Nebthet's 20L pygmy clown tank: Euphyllia Forest and Juvi clowns 2b readded

[nebthet]

After Christmas was surprisingly kind to me. Got an unexpected $450 back tax refund in the mail this week plus had some gift cards to use so I decided it is time to get the home for my juvenile clowns ready.

 

Unfortunately, I am starting with dry rock, which at one point I bleached and then soaked in water before drying to kill everything on it because it stank sooooo bad when the other tank I was trying to start it with decided to crap out on me and I didn't have an alternative to put it.

 

Therefore this is going to be one of those long hard cycles, which is okay because it allows me to get a few things situated first.

 

 

Got my led Par38's hung.

I took two of the cheap gooseneck lights from Walmart, and removed the light insert with cord from the gooseneck as it didn't have enough support to hold the light.

 

Then I got three garden planter chains and two packs of plant hangers and screwed those into the ceiling where there were studs to be able to do so. Two of them sit over the tank so I hooked them up and will deal with the third one at a later time.

 

Sand is a mix of the old aragonite I had from the other tank that I had washed out thoroughly over a couple of days before drying it out and putting it in a bag.. which then got tore open by my one cat and I am hoping he didn't pee in it.. but if he did.. well there is my ammonia to start things off. lol. didn't smell like it though.

Then on top of that is some black Fiji moon sand. That stuff really sparkles.

 

Now for the cycle, I think I am just going to use a small AquaClear power filter to put some carbon in and change it every couple of days.

I am not sure if I am going to use the coralife skimmer I have hanging in there right now. I don't mind the box in there but the darn powerhead is just too damn big.

I could switch out the powerhead with a maxijet 1200 but I am not sure if it would work as well or not.

The other possibility I am looking at, and sort of prefering is a refugium box like the CPR but cheaper. Then I could keep a crap load of cheato in the back.

 

Lastly, I do plan on getting a little bit more rock, actual cured rock a month in to the cycle. Possibly another 6-7 pounds but that is it. I really want to keep this scape minimalist.

 

You might also be wondering why I am calling the juvenile clown pygmy.. this is because I think I might have accidentally stunted their growth somewhere along the line. I just hope it is because they are in the tank with two other clown and that after I move them over to this new tank they both start growing to normal clown size, so it will be interesting to see. These clown will be two years old in May and the largest one is a little over 2inches and the smaller one is just over 1.25iches. I do ensure they get plenty to eat on a daily basis... so I know that is not a cause.

 

So here are some pictures.

 

 

Wet Water to come

 

 

Equiptment:

- 20gL = 30lx12.5dx12.7h

- Par38 21w 5led 12k

- Par38 27w 9led 12k

- Koralia1 (400gph)

- Koralia nano (240gph)

- AC50

- Rio Tamm hob skimmer

 

Future Stock List

 

- 2 Onyx (by ChristosClowns) juveniles

- Tangora Goby

 

Corals: will be a little bit of everything. I am going to be using this tank as a frag tank.

- Green Branching Hammer

- Torch coral 6+heads

- GSP

- Xenia

- Red Digitata

- Tricolor acro

- Purple Tipped Digitata

- Green Bottlebrush

- Unknown acro

- Forest green Acan

- Purple Acan

- Blue with red centre Acan

 

 

 

Inverts:

 

Sebae anemone: Yes I know they get large.. that is why this is gong to be the star of my tank and can have as much room as it wants to grow. Plus the smallest of my pygmy clowns gets hosted by the sebae in my 57g tank at night and seems very comfortable in one, so I don't wanna take that away and will get him another one for the new tank.

 

Clean Up Crew:

- Nassarius snails x 6 large x2 small

- Hermit Crabs x2 black x1 scarlet

- Trochus snail x1

- Tectus snail x1

 

 

Please let me know what you think.

[GOODgREEF]

Nice... which bulb you like better?

[nebthet]

I actually like them both. The Nanocustoms Par38 uses the royal blue leds so you get more of a blue/purpley color from it, where as the IceCooLeds Par38 uses the lighter colored blue, so you get a crisper blue coloration.

 

Once the tank is established and has water in it and some corals it will be interesting to see what the difference will be between them.

[Jake42393]

looks nice that cat looks like a panther ;p

[nebthet]

Thanks very much

 

The Kitties name is Orden, as in the Boxes of, from Terry Goodkind's sword of truth book series, and he has certainly lived up to the reputation.

[chrishayes]

nice start! I dont think I could handle looking at that giant rio pump either. I ahve been wishing for a cpr fuge for awhile also, whos knows...

 

Can you please tell me how you made your sig picture? I see them all the time and always wonder how its done. Yours is awesome man, really.

[nebthet]

Thank you very much..

 

I have decided to forgo using the coralife because of the huge pump on it and instead have ordered in a rio nano skimmer to use instead. I don't plan on having a huge amount of live stock in this tank to begin with but want the use of the skimmer as I do plan on an anemone that can get large.

 

I should get it in the mail this week along with another heater, that is shorter than the one pictured in there as well as an AC50 to use for chemical filtration.

