Raied's 20 gallon nano :D

[mrhasan]

As some you may know, I have been here for a while but has not started any tank journal yet so thought about doing it to get opinions on my journey in saltwater hobby

Introduction:
I am Raied, an international student, studying electrical engineering (MSc program) at University of Calgary. I have been into freshwater aquarium for over a decade back in my country (Bangladesh) but have always wanted to venture into saltwater but there was absolutely NO source of starting the hobby over there.

So, once I came here, secured my scholarship and I knew at once that I should invest into this long pending dream :P

So enough of the gibberish, I started this tank around in the beginning of June. Since I am living in a rented room, I don't have enough space so I went with the 20 gallon long tank since that was like the perfect size for me to start with.

Starting equipment:
20 gallon long tank
15 pounds of aragonite sand
20 pounds of live rock
Regular fluorescent light
2 aqueon 20 filters (got them for free)
50watt heater

Current equipments:
20 gallon long tank (obviously :P)
15 pounds of aragonite sand
20 pounds of live rock
Coralife T5HO dual fixture
Rio nano skimmer
Aquaclear 110 mod fuge
One aqueon 20
1 koralia nano 1
1 maxijet 400
50w heater

Enough with the writings. Here's the pictures along with the descriptions

All the initial equipment I started with:





Colored the back of the tank black:




Added sand: (first mistake)


Added salt: (lead to the problem, most of the salts got into the sand, remained undissolved. I didn't noticed it and kept on adding salt and when I first gave the sand bed a shake, the salinity shot up!!!! cost me a whole bag of sand; no biggy though - it was a mistake worth of few bucks. Afterwards, I dissolved the salt first and then added the sand.)


Added a timer:


The 20lb of aquacultured live rock (no pest) came in. The packaging was awesome and the rock did not stink. The pieces were good too. Very porous rock.




The first aquascaping:


Added this little guy: (Took my first risk in this hobby through adding this awesome guy and it is still kicking )



The second aquascaping:


Got the new lighting (got another clown + a brittle star + diotom bloom + rio nano skimmer):



The final aquascaping + the diatom bloom: (added a chocolate chip star which went back to the store when I got my first mushroom)


Meanwhile, this helped me to find out whether everything was in order: