Hello all,

I am a brand new member here. I am starting my 1st reef tank. I have had a fish only tank before but that was about 20 years ago or so, and I have been wanting to start a reef tank for quite a while and finally did
I have a 20 gallon high tank with 2 Koralia 1's, a HOB filter with just a sponge in it, 20lbs of live sand, a 24" light (its a sunlight/moonlight lamp that I bought, don't know the exact model), and a heater.
I am going tomorrow to get 20lbs of live rock from my lfs and was just wondering what my next step should be? I am planning on doing corals as well. How much light should I give the rock to start? When should I start putting in my clean-up crew? and any other advice anyone might have would be wonderful. I want to do this the right was and have it run as smoothly as possible. Thank you!

after you add the sand, rock and water, you wait......



fight the itch to add stuff,

to nano-reef!

After you add the rock, wait a month. Some people will say that waiting less will suffice, but wait the entirety of the month if you want things to go as smoothly as possible. You can leave the light on 8 hours a day during this period of time so you can actually see everything progress. After the tank cycles during this period, have the water tested to ensure that the basic parameters are in line. If they are, you can add your clean-up-crew. Wait a week. If everything is ok after this point, you can SLOWLY start adding hardy corals such as mushrooms or zoanthids and a fish or two.

My best advice is to stock the tank slowly and lightly. It will save you many headaches in the long run.

Find out the exact model of your light so we can help you determine what will potentially do well under it.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

It's a 24" Dual Satellite Model #1013. Here's the link http://www.current-usa.com/satellite.html.

The filter's sponge shouldn't be kept if you have live rock.

I put in my live rock yesterday. I got 22lbs of it. I think I need more though. I was thinking of ordering another 15lbs of it from yourreef.com. I don't know how good the quality is that I got at my lfs. It is kinda cured I think, it was in their tank for at least a month. Doesn't look great to me though, I was expecting better.What do you think? I also know I need to get something for the back of my tank to cover up the wires. It's on my list.
Any comments or suggestions? Thanks.

Looks like your rock was kind of dense and not great quality (unless it was recently cured). Ordering more rock would mean another cycle when you add it, so don't add livestock if you plan to order. You could just get some rock from local people who have tanks already or are breaking them down.

I don't really care how long the cycle takes. I just want good rock and I want to make sure I do it right. I have a few emails out to see about buying live rock from an established tank, but thats the problem with Maine, my resources are kinda limited.

get some Krylon Fusion paint and spray paint the back of the tank...... U wont be able to see all the wires and stuff....( obviosouly not inside the tank at this point) just tape it off and go for it
Its a cheap and easy upgrade...

IMO you don't need to spray the back of the tank. I also just set up my 20H three days ago. I have about 32lbs of LR in there from an established tank in there. So I am very new at this, but I will tell you what I have been told by others.

I am running my lights for about 8-9 hours a day to try and kick start some growth and keep the stuff I have on the rock alive.

+1 on getting the sponge on there.

I am waiting about 2 weeks before I add any snails or shrimp, as I am unsure of what is going on in my tank atm. My paras are all at 0ppm atm with my ph at 7.8. I am not sure if the cycle has started yet or even will start as I am using NSW and cured LR. We shall see. Keep us updated!

Just ordered 15 lbs of Fiji Premium Live Rock from yourreef.com fot $67.50 shipped free overnight delivery. I will post some pics once I get it. Hopefully it will be better that what I have now. I can just us what I have now as base rock.

I just got my rock from yourreef.com. It took a little longer than I would have liked for it to arrive, but that is mostly due to me living about as far away from them as I possibly could and because of Vet's day last week. It looks pretty good tho, I will post a pic of it when I get home tonight. I am hoping some of the good HH survived the trip. So now I have a total of 37lbs in my tank.

thats too much of rock...u really dnt need that much in a tank but again LR does act like a bio filter which is very good for tank but u need to plan everything in advance as far as ur bioload that u'll be adding to ur tank after when it is cycled ...bc 37 lbs of live rock in a 20 galon tank and leaves u with prb 10 galons of water only...think about it.....

These are the pics of the new rock set up. Can you see the little red dots on some of them? Any idea what that might be? Also, it looks to me that even though it is 37lbs of rock there still seems to be plenty of room for fish to swim. Does it look ok to you all?

IMO, it looks good. Live rock is a matter of astetics. Do YOU like the way it looks. If so, then its all good. I don't beleive you can have too much live rock. Just make it look as you wish and you are good to go. As for the back. You can go the the LFS and get plain blue back ground or you could spray paint it. If you paint it, be really careful to keep it out of the tank. Looks good so far. Mark

IMO, I like it Deep-ous Thief-ous. Does anyone know about the red dots though? You can kind of see them on the last pic. Wasn't sure if it might be coralline algae.

