My New 20 Gallon Reef Tank

kjord97

kjord97

Member
Hello there fellow nano people, Well i have been into tanks for about 15 years and this year I started my first salt tank. Here is some pics, the tank has been established and going since march 10th, 2004. Here is a list of the set up::::
here is the equipment
(1) 20 gal reg tank
(1) topfin 60 hang on back filter (with sponges and media)
(1) 100 watt heater, which i never see come on
(1) Coralife Power Center/Wavemaker
(1)Coralife Super Skimmer I ( not hooked up right now, ran it about 3 weeks and i saw no difference, skimmer never even got dirty)
(1) Current USA Orbit 24" 2 x 65 Watt Power Compact Strip Light W/2 Lunar Lights complete day night package
here is the other stuff
several bottles of kent marine additives, calcium, iodine, strotium, trace elements, marine buffer to 8-3 ph,
water changes weekely if needed.
water test ph 8.3
nitrate 0ppm
nitrites 0ppm
amonnia 0 ppm
calcium 420 ppl
water temp 76 f
as far as live stuff
4 inches of purple, blue live sand
23 lbs live rock
inverts
(1) feather duster
(1) caribean pistol shrimp
(1) coralbanded shrimp
(1) bluenuckle hermit crab
(15) assorted hermit crabs blue/ red all small
(12) snails
(1) red footed snail
(1) spiny star
fish
(1) 3 strip damsel
(1) yellow tail damsel
(1) marron clown
(1) flame angel
(1) dragonnet
corals
several stalks of xenia
star polyps
gonapora (flower pot)
several other green brown and yellow polyps
here is a pic of my tank
please tell me what yall think and if anyone has any suggestions. thank you
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
this is my gonapora (flower pot) he is kinda sick i think, looked great about 2 weeks ago but has shrunk up to this. about half of his size. i have been told he will not make it past 6 months to a year.
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
here is my buddy, to bad i have been through about 3 bubble tip, and 2 long tenticle, so he has no home. the annenomes only last about 4 days and shrival up, i have been told that i have to much light. i have about 6.5 watts per gallon.
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
here is my favorite so far, my xenia,s i use to have more but a green star fish ate a big stalk off of him, so the star fish went away to fish heaven. so if anyone has any ideas of a new star fish that is reef safe please tell me so i can replace it for my girlfriend.
 
I

ivanfj

Guest
I hope he doesn't dose anything with copper in there, or else it would be quite troublesome. Your lighting isn't quite good enough for anemone IMO. I have the same lighting setup and I only keep shrooms and some other softies. Starfishes are very sensitive to water change. A slight change to the bad side could bring him to where he is right now, but I guess he had a pretty nice meal before he left. :happyfish :happyfish Just curious, where did you find that purple/blue sand from???? It looks pretty cool :yes: :yes:
 
texasranchers

texasranchers

Member
As it has already been mentioned, wait for your tank to mature to at least 6-8 months old and get stronger lighting. With MH you can put pretty much anything in your tank so long as it doesn't get too big.
BTW get rid of some fish or stop everything and get a bigger tank.
 
sagxman

sagxman

Member
You don't have "too much light" for the anemone. I would say you have the bare minimum light. I have a very healthy BTA under the same wattage. Only difference is I have a 20 long instead of a tall. I'm going to MH soon though so hopefully everything will be much happier.
As far as the fish go. I disagree with keeping the clown and 2 damsels. I'd say just keep the clown and replace the damsels with something else.
I have a maroon and gold stripped clown, 6 line wrasse, and a bicolor blenny. They seem to work very well in my 20.
 