Once those arrive I can then put water into my tank. Half new water and the other half water change water from my current tank to allow the seeding of some bacteria.

 

 

As for my signature pic I did it myself using photoshop.

 

First thing I did was create a canvas 6 inches long by 2 inches or so high, I could go a little shorter though.

Then I opened the fixed photos that I wanted to try to use in the signature.

 

Created several layers on the canvas and then went back and forth between each of the chosen pics, copying them from the main pic and attaching them to the layers and removing the portion of the pic I don't want to use and attempting to fit them together so they looked decent. It took me about 3or so hours to make it. But I had nothing better to do at the time.

[Wilioli]

looks like you got a great start here -- im very interested in the rio skimmer.. u have any experience with it or is this ur first time/purchase? I ask every canadian i meet where they get their 'stuff' from.. lol -- I see you got lights from nanocustoms -- u make most of ur purchases from the states? Know of any good canadian sources? So far what I've come up with are jlaquatics, bigals, frag'dit, fragalot, goreef.. and thats that... lol

[nebthet]

looks like you got a great start here -- im very interested in the rio skimmer.. u have any experience with it or is this ur first time/purchase? I ask every canadian i meet where they get their 'stuff' from.. lol -- I see you got lights from nanocustoms -- u make most of ur purchases from the states? Know of any good canadian sources? So far what I've come up with are jlaquatics, bigals, frag'dit, fragalot, goreef.. and thats that... lol

 

I haven't used the rio nano skimmer yet. It will be my first time using one of them. It was only $36 so I thought I would give it a shot and use the coralife as a last resort if I have to. So I will be writing a bit of a review of it on here. I have heard from another member who uses it and states they just changed over to the coralife skimmer because the rio put a lot of microbubbles in the tank and drove him nuts, so it will be interesting. I personally don't mind the microbubble thing, I went through it with my remora skimmer on my main tank and the coralife was worse than the remora, which is why I don't use it.

 

Where do I buy my stuff? All over the place really.

 

I try to buy used hardware when I can. My Par38 lights came from fellow hobbiests. the 21w Nanocustoms ones from the States and the 27w Icecooled ones from a guy in BC.

 

Dry Goods I purchase from the following:

- JLAquatics

- GoReef.com

 

Live Goods I mainly purchase from Jim of Forty Fathoms in Gananoque he keeps a lot of us updated on what he gets in on his forum, fortyfathoms.net. He doesn't do any shipping though. So I only get up there about 3 times a year, more if I am lucky. His prices for livestock are some of the cheapest in Canada and they include tax. He will also special order stuff in for you if you are looking for something specific.

 

Oceansdirect.ca (aka North American Fish Breeders) I have purchased some frags off of them. Mostly my acans, favia and zoas.

 

I will never buy from fragalot every again. I had a really bad experience with their stuff coming in DOA because of their clip and ship methods and Burc didn't want to refund. If you have never ordered from him, I suggest that you don't, or at least go around all the different forums first and get an idea for his reputation.

 

I have also purchased frags off of other members in the Toronto area. Most of my sps came from Shrimpchips and Reef_to_Reef from the canreef.com boards.

 

I find it is advantageous to look around in a whole bunch of different places for the stuff you need. It ends up being cheaper that way.

[flick]

Right on, a fellow canadian! Liking the tank so far dude, looks great. I also have carbon running in my hob, it's been in for about 2 days. How much longer should I leave it in? or should I take it out for good now? or just rinse it and place it back in?

 

Cheers

 

Flick

[animalmaster6]

Nice scape Neb. Can't wait to see some livestock in it

[nebthet]

Thanks for the compliment AM.

 

Well I need to add a few more rocks first.. I am thinking two more the same size as the larger one on the right, or maybe a little larger should do it.. about 10-12lbs of actual cured live, but I am gonna let the current ones start curing for a week first.

I don't want the rock to go over half the height of the tank after the sand bed so that there is lots of swimming room.

That should give me close to 20 lbs of rock for the tank.

 

Then my little clowns can go in there once things stabilize. They will make the tank seem huge because they are both still sooo small and I will be adding in a sebae anemone.. I know.. it is a small tank for a sebae but I will be keeping an eye on the parameters and have the skimmer to help.

 

Flick: I change my carbon once a month, sometimes sooner depending on my test results.

[Wilioli]

I haven't used the rio nano skimmer yet...So I will be writing a bit of a review of it on here.

ill be waiting on that then.. lol -- I've read a lot of really good things about it -- especially becuase of its price, and i've read a lot of poor reviews on it as well... its just that unbeatable price! lol

Dry Goods I purchase from the following:

- JLAquatics

- GoReef.com

Oceansdirect.ca (aka North American Fish Breeders) I have purchased some frags off of them. Mostly my acans, favia and zoas.