Red dots, some kind of algae, coraline, no, algae, yes. Don't worry about it. Let it cycle and you will be good to go. Resist the urge to add to it right now. Keep your lights going and see what kind of critters come out off the rock. Thats half the fun of this hobby. I would leave the lights going 8-10 hrs a day. Keep checking your parameters. You should also have the moon lights going. For the most part you can make your lights come on and off when you want. Don't think you have to make it exactly when the sun is up. All though close to that is best.

I think you did an exceptionally nice job with your rocks and your new tank will be beautiful.

LR scape looks great. Make sure it is sturdy. Looks like rock it sitting on top of sand. Some of your livestock can and will dig under rock and cause landslide. Push rocks down in sand and you may want to use super glue gel to secure rocks together.

I checked all the rocks and made sure they were sturdy and not going to go anywhere. It looks like they are just sitting there, but they are really quite secure, no movement.
I went into my LFS yesterday to get my clean up crew and got 5 Blue leg hermits, 3 Nassarius snails, 1 mexican something snail (don't remember the exact name, and 3 Astrea snails. Also she checked my water and told me it was ok to add a fish. I got a Ocellaris Clownfish. After I got home and thought about it more, I am a little worried about the fish. Was it to soon? Is there anything special I should watch to make sure its ok? Also, once I am sure everything is ok, how long should I wait before I add another? I also want to add a coral, how long should I wait before I do that?
I will post a new pic soon.

Don't listen only to your LFS, especially when they're going to be selling you livestock. What were the actual values of the water test(s)? You should have your own test kits so you're not dependent on the LFS to monitor your water quality. One such kit is the API saltwater master kit. Adding all the clean up crew and the clown is not a good idea because it's best to add livestock slowly. Don't buy corals until you know your water parameters.

I do know my water parameters- I bought the API Saltwater master kit you are talking about. The results were
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
ph 8
ammonia 0
I didn't blindly follow their advice, but I did rush when I shouldn't have I think.
Thank you for your help.

I do not agree with you man. LR is not just astetics its filtration, and you can have to much rock. This guys tank looks fine.

If LR is filtration, How can you have too much filtration? That makes no sense. When did I say the tank didn't look fine? Personally, the amount of rock at first was not enough and now it looks good, as I said in my post.

He is right, too much LR really isn't a good thing. It can create dead spots in your tank which will trap waste, uneaten food etc (stuff you'd usually want cleaned out) and become a nitrate factory.

As for your tank bud, it looks great!

Sorry fellas, we will have to agree to disagree. There is no such thing as too much LR. If you have dead spots then you don't have enough flow, or the flow is not directed right. Just my .02 worth. I am old school and believe in spray bars to direct the flow all over the tank in and around the rock.

What if your rock creates archways, crevices, etc. Are you supposed to have flow through them? I have "caves" beween my LR and the sand. I can't get the flow in there, will it be a problem?

Flow through the "caves," thats up to you and what you want. Will it be a problem, Maybe and Maybe Not. It depends. Is there uneaten food collecting in there? Are you feeding too much and excess is sitting on the bottom of your tank decaying? Waste products building up in there? Are you doing water changes often and are you cleaning this "cave" out to prevent some of this stuff from becoming problems.

Too many varibles to say for sure if it will be a problem or not. Alot of the "problems" we face are of our own making. If you want a cave with little or no flow then you just need to realize what is needed to overcome the problems associated with it and not allow them to be "problems." Hope that answered some of your ?'s, Mark

Well kinda, I think I have pretty good flow. I was more wondering about if I need to do anything special to keep an eye on my fish and what kind or time frame I should do before adding coral or anything. Thank you for all the insight though. The more information I have the better.

Sounds good. Water changes will be useful now just in case there was a mini-cycle from adding multiple livestock. Also, your feeding the clown is an influence in the mini-cycle. The first corals could be soft corals, which are hardy. Here's a good link:
http://www.asira.org/caresheets


On the whole "too much live rock" issue, I think that one can only fit so many fish (the major influence in bioload unless you have nonphotosynthetic corals) in a tank before territory issues appear. So, it really doesn't take much live rock (or live sand) to be an adequate filter for this theoretical maximum bioload (unless you have a messy eater like a dwarf angler), which is how the "1-1.5+ lb/gal" guideline was formed. Anything more than that is extra live rock, which may help if you overfeed, or it may be harmful if detritus builds up in hidden areas. Moreover, corals also need places to grow, so tanks should be setup to look full 6 months from now, not immediately packed.

+1 Hes the man guys ^^^^^^^

I have been searching around trying to figure out what would be best coral for me to put in, once I am sure all my water parameters are good, to make my clownfish happy and to give him something to host. I was thinking about a Colt Coral. Does that sound like a good idea to you all? Is it a good one to make him happy and for a novice like me? Thanks

A colt coral may work, but I think Euphyllids (torch, hammer, frogspawn, etc.) are another option that also looks similar to anemones. See my asira link for more help.