magic mark

magic mark

Member
WOW! :eek:
your tank has only been up since march and is already loaded? i usually wait to add another fish after the first has been in there at least 3 weeks
flame angels go in a MINIMUM of 30gal
mandarins need so much LR its not even funny, is he eating any prepared foods? do u have a fuge for extra pod population?
you killed your green star b/c it acted naturally? maybe if u researched that wouldnt have happened :notsure:
have u seen any aggression by your coral banded shrimp?
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
hey everyone thank you for the replies. i will taking some of you inputs and will be putting them to use. lets see if i can answer some of you ??'s and some of your comments.
ok Asbury030 thanx for sticking up for me, i think if everyone would look back to when they started no one was perfect.
Magic Mark i have been just doing what my local pet shop has been telling me to do and what i have been reading. everything in the tank is happy. the flame is going to be going into an all fish 55 gallon that i am going to set up once the addition is done on the house. my mandrian is small about 1" i give plenty of cyclopods. my local pet store makes there own brand of frozen cyclopods, they look like orange little dots once placed in the water, the xenia and gonapora love them and the mandrain chases them down. plus my sand is loaded with worms and others. the coral banded shrimp only really comes out at night, and he has shed is skin for the 3rd time as of today. kinda weird to wake up and see a dead shrimp or hermit on the sand then you realize it is just his exoskelton.
ivanfj the sand is just normal tank sand you can find at any pet store. when setting up my tank with just sand rocks and filter, i got about a cup and half of live sand critters ( worms fleas shrimp larva cyclopods) and let the tank settle for about 3 weeks. reallly adds some color and you can not see algea grow on it.
Magic_Carp teh fish all get along, never see anyone chasing each other, and at night under the moon lights, the only guy out is the maroon, everyone has there own place to hide.
well i am going to see if i can get some more pics. also one more ?? everything as far as chemical values is great execpt i notice my salinity likes to rise even though i only add fresh water during the week to keep it low. i can get my salinity down to about 1.025 using fresh water but by the end of the week or about 4 days later it is always back to around 1.026 and that is where it likes to stay. thanx
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
you need have poiny to keep your water at so it doesnt move to much.
Magic_Carp what does poiny mean????
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
there seems to be about a 6 inch long worm i found moving around this morning. what is he? and is he dangerous to the reef tank? he was brown and had a million hairy legs in groups. thanx anyone.
 
overanalyzer

overanalyzer

Active Member

Originally posted by kjord97
there seems to be about a 6 inch long worm i found moving around this morning. what is he? and is he dangerous to the reef tank? he was brown and had a million hairy legs in groups. thanx anyone.
It is a bristle worm - a good thing - eats waste.
OK first I would tend to agree that you need to get rid of some fish. If the flame angel can go away into a 55 soon that would be good - but the longer you keep them in there the more stress you are going to cause. I would also suggest that you look into catchign those damsels - as the maroon ages it will not get along well with the damsels in a cramped space.
second - I would shoot to raise your temp to closer to 78-80 range. 76 is a coolish water tank - some of your shrimp are from warm water areas and that would increase their activity.
third - I use a drip bucket to slowly drip FW into my tanks on a daily basis to keep the salinity stable.
fourth - if your mandarin is eating frozed cyclopeeze food then you are a lucky soul and should thank your lucky stars!! Congrats!!
Fifth - don't accept the LFS's word as gospel but get some various opinions - most LFS folks won't screw you over on purpose!
WELCOME and good luck!!
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
well i had a bad incident with the PH department in my tank. it seems that over night it droped from 8.2 to below 7. well it took me about 3 days and i got it back to normal, but i lost some guys in the process. i lost my feather duster, my flame angel, the pink xenia's, brittle star and my red star. it has been about a month and everything seems to be looking better than before. here is some new pics of some new additions. here is a better pic of my gonopora. it seems ever since the ph spike he is doing so much better.
 
kjord97

kjord97

Member
here is something new, i was driving through annapolis, md and i stopped at the mall and i saw a pet store. stopped in and saw they had saltwater. i purchased some shrooms, there were only 25 dollars and i got a nice chunck of rock and a bunch of shrooms. they look double there size in only a week. but the top of the rock apears to be alive. I NEED IDENTIFICATION HELP. what is it. it is round and looks like a clam, but it has no mantle. it has the same little 2 holes around the mouth like a clam. i have been told he is a spiny oyster, but i do not think so. here is 2 of my best pics. were he opens goes almost all the way around. the white area the cuts across the clam like object is what opens.
 
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