the overheating problem in my main tank. Let me see. I'm going to buy a RO/DI system since I'm fed up with the aquarium pharm. deionizing filter thing. It leaks and you have to adjust the flow until it fills up a cup in 25-30 seconds. Plus it lasts the minimum it says it should in the manual in terms of filtered water.

I'm also going to buy a top off system for my tank. I'm getting the JBJ system. http://www.jbjlighting.com/sys_ato.html Going to use a 5 gallon gas caddy for the reservoir and a mini-jet for the pump. I'm going to QT everything from fish to corals in the QT tank so I'm going to buy a 1x65 JEBO cheap power compact light for the QT.

I've moved my protein skimmer to the QT tank and put an air stone in the main tank to keep in aerated. For my main tank I would like to get an in sump protein skimmer weather that means selling the Remora and getting an EV AquaC, or an Urchin or keeping the remora in my QT. I would prefer though to have a protein skimmer on my QT when I'm going to QT corals but right now the plan is when I'm done QTing my first fish in the tank I want to move the protein skimmer back to the main tank. Oh yeah and I need to buy macroalgae also.

I'll post a more detailed update with pictures once i get my first fish in my QT.

[cheseboy]

Well here is is the big update you've all been looking forward to. Well here is goes...

I just got a fish for my QT tank. It's a Blue Line Tomato Clown. This is a big one, as you can see in the pictures I posted below. My QT tank actually just finished cycling today so I added this fish as soon as I possibly could. I have a 1x65 PC light on it. I am keeping the light off for the rest of the night to help reduce stress. I also went out and bought a heater for changing water since the heater I would usually use is in my QT.

I am gathering the stuff for my top-off on my main tank. I have a 5 gal gas tank and a float valve for filling the tank up so all I have to do is plug the RO/DI system into the float valve and it will fill up the container. I also bought the float switch system for activating the pump in my top off reservoir. That's on it's way as well.

Well I just tested my QT water with all the tests I have and here are my results.

Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- Around 5
Alkalinity- 8.6
Calcium- 320
PH-8.0
Salinity-1.023

My calcium is a little low but that won't matter for a fish. Kind of makes me wonder how it got that low. I have not had anything in the tank until now. It's been nothing but instant ocean and water and the calcium is low. Oh well I'll need to raise it obviously when I'm going to QT corals.

Oh yeah and I am using power heads to move the surface of the water a lot for good oxygen exchange so I don't have to have an air stone get salt creep over my light fixture and everything near my tank. It must be providing sufficient oxygen because he isn't gasping or anything.

Well here are thoes pictures I was talking about.

[cheseboy]

Sorry for the long time without an update but I have been hard at work on my tank. So I got the blue line clown in my tank now. It got no ick while in the QT. I also have QTd and added a cleanup crew to my tank I will post the list at the end of this post. Right now I am Qting a small pulsing Xenia rock and a large button polyp rock. I also have switched salts since I didn't like IO's CA level. I changed to reef crystals and that has like 425ppm instead of 345ppm of calcium. Not to mention alk and PH raises. So I am doing small water changes to switch over the parameters on my main tank.

In other news I have ordered an AQUA C EV-120. Basically the best protein skimmer that's on the market today because of it's spray injector. Also it's the only one that is small enugph to fit in my stand that I also want to replace along with my sump. I want to replace my stand because it's gotten a little soggy from having a sump in the cabinet when the stand is made out of particle board. Also since I'm getting a new stand I might as well make a new sump. I want to make an acrylic sump because right now my current sump has no bubble traps and is basically crap. It let's micro-bubbles into my main system. Plus I can custom build it as big as I want and I'm custom building my stand also. So I want to make a bigger stand as well as a bigger sump for more water volume.

No progress has been made on tunze's but I think I will just stick with a mj 1200 because I really don't want to fork out another 250 for 1 nano pump and it's controller when I just spent 350 on a skimmer.

My water conditions are all pristine in my tank. Now I know my DSB works because I have 0 nitrates. My macroalgae is also growing like crazy more so since I switched to the 5100K bulbs melev recommends.
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CC#2 - $65
3 Emerald Crab
6 Scarlet Reef Hermit Crabs
12 Blueleg Hermit Crabs
12 Astrea Snails
6 Cerith Snails
12 Nassarius Snails
1 Serpent Starfish

[CollegeReefer]

It was very interesting reading your journal. I saw many mistakes, but also saw you learn from your mistakes. I must say that I am a little disappointed that the experience saltwater people on this forum didn’t help you out. They could have saved you time and money on your set up. I am glad to hear you got rid of the air stone. They really are not used in saltwater tanks that often. For the most part your water gets oxygenated from falling into your sump and as well as the service water breaking. Anyways…….I just want to ask a couple of questions. Why did you insist on having a dsb. Was it your uncle? The only reason I ask is because all the reading I have ever done advises not having a dsb in nano tanks. I could understand you uncle having a dsb because of the large tank. Hopefully it doesn’t cause you any problems when your tank matures. Also why did you freak out when your tank was 80? 80 is not bad at all in a saltwater aquarium and is actually the temp I keep mine at. Lets see…..Oh if you are making a new sump/ref to get rid of the macro bubbles you are going to want to make a bubble trap using 2 or 3 pieces of alcrylic/glass. This way the bubbles get trapped. Well I thought I had more to say but I am drawing a black currently. Take care and always remember read read read.

[cheseboy]

Originally Posted by CollegeReefer

It was very interesting reading your journal. I saw many mistakes, but also saw you learn from your mistakes. I must say that I am a little disappointed that the experience saltwater people on this forum didn’t help you out. They could have saved you time and money on your set up. I am glad to hear you got rid of the air stone. They really are not used in saltwater tanks that often. For the most part your water gets oxygenated from falling into your sump and as well as the service water breaking. Anyways…….I just want to ask a couple of questions. Why did you insist on having a dsb. Was it your uncle? The only reason I ask is because all the reading I have ever done advises not having a dsb in nano tanks. I could understand you uncle having a dsb because of the large tank. Hopefully it doesn’t cause you any problems when your tank matures. Also why did you freak out when your tank was 80? 80 is not bad at all in a saltwater aquarium and is actually the temp I keep mine at. Lets see…..Oh if you are making a new sump/ref to get rid of the macro bubbles you are going to want to make a bubble trap using 2 or 3 pieces of alcrylic/glass. This way the bubbles get trapped. Well I thought I had more to say but I am drawing a black currently. Take care and always remember read read read.

Well thanks for reading my logs. As for your questions...

1.I insisted on having a DSB because the only real reason people don't have DSBs in nanos is because of the water volume take up. It takes quite a bit of water volume to have a DSB in an other wise small tank to begin with. This was fine once I decided to add a sump that increased my total water volume replacing the water that was used in implementing my DSB.
2. Ahh. This question question goes way back. I have kept all my fish tanks at 80 degrees fahrenheit since I began keeping any tank. The reason that I "freaked out" was because of the massive temperature shift. If I recall correctly it was like a 5 degree shift or something like that sorry if I was unclear.
3. Ah, yes the sump. Well for the most part I am tired of this silly glass thing. As you have read I am building a new stand out of wood. The stand I have decided will be big to house a big sump/fuge. So I will make the sump/fuge as big as possible to fit my stand so I can get more water volume and more room for my skimmer and such because right now it would be a very tight fit for my skimmer. I also want my sump to be organized being input and skimmer on the left side of the sump with a bubble trap. Then in the middle will be return. On the right side will be fuge with baffle and flow so water will flow back into my return. This is a very common setup.