 

I will never buy from fragalot every again.

yea jlaquatics is where im doin dry stuff.. and i found goreef 'on my own' -- great prices, and great tech support.. haven't got anything from them yet.. was gonna get my lights there.. anyways, yea they seem pretty legit.. and fragalot looked so cool! hahaha, no i have not gotten anything there.. i just recently got some frags, and it was from a local reefer -- that seems like the safest and best way to go.. you get to see the setup, and the person.. .lol, end of story

 

I find it is advantageous to look around in a whole bunch of different places for the stuff you need. It ends up being cheaper that way.

i hear yea on that -- was just hoping there was some secret website in canada that no one knows about and that has the cheapest prices on EVERYTHING.. lol lol my quest continues!

[nebthet]

i hear yea on that -- was just hoping there was some secret website in canada that no one knows about and that has the cheapest prices on EVERYTHING.. lol lol my quest continues!

 

 

Yes, if only there was a site out there... that would be awesome.. but I haven't found one yet.. but at least most of our coral in Canada is cheaper than what you can get in the US.

[flick]

Right on, thanks for the answer. What changes do you notice if you don't replace it every month or so, as far as test results go. A higher or lower ________________?

 

Wilioli, where you at in Ont? I remember your name, so I know we've chatted about this before..

[nebthet]

Right on, thanks for the answer. What changes do you notice if you don't replace it every month or so, as far as test results go. A higher or lower ________________?

 

Wilioli, where you at in Ont? I remember your name, so I know we've chatted about this before..

 

Usually my nitrates and ammonia will go down a little. When it starts to not work, they will go up and after a little while I found that that always happened on the 1 month part so I automatically change it then.

 

Wilioli I think is in Barrie Ontario.

 

Where are you from? I am in Belleville.

[Wilioli]

yup barrie -- and yes you do 'know' me flick.. i believe thru pm's and email?

[flick]

Yes, I recognized your name

[nebthet]

WET WATER! WET WATER! WET WATER!

 

I used 4g of water from my current tank will a little bit siphoned from the sandbed to seed the new bed and rockwork.

 

Then filled the other 15g (accounting for rockwork here) with a mix of tap salt and ro salt mix. This is a hard cycle so I went the easy way for filling the tank up. Subsequent water changes with RO will eliminate the tapwater being used.

 

Within the next week or so, I will then be picking up some more liverock. about 10-12lbs, but this stuff will be fully cured unlike the stuff I have in there now.

 

Pics tomorrow when the water has cleared up.

[AdrianBryce]

pics now plz kthx

[systemtool]

Hey Nebthet,

 

I like the LED's, can't wait to see some frags under them! Might have to buy some off you eventually! (I am in Kingston)

 

There are a few more sites that us Canadian folks can buy from, although neither are your "unicorn" site of the cheapest prices and best stuff.

 

mops.ca - these guys are in Hamilton, and are excellent to deal with. They have good prices on stuff like airline, and standard type stuff (mostly for freshwater)

 

petsandponds.ca - This place is in Orillia I think, and is pretty much the same as mops. they do have some reef stuff, but it tends to be older brands and really high prices (e.g. Coralife, or those hagen T5 lights, stuff like that)

 

Anyways, lets see more pics of the new setup!

[nebthet]

pics now plz kthx

 

Here is a front tank shot with the water in.. it is still a little cloudy because I have not added the AC50 for chemical filtration yet. I figure that will allow some time for the ammonia spike and good bacteria to begin populating the tank for the hard cycle.

You can see I need to add some more LR. Two more pieces the size of the large one on the right should do it.

 

One of the other things I will be doing is putting on a background. I just haven't decided which one yet.

Would black be good to match the sand or blue?

 

Hey Nebthet,

 

I like the LED's, can't wait to see some frags under them! Might have to buy some off you eventually! (I am in Kingston)

 

I remember you systemtool. How has your tank been? I haven't seen any updates with it in a while.

 

If you are heading to Jim's anytime I took a few frags up to him. Three large Purple tipped digi frags and 2 green/tan monticap frags, one large and one small. I am going to be taking what I cannot sell locally up to him and give him larger pieces than I normally do.

 

Right now in my larger tank I am trying to figure out what is going on with my clams. I have lost two of them in the last two weeks. No pyramid snails, and they looked fine the day before and the next they refused to open and quickly declined with the snails and hermits going at them. They seemed to be being eaten by their foot, so now I have to watch the two clams I have left.

[Wilioli]

dang -- that looks sweeet... put the poster of that wolf on the background.. lol -- but seriously the tank looks real good

[nebthet]

I have a couple better wolf posters than that one to use.. lol.. I will try a few different ones.

[Deano]

Not sure what a pygmy clown is but welcome to the 20L club. Such a great tank to work with. Plenty of room to aquascape, not so deep you get your armpits wet everytime you have to clean it and easy to light up. I went full tilt on mine. Drilled over flow, 20 gal sump with about 16 gal of water volume, with a old school Red Sea Berlin Skimmer, built in 3 gal refugium and a 2 gal gravity feed ATO.

 

One of the other things I will be doing is putting on a background. I just haven't decided which one yet.

Would black be good to match the sand or blue?

 

I painted mine black. Its ok but it sure does show any debrie or micro bubbles floating in the display.