20g no-fish nano: talk me through the next steps

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Don E

After the rock cycles, I will be sucking up to all of you for scoops of live sand and rock rubble to populate the tank with 'pods and the like.

Don,

A nano is like any other tank, except for the obvious fact that it's smaller, and can be stocked like any other tank. A 20 gal nano is going to be far more stable than a smaller nano, like our 2.5 gal, for instance

Once your rock has cured, or even before, you can add your sandbed if you haven't done so already. You might have a slight ammonia spike when you add the sand, especially if it has live stuff in it, because there may be some die off of the critters in the sand. That's no problem, though, and you shouldn't be concerned about it. Just don't add anything else while the tank continues to cycle or has to recycle.

Originally Posted by Don E

(I have 100w of light in the form of compact fluorescent bulbs- I will probably boost this to 120w eventually. I have no skimmer, just a hang-on penguin with the biowheel removed, for circulation. I will do 10 percent water changes weekly.)

So you're looking at 5 to 6 watts of light per gal on that small tank. You don't have to stick with softies and LPSs. In fact, with that much light, softies will outgrow the 20 gal pretty quickly, ime.

I don't know how Penguins are set up, but if there's a media chamber of any kind, put some foam in it to catch crud, and thoroughly clean the foam in your weekly changewater. I LOVE the fact that you intend to do weekly water changes! Great!!

You can even turkey baste the tank the day before the water change to export even more crud to make up for the lack of a skimmer. I do this in all our tanks as they are all skimmerless. Doing so keeps the cyano and brown film algae from getting a footing and building up in the tank.

Originally Posted by Don E

My question: which corals can go in a new tank first? How slowly should I proceed?

Eventually, I want: mushrooms, colt, xenia, finger leather, green star polyp, and maybe a candycane and red open brain.

Put them in in any order you like. Xenia, green star polyps and mushrooms will outgrow your 20 fast with all that light, though. If it was my tank, I'd pick only one fast grower and leave out the rest. I'd alos sort of segregate the fast grower from the rest so it doesn't overgrow your other corals.

IMO, and others may disagree, you can put the corals in one after another, or all at once if they're frags, making sure the rock and sandbed have completely cured first.

But before putting in any corals, my personal preference is to add the clean up crew including snails and hermit crabs, if hermits are your thing. At this point, you should start feeding the tank so the critters are getting food.

Originally Posted by Don E

Can I put the mushrooms in right after it cycles? Should I add pods and snails and wait a few weeks?

If you're set on keeping shrooms, yup you can add them right after the tank cycles, if you want. Pods come with the rock and will take time to accumulate in numbers, so you don't really have to add them. Some good snails to get clean up and for slight sandbed stirring. They can be added at the time of adding the corals, or before, or after. There are no hard and fast rules on this, but I prefer adding them before.

However, make sure the rock and sandbed are fully cured before adding corals or mobile inverts. Once everything is cured and the tank has cycled, I'd say add whatever you want whenever you want. Just because you don't have fish doesn't mean you don't have to feed the tank. I you don't feed the tank the corals and critters won't do very well.

To be sure that you aren't adding stuff too fast, you will want to check ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels as you, or notebook. Heck, even keep track of what and when you've added a particular animal, what and how much you're feeding the tank, and when and how much you do water changes. That way you'll know what's been going on in your tank.

Good luck. Send photos when you've got it all set up