Inhabitants for new 20g long in office

[newnano]

I got a 20g long tank from a friend at work before it ended up in the trash. I was thinking of using it at in my office at work. It will most likely be a FOWLR tank however, I'm not ruling out an anemone or zoos in the future.

 

I just wanted some input from those out there that have 20g long tanks. What type and quantity of fish do you have in your tanks. Also include and anemones or zoos. A photo or link to a photo would help alot.

 

Thanks

[Aiptasia]

First, you'll need to up the wattage on the lights if you want nice pink/purple/red calcarious algaes on the LR (and macro-algae) to survive. If you want to keep zooanthis and photosynthetic anemones, you'll also need to "up" your lights. Coralife makes some great powercompact hoods with a mixture of natural daylight/actinic 03 bulbs for that sized tank, but it may mean that you need to replace a black plastic canopy for a glass canopy for the top of the tank as well. Both www.thatfishplace.com and www.drsfostersmith.com have these lights.

 

The dimensions of a 20 long are roughly 30"Lx12"Wx12"H, so you'll need a light fixture between 24" and 30" long. The coralife 2x65w. unit (or similar) should do you fine at about 130 watts of good reef light. This should be adequate for most deep water and mid water corals provided they are acclimated properly.

 

Your main concern is going to be nitrate buildup, and there are two schools of thought on how to tackle this problem: 1) removing dissolved organics before they enter the nitrogen cycle (skimming) and 2) removing excess wastes from the tank (water changes, denitrification, D.O.C. algaes).

 

With a lot of fish and other biomass in the tank, controlling the nitrates is going to be a constant job. Fish are ammonia machines and you have four in the tank as it is. Nitrate doesn't harm fish that much unless in huge quantities, but even the smallest amount (greater than 10 parts per million) can kill corals, even hardy ones.

 

My suggestion is to do one or the other, keep it a FOWLR tank, or re-think (and design) the tank into a mini-reef, with: Better light, a small skimmer and/or a refugium with D.O.C. loving plants/algaes.

 

BTW, anemonies don't like nitrates that much either. The only one that I can suggest that's both reef compatible, clownfish compatible and relatively hardy are the bubble tipped anemones.

Even then, you gotta come up with a method of keeping the nitrate at or below 10 ppm.

 

If I were doing this tank, i'd use a plenum with a 4-5" of sand over it (see plenums in the FAQs) as your substrate and either a refugium with D.O.C. loving plants (caulerpa, ulva, shaving brush, mangrove pod) or a good protein skimmer, such as a CPR bakpak II (with bubble trap) or a Prizm Deluxe skimmer. By doing this, you have dentrification areas that will remove nitrate naturally from your tank and prevent you from doing daily water changes.

[Tempest]

Go FOWLR... much less worry in the long run, especially when you're away for the weekend. I disagree about the coralline algae. I've had nice gowth of green and purple coralline/calcerous alage on my rocks in a 10 gallon FOWLR with only fluorescent lighting. Maybe luck? I have a 20 long with a striated angler and assorted inverts. He's a baby still so I feed him a silverside or some krill every other day.

[Aiptasia]

Tempest: Maybe yes, maybe no. 15 watts is very little lighting for a 30" long tank, especially considering he wants corals as well. I'm a big believer in flourescent lighting depending on the species of invert you want to keep and the depth of the tank. Most 20 longs are only 16 inches deep, and combined with LR and a substrate, most flourescent lighting should be fine for deep to mid water corals. Just up the wattage and make sure you're using a good full spectrum of light. 50/50 bulbs are great!