Adept's IM 20g Introduction & Questions

[adept]

I’ve been lurking here for a couple months now... as I thought about getting a tank, and then as I started cycling my tank. I figured I’d make a thread here in the beginner’s forum since I have so many questions. I’ll put all my questions in red.

 

First off, here are some pictures as of today. So far the tank has been running for 4 weeks.

 

 

 

 

Equipment

- Tank - IM fusion 20 gallon

- I first purchased an IM nuvo 16g and have since gotten rid of that at 100% loss to myself. I’ll try and separate myself from IM and their terrible customer service in the future. Long story.

- Stand - Ikea cabinet, and I added some 1x3” pieces internally for framing and peace of mind

- Light - Maxspect razor 60w nano

- ATO - Tunze nano osmolator

- Flow - Hydor koralia PH and Sicce syncra silent 251gph

- Heater - Eheim Jager (75W)

- Skimmer - IM ghost desktop size

- At which point should I add this into my system?

 

Setup

- 16 lbs of dry real reef rock

- 3 lbs of this was cultured for a month in my LFS’s existing tank

- 10 lbs of dry sand ~1 inch of sandbed

- Dumped some calcium reactor media on top of the pump at the suggestion of my LFS

- What am I doing here, just extra filtration?

- Purchased inTank media baskets, filter floss, seachem purigen, and chemi-pure elite

- Can I just immediately switch out the existing IM media filters once I receive these in?

 

Aquascape

- Do you all like my aquascape? I’m worried that it might not be very functional when I go to put in some coral since the large shelf on the left side is creating a lot of shadows below.

 

Livestock plan

- I’m going to list these in order of introduction to the tank. Can anyone tell me if this is the proper order?

 

Fish and Invertebrae – looking for a total of 4/5 fish and 2 shrimp

- 2 banded trochus snails in there now

- Yellowtail damsel introduced a week ago, but I will take him out once I am sure my cycle is good and I want to introduce my true livestock

- What other snails?

- Hi fin red banded shrimp goby and candy pistol shrimp

- Purple firefish… not settled on this one, suggestions?

- Pair of clowns, black and white ocellaris and true percula

- Skunk cleaner shrimp

- Long down the road… maximus clam

 

Coral

- No idea but I’d like to do easy soft corals. The only ones I saw that I loved were the hammer, bubble and torch corals. Any opinions?

[jdog]

Xnay on the Goby and Pistol Shrimp,not a good idea if you plan on having a nice aquascape.

[GMay]

You may have too many fish for that tank with 4/5.

[Steensj2004]

I'd have to respectfully disagree on the Goby and Pistol Shrimp. I will never have a tank without a pair. They are the most interesting critters in a tank IMHO. I have gotten lucky and they always build a den right in the front of the tank. Mine never tore anything up to badly, I just kept any frags corals on the sandbed away from the den, lol!

 

[adept]

Thanks for posting that steensj. I was really looking forward to having the pair. They can occupy a whole different space of the tank that others will not.

[adept]

Well tonight I added the IM Ghost Skimmer, and immediately removed it. The sound was awfully loud. I would estimate that the tank was around 15x louder than with just my other gear on. Unfortunately I'm going to have to get rid of this thing... and it looks like I'll be going sans skimmer.

[rbargante]

The noise comes from the pump of the skimmer?

[Balix]

I think you have too much rock in there even though some will say you can never have enough. I would at least redo the rockscape. The IM skimmer is horrible so I ended up getting a airstone skimmer (coralife). There are other skimmer options which I plan on doing in the future but you have to put it in the middle return chamber and have two separate pumps which is good anyway if one does break down. Good luck with your tank.

[Jimbo7]

At which point should I add this into my system? - After your first fish. Skimmers remove suspended proteins in the water so you'll need something pooping before you really start to see the benefits. Though reviews on the IM ghost aren't great, you may want to try running it for 3-7 days first to see. Often skimmers have a "break in" period and will quiet down a bit after. If you decide not to go with it, it wont be terrible considering you are looking at softies and LPS. Skimmers really become invaluable with SPS.

 

What am I doing here, just extra filtration? - Not sure what they are after on this one. Calcium reactors help balance alk and calcium which is important to coral skeleton growth. It can't hurt and will probably help balance your levels a bit, but probably not needed so early honestly.

 

Can I just immediately switch out the existing IM media filters once I receive these in? - Yup. Just take the other ones out carefully so you don't dislodge everything trapped in them.

 

Do you all like my aquascape? - You'll get so many conflicting opinions on this. Start by defining your goals for the tank as that shapes things the most IMO. If it were me (coral crazy), I would move that large shelf to the middle of the tank and leave it mostly uncovered to load up corals. It's pretty high up and I would worry about your LED's frying anything up there. If you are mostly focused on fish, it looks good with lots of hiding spots and places to dart between. Once you define your goals a little more someone can chime in to help.

 

Can anyone tell me if this is the proper order? - You'll want to put fish in least aggressive/territorial to most, so I think your order looks great. With the goby comments above, just make sure your rocks are mostly placed against the glass at the bottom to be secure. You don't want them digging under your rock and it comes toppling down and ruining everything. Check reefcleaners for good mixes of snails in their packs.