My 20gal Nano Reef (ragvette)

[ragvette]

Originally Posted by BigAl07

But then again it's your tank and everything's "in spec" so I'll leave you with it.

Thanks

Honestly best wishes and Happy Reefing.

Best Wishes and Happy Reefing back to you buddy

[deaclauderdale]

RS is a friendly helpful sight and if we can't handle constructive criticism especially from those who have more experience than our tanks are destine to fail. Trust me Rag we've all come the same way and you do seem to be moving a little fast take it easy and you won't have to lose any livestock whether it's $15 or $100 dollars.

The tank looks great by the way.

[ragvette]

Here is a photo from this morning (12/15/2007). Added a cleanup crew (blue legged crabs and some turbo snails). More details to follow later this week on the progress of my 20gal Nano.

[ragvette]

Well, it's been a few weeks since setting up the tank and here is my log up until this morning.

12/9/2007 I added a Rusty Angel, Yellowtail Damselfish, Green Candy Coral and Neon Green Polyps in the afternoon.

12/10/2007 – Minor outbreak of red algae which I removed with a hose and replaced. Water removed and replaced was about ½ gallon.

12/11/2007 – Got my Kent Marine RO/DI 35gpd unit running in the morning. I dumped the first 5gallons of RO/DI water produced by the RO/DI unit per manufactures directions (well sort of, they state that the first 10/15gallons should be dumped). I vacuumed more red algae from tank and replaced the water with a ½ gallon of Salt/RO/DI water.

12/12/2007 – Installed the mounting legs to the light hood so it raises it above the tank a little. The legs raise the lights about 2” off the top of the tank which before the hood was sitting on the rim of the tank with very little space between the surface water and the light hood. This added extra heat into the tank. Moonlight from R2 Solutions was also added to the back of the Coralife hood. I added the Combo box to the CPR skimmer. It now actually skims from the surface of the tank and has greatly reduce the number of micro bubbles in the tank. Since it also skims from the surface of the tank, the layer of film that started to form on the surface is no longer apparent.

12/13/2007 – Since installing the legs to the hood I’ve notice the temperature of the tank remaining a little lower now. The tank is now keeping a steady temperature of 77 to 78F, before the legs where added the temperature would rise to 79F or 80F before the lights where turned off. A Blue Yellow tail damsel was added.

12/14/2007 – Added a blue mushroom and a red mushroom. Cleanup crew also added (blue legged crabs and some turbo snails). A nylon bag of Phosphate remover added to the out flow of the CPR.

Tank specs are SG of 1.023, pH between 8.2/8.4, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm at 7:00pm

12/15/2007 – Clean the inside front glass of the aquarium. As of this morning the Polyps have not opened so I don’t know what to think. I mixed up some Kalkwasser water in a 1gal plastic milk bottle this morning and will start dripping Kalkwasser this evening.

I added 1 - Blue/Green Reef Chromis, 1 – Small Cleaner Shrimp, 1 - Purple Pseudochromis and 6 more Turbo Snails. The Cleaner Shrimp was cleaning the Rusty Angel within 10 minutes of being placed in the tank.

Tank specs are SG of 1.023, pH between 8.2/8.4, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm at 1:30pm

12/16/2007 – 9:30pm I started dripping Kalkwasser this evening, was busy last night working that I never set it up. I’m guessing that I’ll dose about ½ gallon by morning into the tank. I have a drip rate of 1 drip every 3 seconds (the mix of Kalkwasser is on the light/weak side). I’m using a milk bottle, air-line tube and a valve method to dose. The red algae outbreak is under control because mainly of the cleaner crew I put in on 2 days earlier, the Phosphate remover (which still looks brand new) and the usage of RO/DI water to replace evaporation. I adjusted one of the power heads to blow directly over the green polyp coral that hasn’t open in a week. I’ll see how the extra water movement over the coral will do. Since the power head is on a wave maker device, it’s not a steady flow, on 2 minutes then off 2 minutes.

12/17/2007 Tank specs are SG of 1.023, pH between 8.2/8.4, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm at 1:30pm

Rearrange location of green polyp, more light and also more water current. I’ll see how that does in the few days.

12/18/2007 7:00pm Gave the fish some brine shrimp to give them a treat off the flakes. 10:00pm I got home from being out and found the CPR bak-pak has stopped working. My guess is it’s the RIO 600 pump that went out so I’ll need to look at it in the morning (when I can see things and think straight).

12/19/2007 6:15am Cleaned out the RIO 600 on the Bak-Pak skimmer and I got it to work. It took a couple of times pulling out the impeller but it finally started to work again.

12/23/2007 Added some $5 yellow polyps (3) which the LFS had stuck to some gravel, a pulsating Xenia which was attached to some rock that had some red mushrooms also attached to the same rock and a Zoanthid with pink centers. So far everything is going well with the new setup except that I lost the green polyps officially. They never opened up and basically dissolved in the tank which the Rusty Angle started eating pieces of. Decided to turn off the skimmer at night and only run it during the day. I took pictures of tank. Tank specs are SG of 1.023, pH between 8.2/8.4, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm at 7:00pm.

12/24/2007 7:00am Removed about 3 or 4lbs of live rock into the 65gal aquarium. The removal of the live rock will give me some room in the 20gal to spread out.

Not bad for only two weeks running. Here's a picture from this morning right after the main lights came on.


The cleaner shrimp doing some work 10 minutes after adding him to the reef.


Some Additional pics of the tank.







Work on the 65gal Reef Aquarium has begun.

[ragvette]

Well, it's been a little over a month since I setup this tank and I have pink stuff starting to grow all over the tank.









Bring on the Coralline Algae