Ideal tank inhabitants

[40gal]

Well while trying to decide on what to have in my tank I decided to let everyone have a shot at naming the tank inhabitants. Here's the scenario:

 

20H tank with DIY, built in sump (for diagram see this link: halfway down this page )

 

175W MH 20,000K retro with DIY hood/fan

 

MJ500 powerhead for water movement from sump to tank

 

15-20 LBS of Fiji LR from marine depot live

 

3-4" DSB

 

 

As of right now I have 2 hermit crabs, and a nerite snail. Yesterday I added a coral beauty that looks very happy in the tank.

 

Basicly what I want to know is if you could make this tank the "IDEAL" nano, what would you put in it (realisticly, and taking into consideration the above facts) as far as a cleanup crew, fish, corals, inverts (would like a shrimp) and whatever else. I'm sure you can come up with some good suggestions, and if you include facts as to why one species would be better than another, I think that would make this a little interesting.... Ok, GO!!

 

Travis

[chufa]

if I was in your place, I would get a Royal Gramma, Green Clown Goby, 3 astrea snails, and 1 skunk cleaner shrimp. and of course, corals too. My favorites are Euphyllia (Frogspawn, Torch, Hammer), Xenia, Mushrooms, Ricordeas, and GSP. Of course, not all of this at the same time! Oh, and maybe an additional powerhead to improve oxygenation (high tanks have lower O2).

[Deimos]

The ideal? Well...Montipora, Acropora, Anacropora, Heliopora, Pavona, Porites, Stylophora, Hydnophora, and maybe some Millepora thrown in just for fun..and some zoos as filler. Then again...your first fish may have been a very big NO-NO..as you may basically have made yourself a well-lit FOWLR tank by adding a Centropyge angel which have the nasty tendency to munch on SPS, LPS, and Octocorals as a midday snack ESPECIALLY in as confined a space as a 20.

[40gal]

I did consider not getting the coral beauty, but this is my logic - I have a 40 long that I can put him in to if he gets too big or nips at any sps (or any other corals) that might end up in the tank. So, it was an educated buy, but I know that he may not end up staying there (although I hope he does). He had been at the LFS for a couple weeks now, and looked great in their tank (not stressed, eating well), as opposed to a true perc. that they tried selling me that they said was real healthy (he was rubbing himself against the side of the tank and didn't move much at all). I decided to wait until the next day and see if he was any better, but he ended up going to clown heaven sometime before I got there. Too bad, he was the perfect size for my tank.....

 

Keep the suggestions coming, cause I am trying to get together the "best" setup for my tank.

 

Travis

[40gal]

Oh also,

 

not sure if you checked out the link or not, but do you think upgrading my PH to a MJ 900 or 1200 would be better? Ideally, I would like to not have any equiptment in the tank, but not sure if this will be enough (or random enough) water movement. Any comments??

[Deimos]

As far as the Angel goes...put something that you want in there coralwise (especially an SPS if thats what you're looking to keep) and see if he gets to nipping it. If so..remove him BEFORE you buy any other corals to toss in there..as to get the Eibl's Angel I had out of my 29 I had to remove...oh...all but three pieces of my LR...that was not a very happy experience for me. And yes..I did try the other methods (soda bottle on fishing line..even the mirror trick) all to no avail...angels are damn smart beasties. I think ideally in a 20 you're going to need several powerheads...in my 29 I've got 4 right now and I'll probably get a 5th soon...as I keep mostly SPS corals. Again..flow rate is dependant on your tank inhabitants etc. If you're building a softie tank..you obviously don't want as much flow as you would with an SPS tank. My tank runs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1100gph..and thats on a 29..which is slowly but surely becoming SPS-dominated.

 

HTH...

[40gal]

wow that is a huge turnover rate..... 1100gph. It seems like way too much to me, but I have never had any SPS. What is your powerhead placement? I am not against adding PH's in there, but only if I need them, which it seems that I might. Not sure as to which size ph's to run either. It also seems that if you had any low current corals, that with 1100 gph, it would be hard to find a low current location in your tank. I did order a MJ900 to either replace the "sump" pump or add to the tank. That is what I will do about the angel - just add one SPS and see what happens. Again I have heard different people say that they have no problems with them, and some say they eat everything. Thanks for the input.

[Deimos]

You'd be surprised..like I said..thats why I am probably going to add another PH..I DO have some dead spots. Especially lower in the tank..great place for me to put my LPS. The arrangement I have is a counterclockwise flow around the tank (can't remember why..but I heard counterclockwise is better...probably not..but I'm a bit superstitious..lol) I've got PH's on the left side of my skimmer/bubbletrap for my BakPak2 (a Rio 600), in the upper left corner of the back of the tank I've got an AC 301 pointing diagonally INTO the tank...in the front right corner I've got an AC 301 blowing AT the glass at the front of the tank..creates a nice ricochet current into the center..and in the back upper right I've got another AC 301 blowing diagonally into the center with another Rio 600 buried at the back right of the tank blowing across the back of the LR about 5" above the sand level. I'm going to add either a Powersweep for random current or go all out and get a friggin Tunze Turbelle...just so I don't have ANY more flow issues. As far as the angel goes..again..I've found it to be a factor of tank size..the smaller the tank..the more likely they are to nip. I've kept Coral Beauties in my larger tank (80gal) with little to no problems..and others have had the same results in that size or larger tanks..but in the smaller tanks something seems to go off inside of them (either boredom from lack of "changing scenery" or what...I dunno) and they become mad polyp nippers. I've got an acropora colony that is just now starting to show good polyp extension after 2 weeks without the angel because it picked on it so much. Anyway..as far as flow goes..yeah...for SPS you'd be surprised at the flow rates you'd want and the size/number of PH's it takes to create that kind of flow (since you can't just blast the corals with straight laminar flow..as this has the nasty tendency to strip tissue off of skeleton). Borneman, in his book, even states that reef crest corals (a lot of SPS species) receive in the neighbourhood of 3-13"/sec of flow..sometimes up to 3'/sec! Thats a TON of flow...just goes to show what you need....

[40gal]

Well no need to worry about the coral beauty nipping at anything now.....uuuurrrrrrrrrgggggggg.

 

I'm so ####ed off. My Kent aquadoser screwed up last night when I put it on my tank to add topoff water. It was dripping at the normal rate to replenish any evaporated water from the daytime. I went to sleep and when I woke up this morning, the aquadoser was still full and my CB was stuck to my overflow, breathing heavy. The water in my return section of my sump was almost to the sump which means the SG went from 1.024 (normal) to about 1.0255 or 1.0260 in about 24 hours. This would seem to be ok, but I had once noticed him looking very stressed and the water level was low (SG at about 1.025). I added water to bring the SG to 1.024 and he immediately returned to normal. This was at least a week ago(and he has been fine ever since). So, I added water to the tank to try to bring it back to it's normal limits. Well needless to say, after about an hour of coaxing him along, he is now in fishy heaven. He was a good fish, and I killed him. I am mad about the $32 that I spent on him going down the drain, but more upset that I killed such a cool fish.

 

Guess it proves the point "Anything mechanical can and will fail".