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Paigee's 20L Extravaganza!


Paigee

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6/9/12 FTS:

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This tank started as a 10g in July of 2011, looking a little something like this after a few months:

 

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And then this:

 

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It was inhabited only by Gilbert the firefish and an assassin blue legged hermit... He killed all of my snails.

 

Corals included:

Frogspawn

Green mushrooms

Assorted zoas

A ric

A chalice

Rainbow monti

And maybe a few more that I forget

 

It had a 50W TopFin heater, a Koralia 425, and 2 BoostLED par 30 bulbs. I also tried a Subcurrent filter thing that can be seen in the first picture, but I found that it was finicky and didn't really provide any benefit but took up quite a lot of space in the tank.

 

Then I decided that I wanted to get something bigger. I decided a 20L was perfect. I also saw YankeePete's for sale thread for the 20L AIO wall he was selling, so I purchased one of those.

 

I also bought a used Current Sundial 4x24W T5HO fixture from another member of the forum. I decided I liked the different options for colour temperature that t5's provide, and I wanted to give it a try.

 

So I boiled up some old dry rock I had

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And shizam we're cycling (seeded with some LR from the 10)

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And then the FTS that was posted first at the top :)

 

Current Inhabitants

Gilbert the firefish

Edgar the two spot blenny

Assorted snails

 

Corals

A purple, a pink, and a green chalice

Rics

Purple w/ metallic teal mushroom

Birdsnest

Various zoas

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I have a crappy iPhone pic of what the set up looks like with live rock :) It isn't as blue as the pic is, for some reason the phone cam mainly pics up the blue of the light. Enjoy!

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There is the first sign of life in my tank tonight! A little starfish hitchhiker was crawling around in the sand and on the glass. Very cute little guy, probably less than half an inch across :) Again, crappy cell pics of him. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to my boyfriend's!

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Another sign of life - some kind of worm that is in the sand mound against the front of the glass. It is quite skinny... and I want to say brown in color? It almost looked at a very skinny earth worm. It is maybe 1 mm in diameter. I know it's hard without a picture to identify, but any guesses? I don't think it is very long, maybe 2 or 3 inches. I can only see a little of it pressed against the glass in its burrow under the sand. Thanks for reading :)

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Possibly for purely my own reading enjoyment, I tested for the first time tonight to see where my cycle was at and got...

 

pH - 7.8 or 8.0, couldn't tell

Ammonia - .25 or .50

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 0

 

Also caught the unknown worm and put it in the cut off half of a plastic water bottle to keep him easy to catch until he is identified incase he is an unwelcome visitor. Got a better look at him in the process, it is about an inch to an inch and a half long, same color as a regular earthworm, very skinny body, and its head has very tiny little antennae on it. I might try to get a pic later.

 

Thanks to any potential readers, please comment, if only just to say hi :) I'd love to hear from you!

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Until we can get a picture, my best guess would be either a spaghetti worm or peanut worm. Since you're describing it as earthwormlike I don't think it's a bristle/fire worm. From your readings it seems like the cycle has begun :) just sit back and relax while the tank does it's thing!

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nice start! I'm also trying to keep a 10 gallon reef, its quite challenging :D

Looks like you're doing everything right and waiting patiently!

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Thanks for the suggestion JoelRHale, I am pretty sure it is a peanut worm! Mine looks kind of like ones in the pics I found on google, only much smaller. I'm 90% sure that's what it is!

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Well, no changes to report really. I haven't tested the water again, but I'm quite sure there is probably a large ammonia spike. I didn't scrub my rock and it was uncured = big cycle. But that's alright. I'm in no rush... Just finishing paying for this semester, so that's taken a hunk out of my wallet! Haha.

 

So far the only new "life" I've seen is life that is dead - a few pods floating around. My starfish and peanut worm are also deceased, presumably from the ammonia. Oh well, to be expected. I am disappointed that one of my unknown softies that was kind of large, about 1" round, and bright red, is slowly dying. It is losing color and the tissue is flaking off the rock. Oh well... Maybe it will grow back if a bit survives.

 

I'm also kind of feeling like my koralias have wimpy flow... But this could be because I don't know what kind of flow to expect!! It also doesn't help that I broke my nano 240 before it even got in the tank trying to put it together... For those of you familiar with the koralia nanos, I was trying to get the red bulbous nub into the hole on the suction cup mount, and the plastic bent to far when my boyfriend pushed on it too hard and it snapped off. I'm going to try and fix this later with some epoxy and super glue and see how that works. Right now I have it held in place by taping the cord to the outside of the tank :P Super ghetto, I know haha.

 

However, I also pondered just using the 240 as my mixing pump and getting another 425 or whatever the next size up is. I have one, and I feel like I might get better flow with two... But I dunno! I'm also thinking about the tunze turbelle nano pump, thinking it might be nice because it can rotate, whereas with the koralia I'm just stuck with the straight forward position.

