Ugly's 20L build thread

[uglybuckling]

Finally setting up my first reef, after about 3.5 years of lurking here, and about 15 years in the hobby (mostly keeping freshwater and FOWLR salt tanks).

 

Here's my progress so far:

Detail of stand from back (since my counter is not wide enough to support the tank)

 

 

 

 

Home-built Fuge, 10g, with submerged Mag3 return pump.

 

 

 

Detail of fuge inlet.

 

 

 

150 watts of 14,000K halide beauty

 

 

 

New toys from reefgeek.

 

 

Overflow box (too lazy to drill when I can get a CPR CS90 with the aqualifter pump, all for $70) will get here later today and I'll start on the plumbing at that point.

 

--Bucky

[Matty1124]

looking good.. i like your sump/fuge inlet

[Mr. Fosi]

Is that a FW planted tank next to the 20L?

 

Also, what are your plans for generating flow? Just the sump return?

[lil'wrasse cool]

nice

[uglybuckling]

Howdy,

 

Yes, that's one of my three FW plant tanks sitting next to my new project. It's going to get broken down, however, and my new 20L is going to get moved over to where the 10 is currently sitting.

 

Anyway, I'm going to use the fuge return for flow on one end of the tank and a Korallia 1 or 2 on the other end.

 

If anybody has any further suggestions please, by all means, let me know. I've got some idea what I'm doing because I've been reading these forums forever, but I don't pretend to have as much knowledge about this stuff as most of you all do....what with never having actually done it before, myself.

 

--B

[uglybuckling]

Howdy,

 

Bringing this thread up to date....moved the tank to its final position after clearing out the 10g planted tank that was next to it. Installed overflow and did the plumbing. These pics are from the first wet run.

 

Fugezilla.

 

 

Back of tank, overflow, fuge, and my oven.

 

 

My own little waterfall.

 

 

Bask in its glory.

 

 

Yep, so as long as it keeps working and doesn't fall through my shoddily-constructed house (knock on formica), I'm good to go.

 

--B

[uglybuckling]

My LFS is clearing out their live rock selection for $5 a pound, anything in the store. "It's all been sitting there for too long," says the shop owner. Great...cured Fiji at $5 a pound....I'm happy. Got some nice pieces today.

 

--Bucky

[uglybuckling]

So far I have seen a small starfish that looked a bit like a brittle star, three chitins, four or five snails, two 'pods (or the same one twice), a mini feather duster, and a bristle worm.

 

I can't believe I've had my head plastered to the side of a small glass box watching rocks for the last 3 hours.

 

--B

[uglybuckling]

Okay, two FTS:

 

 

 

A chitin, just above the center of the picture.

 

 

 

A bristle worm. There are quite a few in there. I'm gonna leave them alone and hope they're not the kind that like to eat clams or zoanthids.

 

 

 

A stomatella.

 

 

--Bucky

[Matty1124]

looking good!

[Rocket]

Nice simple setup.

[SPS20]

So far I have seen a small starfish that looked a bit like a brittle star, three chitins, four or five snails, two 'pods (or the same one twice), a mini feather duster, and a bristle worm.

 

I can't believe I've had my head plastered to the side of a small glass box watching rocks for the last 3 hours.

 

--B

 

I can believe it. This is the only hobby I know of where it is considered normal to stare at rocks for hours on end.

 

Good work, I am looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

 

- Josh

[uglybuckling]

Added CUC:

 

3 Astrea snails - they're ok I guess. They move around a lot. I'm not convinced they're actually cleaning anything.

 

1 Turbo snail - He's still little, I hope he stays that way but I would be willing to bet he does not. Very solid cleaner (as promised by my reading), but likes to crawl into cracks in rockwork. I'm hoping he doesn't act like freezing water and knock stuff over.

 

5 Nassarius snails - Pretty good sand sifters. Also added 3 additional ones to the 'fuge. They're only $1.50, I might get a few more. I really like these.

