20g High setup - first saltwater tank

[gregzz4]

Hey Jason
Have fun with your new setup!

One thing I'd suggest is to raise your heater as high as possible. Bring it up to the water line on the housing. Nothing like having a heater fail because it filled up with water.

No matter how 'waterproof' they claim they are, they will eventually leak, and saltwater will destroy it in short order

[604reefer]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

Hey Jason
Have fun with your new setup!

One thing I'd suggest is to raise your heater as high as possible. Bring it up to the water line on the housing. Nothing like having a heater fail because it filled up with water.

No matter how 'waterproof' they claim they are, they will eventually leak, and saltwater will destroy it in short order

Thanks for the tip! I moved it up a bit, thinking of moving it over to closer to the protein skimmer so most of my equipment is in that corner for looks.

I added a Blue/Green Chromis, RALPH, on the weekend. He was really SCARED of me for the first 2 days, but now he finally let me take his picture as he's swimming everywhere.


I also added 5 more blue hermits for a total of 8 and 3 margarita snails. The astrea's are boring! They seem to only want to do their thing when I'm sleeping. One of the margarita's flipped and couldn't get back up and when I went to flip it I dunked the tank light into the tank. Luckily i caught it before the bulb hit the water (it's plugged into a GFCI, but still).

The surface seems to be all dusty again, my koralia powerhead sounds like a jet engine taking off so I have it out of the tank and only have the Voyager in there right now. Gotta return to the store and see if I have to go through Hydor for warranty or what.

[Myka]

Your tank looks great!! I love that you used live rock instead of dry rock! Where did you find such nice live rock?

I think you're on the right road by planning bigger water changes. I own an aquarium servicing company, and the smaller the tank, the bigger (percent-wise) the water change depending on bio-load. Most nano tanks are overstocked compared to the equipment running them though. In-sump skimmers are vastly better than nano skimmers, so you are always limited. What the equipment can't do, you must do manually. On 10-gallon tanks I do 40-50% per week. In the beginning you don't have to, but as the tank progresses and you stock it more, larger water changes will definitely help.

With a nano tank, make sure you're topping it up EVERYDAY, better yet is top it up in the morning and in the evening. Fluctuating salinity makes all the parameters fluctuate (they concentrate with evaporation, then dilute when you add RO).

Which light are you using now? The Prime is a nice option, but at 24" you also have the option of using a T5 fixture which would be my first choice, especially someone new to the hobby. A 2-bulb fixture over that tank would be great. Aquatic Life makes one with a built-in timer. The included bulbs kinda suck - I'd replace them with ATI bulbs.

[604reefer]

The live rock came from J&L aquatics in burnaby, I have purchased everything except the skimmer (used) there. I had read some negative reviews about the real reef rock, but figured I would try it out as the rock at King Ed and Aquariums west looked gross. I just grabbed 3 big pieces without thinking about how they may fit together... doh! Went back and picked up a couple pounds of small pieces to make a more "natural" look.

I did a 6g water change last week, but aiming for 4g weekly which is 20% and see how it goes.

I'd really like to keep frogspawn, torch, bubble, polyp, or brain coral - love the way the torch and frogspawn sway in the water. The tank has a POS aqueon light hood that came with the tank lol. I don't have any experience with T5. How does the look compare to an LED like the AI prime? I kind of like the idea of being able to customize the colors/look to my taste. With a T5 I know you can get different bulbs, but no idea how it would look. The aquatic life/ATI combo is really reasonable though!!

Originally Posted by Myka

Your tank looks great!! I love that you used live rock instead of dry rock! Where did you find such nice live rock?

I think you're on the right road by planning bigger water changes. I own an aquarium servicing company, and the smaller the tank, the bigger (percent-wise) the water change depending on bio-load. Most nano tanks are overstocked compared to the equipment running them though. In-sump skimmers are vastly better than nano skimmers, so you are always limited. What the equipment can't do, you must do manually. On 10-gallon tanks I do 40-50% per week. In the beginning you don't have to, but as the tank progresses and you stock it more, larger water changes will definitely help.

With a nano tank, make sure you're topping it up EVERYDAY, better yet is top it up in the morning and in the evening. Fluctuating salinity makes all the parameters fluctuate (they concentrate with evaporation, then dilute when you add RO).

Which light are you using now? The Prime is a nice option, but at 24" you also have the option of using a T5 fixture which would be my first choice, especially someone new to the hobby. A 2-bulb fixture over that tank would be great. Aquatic Life makes one with a built-in timer. The included bulbs kinda suck - I'd replace them with ATI bulbs.

[Northern Reefer]

Welcome to this fantastic.... and as others have said... wildly addicting hobby! Be prepared for some hick-ups along the way as the learning curve never ends....read read read and don't get discouraged when your get get different algae blooms! Its all part of it. Go slow and test regularly. Forums are a great place to see what equipment works best, how to solve issues and all the questions that arise! People are always supportive and helpful.

Side note.... I too decided on reel reef rock (J&L) in my new setup and have been extremely happy with it. Half regular and half shelf and trust me.... all those shelves fill quickly as tanks mature!

[gregzz4]

Heya
When I suggested to raise the heater to the waterline on the heater, I was referring to the manufacturers water mark on the plastic body below the control knob. If there's no water mark, just raise it up so the waterline in your tank is about halfway between the top and bottom of the plastic on the heater control body.
Essentially you want to get the so-called 'sealed' plastic portion of the heater out of the water as much as possible, but without exposing the glass to a dry environment.
This will also make it easier to adjust as you're not putting your fingers in the tank.
Hopefully the suction cups allow you to do this and have the control knob clear the trim on your tank.

[604reefer]

Update:

Here is a picture of my tank on Saturday a few hours after adding an ocellaris clownfish.



It's still really good to me! There's two snails that aren't moving, but aren't dead. Parameters are all in check, pH 8.2, ammonia/nitrites 0, nitrates 10. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I also had another buildup of protein scum on the surface again and used a paper towel to remove most of it. Hoping my skimmer will do the rest, but definitely hard to find the sweet spot.

Going to try and take a picture every Saturday just to see the progress.