 

Thoughts on powerheads?! Thanks all! :) Sorry the thread isn't that interesting so far, the tank is just swirling water right now! :)

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i think the rotating pump is good for what you need. I run the K-nano 425 on my 10 gal too. in addition to that i run an AC110 HOB (lol) that was once a refugium.

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Ok so I need you guys' help figuring out my test results. As I posted before, I tested a few days ago and had some ammonia, some nitrites, no nitrates. Today I tested and there were now no nitrites, no nitrates, but I couldn't tell if there was 0 or .25 of ammonia! Based on the other results, I want to say there was no ammonia, because otherwise the cycle would have gone backwards... Does that make sense?

 

I'm in no rush to get things in there, I'm going to wait probably another week before I add a CUC... Oh thats another thing! I haven't had a diatom bloom or anything! There is some debritus in a deadspot under my rock, but no algae to speak of.

 

Advice? Tips?! Thanks :)

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Sounds like you're getting close, I would wait to add a cuc for when you start seeing diatoms.

 

Also, .Newman., I'm running an AC110 as well, nothing like a little overkill, right? :D

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I've been looking into getting some mechanical filtration in my tank because I feel like there are some particles floating around that look kinda ugly... And I'm rockin a bit of a surface film.

 

I'm debating between modding an AC70 to add a little extra volume (every bit counts when theres less than 10G of water!) or getting a Current USA Subcurrent Filter ( http://www.bigalsonline.ca/Fish_Filters_In...02.html?tc=fish )

 

Which do you guys think would be a better idea?? I like the surface skimming of the subcurrent, but I like the extra volume and fuge ability of the AC70... And instead of taking up volume in the tank, an AC would add some volume.

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hi you are off to a great start. carbon and filter floss are great to polish the water and remove particles.

 

the subcurrent is cool and I like the look. The AC70 has more room for media though and adds slightly to the water volume. plus yes you could have a fuge as well.

 

basically aesthetics or more functionally/options?

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I added this to my AC110 and put a foam piece in the filter to catch the surface scum and in about 20 minutes my water was crystal. It will attach to most filters so if you're wanting to save some money I'd try that first. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work and you get an AC70 but even then the skimmer works with the AC so it's not all that bad if you're current filter doesn't cut it :)

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Thanks for the ideas! I think I might just go with the AC70, and I found an attachment similar to the one you just listed, Joel, that should fit it. Now I just want to see if I can find a heater that will fit in there too, because if I could get the heater out of the display that would be amazing!

 

In other news, I fear I might have aiptasia. I made a thread about it in the ID section.... It doesn't look like any pictures of aiptasia I could find, the best way I can describe it is it looks like brown clove polyps kind of. I will try and remember my camera tomorrow to take a better pic than with my iPhone.

 

I also keep getting these stringy bits attached to my rock... I'm not sure what they are or what they come from, I have never seen any critters in there besides a brittle star that died. I'll keep an eye out though!!

 

Thanks for stopping by :)

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I just had an AHA! moment! I've been thinking about how I want to mix my salt, thinking where am I going to put a bucket near a plug, blah blah blah because we live in a basement so there isn't a lot of room. Then I look over and remember I have an old minibow 5 sitting on the hearth (both my tanks are on the brick hearth) that I could use to mix salt! I could even use it as quarantine if I so desired, because I plan on just constantly having salt mixed in there, just in case I ever need an emergency water change. It's already got a home near a plug, so I figure why not? the last time I used it was a hopital tank for an injured corydora (FW), so it just has gross water sitting in it because I've been too lazy to clean it out. Yay me :)

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Look into All Glass Heaters. I have a 50w AGA heater that's probably <6" tall. But if you go AC70 and make it a 'fuge then the cover will be removed to light it so you don't really need one to totally fit inside if those are possible future plans. If you look at my current video I kind of show the AC110 and you can see what a regular heater looks like sticking out of it, I don't think it looks amazing but it's certainly better than in the tank!

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Look into All Glass Heaters. I have a 50w AGA heater that's probably <6" tall. But if you go AC70 and make it a 'fuge then the cover will be removed to light it so you don't really need one to totally fit inside if those are possible future plans. If you look at my current video I kind of show the AC110 and you can see what a regular heater looks like sticking out of it, I don't think it looks amazing but it's certainly better than in the tank!

 

Thanks, I checked out your video and saw how your fuge looked. I keep flip flopping on if I want to add the ac70 or not! I think I will wait a few months and see how it goes, then add a fuge.

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yes a 50W fits nicely into the AC70. its the setup i use on my 3 gallon reef :P

 

i also use a 50W heater in my AC110 on the 10 gallon.

 

 

You could do without the AC HOB, especially if you like an uncluttered look on the OUTSIDE of the tank. but if you dont care about that, a HOB has great benefits for your tank, especially if you make it into a fuge with macro.

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