Funny you mention that. I just found the site last night. I was very happy to read through maybe 1/4 of the site before having to finally crawl into bed! I'm sure I'll be visiting that page again soon.

IF.... and only IF I survive the impending doom of walking out of my house today. Egads. I thought we were coming to an end of this stupid cold snap.

Well, so much for procrastinating. You've helped thus far, but I can't put it off. Hopefully the car is warm.....

LOL! Yup not cheap but if you do plan on doing anything that needs a good amount of light MH is the way to go, at least over a decent sized tank.

I'll +1 the Tek if you're going T5HO and the Viper if you do MH... Go for the 150W Viper if you go that route, more light is always better and you can always shade new corals if needed.

Lighting Sticky: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22044

Do some reading, there are some really excellent articles in this sticky.

MH has heating issues especially with nano tanks. Certainly read around, as stated earlier, nano-reef.com is a great resource.

Awesome! Thank you!

So after an addition of another conch, two astria (sp?) snails and three hermit crabs, I'm getting closer to the full cleanup crew! Another 5 or six snails, and I'm set.

I found out a whole lot about lighting, too. I never realized that fish could be nearly as complicated as herps. Well, I've learned my lesson!

So here's a pic of the new (and goofy, I might add!) conch, as well as the setup as requested.


"Ow. Oh god. I don't think I'm supposed to twist this way!!"
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...f/Stuff425.jpg

"Oh. There. Phew. That's better."
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...f/Stuff428.jpg

"Wha-- Who are you! Get away! Stop chasing me!"
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...f/Stuff432.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...f/Stuff434.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...f/Stuff435.jpg

oooooo pretty buddy!!! lol! very nice!

I just can't wait to get more!

We've decided to just have FOWLR for now.... maybe when we get are taxes refund back we'll get the light unit!

But to decide which one is the hard part. Money we won't worry about, it's the effect.... so looks like I get to take the hubby on a shopping spree!!!

I found myself in the west end again yesterday.

Oops. Somehow I was at Aquarium Illusions.

Oops. Somehow I was looking at fish.

Oops! Now I have 6 more snails and two occelaris! Woot!

Anyways, all is well with the tank -- my cleaner crew is built up and done, and I took the chance on some real fish. They were apparently the hardiest to begin with, and considering I've never owned a saltwater fish before, I thought it was the good choice to go for. I was worried that they'd die overnight, but they've done really well and look awesome!

The biggest annoyance, though, was my questions about bioload -- I tried to find out if what I want is an appropriate load for my tank, and the only answer I could get from the guy was "whatever you want".

Well, if that's the case, I'll shove a great white shark in there.....

But in all seriousness, opinions seem to vary -- I've read to understand that two fish is a max, but up to six fish is doable. So I'm not sure if I've got the right opinion or not.

And so far, I've come to trust the people on this forum. It's been great.

So in my tank is the following:
25 lbs live rock
20 lbs aragonite sand
2 conches
5 hermit crabs
12 snails
2 occelaris

And I was looking to add:
1 orchid dottyback
1 two spot goby
2 purple firefish

We have some time to add them, since I want to get the protein skimmer and second powerhead before adding any new livestock. The water has been testing great, and I've been performing weekly water changes. Sometime this spring/summer we'll be getting the new light fixture (more than likely the metal halide). After that we'll be looking at growing the reef aspect.

Thoughts? Is this a good bioload, or am I shooting too high?

personally I would only add maybe the goby to go along with the 2 clowns you got.
most people I have talked to recommend firefish for 30g up tanks cause they are extremely active swimmers, I know my 2 I had in a 25g reef used up all the open water darting around.
its alot easier to go with a light bioload starting out rather then having to much and crashing the tank and hating the hobby,it happens to often.
so 5 fish in a 20g seems awful cramped.