Woot! Thanks! I definitely will.

It's been awhile since my last newbie question. Now it's just a matter of making sure I"m on the right track.

As a refresher -- I have a 20 gallon tank that had been running empty for nearly a year -- no water changes, no live rock, nothing. There HAD been rock and livestock in it previous to that, but they got a bigger tank and simply decided to get rid of this one and gave it to me.

There is a hagen Marine-Glo light in the hood, which I want to replace with a 50/50 Coralife tube so that I can eventually get into corals and such.

I'm still running the Fluval 303, but have added the AquaClear 30 powerhead and have a Koralia powerhead on order, as well as the Nano Rio protein skimmer (which I found out is apparently a piece of poo and craps out quickly, but I'll use it until said day and get a better one later). When the protein skimmer comes in I'll stop running the canister filter.

I now also have about 25 lbs of cured live rock in the tank, as well as 20 lbs of aragonite sand.

I had problems with high nitrite levels until just recently, most of which I attribute to adding the live rock. Everything seems to have finally balanced, and when I brought my water sample in for testing to double check the staff were very pleased (they seem to have gotten to know me very quickly).

So now I have added two snails, two hermit crabs and a conch.

Opinions? How much more of a cleaning crew do I need? Anything I should be doing differently?

Thanks!!!

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7.../untitled2.jpg

(This is not only to share the neatest creature I've recently learned about, but to bump back up on the mainpage. I'm greedy!!)

go get yourself a few hermit crabs! AND post a full tank pic! lol!

Yeah yeah. I'll get to that! :p

1 tube of any sort will NOT be enough light to grow anything. Let alone SPS corals. These single light fixtures are OK for fish only tanks, and pretty much useless for anything else UNLESS what you are trying to grow is in less than 4 inches of water and directly below the tube (pretty useless in other words). Then you might be able to get away with some types of macros and a few zoas, but nothing else.

I would look into getting at least 4 T5HO tubes above your tank if you plan on growing corals and whatnot. That should be enough light for macros, soft corals, and some types of low light LPS. If you want more, I suggest that you look into metal halides... they are more efficient, produce more PAR, and you'll love the shimmer effect from the water's surface.

Hope things are going well, can't wait for the FTS!

Well, poo.

That puts a damper on a few things.

Is there a specific place you can recommend me to get a new light fixture? I'll check out aquarium illusions, but I'd like to at least know what I'm going in there for! :D

You're telling me! I'd love to say that I can't wait, either, but... .well.... some things take time, and for once I'm not jumping into things completely blindly.

If it were up to Dave, we'd have a great white shark and a mantaray! :lol:

Thanks for the advice on that! I wouldn't have known the difference.

Wierd. Ask me about reptiles. I can inform away. I just never go so in depth with fish before!!

Do cars really cost less in Wetaskawin?? :p


Take a look at the Tek lights or maybe a viper halide? That would do you just dandy now and in the future on that little tank.

No, but they give us a super discount on therapy bills after hearing that question x-number of times. I'm halfway there! :p

I'll take a boo.

I just googled some halide fixtures. Ouch. I think my wallet just hid in the closet!! (Because it KNOWS that I'll spend that much!!!)

Have you checked out nano-reef.com at all? When I first started in this hobby 5 years ago it was with a little 10gallon tank and I got lots of great ideas from that site.

People are a lot more helpful on this site but it does not hurt to lurk around and see what other guys are doing with nano tanks.