20g Hex - The Left Over Display

[A.Berry]

New Project!

 

My 75g Flat Back Hex is growing coral at a crazy rate that has led me to needing to find a new place for some. I've donated a few to my dad's new tank, but he lives 7 hours away, so it's not something i can do regularly and I don't know of any other reef keepers near me. While sitting in my kitchen, looking at my neglected planted 20g Hex, I got the idea to turn it into an overflow tank. This build is going to be a great learning experiment for coral propagation from my large reef and should look really amazing after 6ish months. 

 

 

This is a VERY dated picture from initial setup. Its very over grown now and down to 2 Neons, a female betta, and a cherry barb. I'm not posting a picture of it now out of pure embarrassment. The remaining fish will go into a planted pico jar I'm setting up with spare parts I have lying around. I have had some great success with tiny planted tanks and a heavy stock in them seems to do great with plants and creates a really interesting healthy system. 

 

Anyways, enough with the planted setup. This tank already has some things done to it to HOPEFULLY support coral growth. I modified the lid with a free fluval eco nano COB light. It sits at the lower end of the spectrum (9000k) but is pretty powerful for its size. It isn't really blue enough for me, so I'll be sticking a 6" actinic light (Glofish waterproof bar) for some extra color. If that doesn't produce enough light for growth, I'll get ahold of 2 21ledusa 50/50 reef bars, shorten them to fit, and mount them either to the lid or to the inner rim.

 

 

 

For filtration, I plan to start with the aqueon HOB that is on there already and see how it works. I've also thought about the Coralife HOB skimmer/filter. I've read some great reviews of them once they are broken in. 

 

I was given about 50ish pounds of dry rock that is in awesome condition and I plan to try to get all of it in and I'll be using some black diamond blast media I have left over. We'll see how well all of that performs and move on from there. No sump (no space for one underneath the stand), now fuge (again, no space) and I plan to follow a 20-25% water change. If the filter/skimmer combo can't handle it, i may move to a canister filter with the acceptance that the filter will need cleaning weekly or an algae reactor. 

 

Once cycled (I'll be using some seeded rock and water from the 75g), i plan to put one of my candy cane bunches that broke off recently, a bunch of zoa frags and mushrooms I'm working on, and MAYBE some pulsing xenia that is doing exactly what xenia does and spreading. It takes work to keep it under control, but it is very cool to watch! For fish, I'll probably stick with some easy things that will pop. Maybe a pair of clowns, a pair of banggais, goby and shrimp, firefish, orchid dottyback or royal gramma, who knows. We'll see what looks nice. 

 

 

 

[A.Berry]

Little update for the things to move out of the hex tank. Made a stand out if 2 pieces of plywood and now I just need to drill a hole for the light