 

2 scarlet hermits - I wasn't really sure about these; they're supposed to be less aggressive than blue or red-leg according to my reading, but I'm still not really convinced that they have a place in my reef.

 

1 emerald (mithrax) crab - I'll take him back when he becomes a mean green food-hogging machine and exchange him for one of the cute little ones.

 

1 Peppermint shrimp - has completely destroyed the previously-flourishing aptaisia population in my tank. I love this little guy. He has a lot of personality and enjoys staying under rock overhangs.

 

I've also still got a pretty decent diatom bloom going, but no detectable levels of anything I can test for. I used premixed saltwater from the fish store, which they said was made with RO water. I hope they change their filters regularly and my water isn't full of silica or something. The handful of chaeto I added to my fuge is flourishing. It has a few strands of caulerpa in it as well...I'm debating as to whether I should go through it with a fine-tooth comb and remove these or just say "whaddever."

 

--Bucky

[uglybuckling]

To bring this thread up to date, I now have a true percula clown and a green banded goby in the tank, in addition to about 10 zoanthid colonies, four different kinds of mushrooms, some green star polyps, some daisy polyps, and some anthelia. I'm going to get one or two more fish, some leather coral, a xenia frag, and perhaps some hammer or frogspawn coral. At some point I'm also considering a clam.

 

Any suggestions for the other fish? I've been looking at firefish, dottybacks (though they're a bit aggressive sometimes), another percula maybe, or perhaps a coral beauty or flame angel (is this 30-ish gallon system (20 gal display) large enough?)

 

I've been doing weekly water changes of 5g, using store-bought pre-mixed saltwater, which is pretty cheap at my LFS. My diatom bloom is pretty much gone. Everything seems to be going quite well. I hope I didn't just jinx it.

 

My friend has just recently purchased a macro lens for her SLR camera, so I'm waiting for her to come over and take pictures of the tank and corals. I'll get 'em up here eventually.

 

--Bucky

[uglybuckling]

This tank has been up and running about 8 months now, and it's looking pretty good. Pictures below the wordage.

 

Current livestock includes:

 

• Fish:
  • One green-banded goby, Gobiosoma multifasciatum
    
  • Two ocellaris clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris
    

  [*]Inverts:

  • One emerald crab
    
  • Two scarlet hermits
    
  • Three Nassarius snails
    
  • Two Astrea snails
    
  • One "turbo" snail
    
  • One tridacna clam, Tridanca crocea
    
  • Seven Zooanthid colonies
    
  • One Xenia colony that likes to grow faster than I can frag it
    
  • Five varieties of corallimorphians including orange ricordea, some mushrooms, and (my favorite) a few nocturnal "ball anemones"
    
  • One colony of "daisy polyps"
    
  • One colony of "blue snowflake polyps"
    
  • One colony of "green clove polyps"
    
  • About twenty small unidentified starfish
    
  • An uncountable number of feather dusters
    

 

The system's specs are as follows:

 

• 20g "long" show tank with CPR overflow, custom stand by yours truly
  
• 150W Phoenix Halide, burns 8h a day
  
• 10g sump with 2x100W heater, fuge with live rock rubble and Chaetomorpha, 200gph return pump
  
• Koralia nano for circulation
  
• ReefGeek Auto-Top-off with 5g reservoir
  

 

Maintenance consists of :

 

• Daily or QOD feedings with frozen foods (plus daily staring at the tank).
  
• Weekly 5g water change using RO/DI water and Instant Ocean salt mix, as well as feeding with DT's phytoplankton.
  
• Monthly cleaning of the glass cover & the pumps, and pruning of the Chaetomorpha.
  
• Yearly bulb change for the halide light.
  

Okay, picture time.

 

 

Here are my two ocellaris clownfish, e and pi:

 

My green-banded goby and a random hermit crab:

 

A couple shrooms:

 

GSP and Tridacna crocea clam:

 

Xenia and zoos:

 

More zoos: