First Reef Tank -- 20 Gallon Long Questions

[Rozeen]

Hello everyone!

This is my first reef tank and my first post on Reef2Reef! Super excited to be getting into the hobby.

I have limited space at the moment, but I'm moving into a larger, permanent home in a year or two. My plan for my first reef tank is to start small and learn all I can while planning for a bigger tank down the road.

In terms of stocking, I'm thinking about a pair of captive-bread Ocellaris clownfish, a watchman goby + a shrimp, and some snails. Corals will be mainly LPS (hoping to grow a handful of frags into small colonies over 1-2 years rather than add a whole bunch of frags) -- hammer or torch coral, acans, ricordea, and zoas. Hopefully, this will all be moved into a 50+ gallon tank in a year or two.

To keep the setup as simple as possible, I'm planning to start with limited mechanical filtration, no skimmer, and no sump/refugium, but frequent water changes and siphoning of detritus and algae. I'm going to start with live rock and live sand, and fully cycle the tank before adding any livestock.

Here's what I'm thinking in terms of equipment. If you have any experience with any of this equipment, I would love to hear whether you'd buy it again or recommendations for something else:

• Aqueon 20 gallon long tank (30x13x13)
• DIY aquarium net cover
• Nero 3 or MP10 (help me decide? or something else?)
• 1 30" AI Blade Coral Grow
• Eheim Jager TruTemp 75W heater + temperature controller (recommendations?)
• Auto top-off (recommendations?)
• Possibly a HOB filter if needed (AquaClear 70? something else?)
• Regular Instant Ocean salt
• CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink sand (20 pounds)
• Live rock either from LFS or online (20 pounds?)

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[shakacuz]

• Nero 3 or MP10 (help me decide? or something else?) - i have 2 nero 3's in my 40B. 0 issues other than i had 1 die on me. i think i can fix it though.. you can save money on a jebao slw10, 20, or 30.
• 1 30" AI Blade Coral Grow - this could work, but i see people say if they get 1, they usually want 1 of the other kind to supplement, so in this case, you may want to get the other version of the AI blade down the road.
• Eheim Jager TruTemp 75W heater + temperature controller (recommendations?) - i use, and have never had issues with the inkbird controller. i don't use the wifi portion of it because i don't need to.
• Auto top-off (recommendations?) - i use, and have never had issues with the xpaqua duetto ATO.
• Possibly a HOB filter if needed (AquaClear 70? something else?) - there are some good HOB skimmers in the market. i do not have any experience in the, though.

see bold responses.

also, welcome aboard the r2r board!

 

[paragrouper]

Hi, most of your equipment list looks fine. I have 2 of the Nero 3’s in my 32 gallon and I like them a lot.

for ATO, I use a Tunze 3152, which is fairly new, but is holding up well.

best of luck and

 

[SPS2020]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

 

[Rozeen]

Quick, humbling update --

I got the Fiji Pink live sand and managed to maintain water clarity without rinsing by putting the sand in the tank, covering it with the plastic bag the sand came in, placing a small vase in the center, and slowly pouring in the saltwater cup by cup into the vase. The water was clear when I went to bed on Saturday, with an old powerhead on the back glass of the tank near the water line. I was right on track to dose with Dr. Tim's ammonia in the morning and see how "live" the sand really was.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the powerhead was dead, had fallen into the center of the sand, and blown a hole in the 1-1.5" sand bed (the bottom glass was showing). Needless to say, the water was as cloudy as I've ever seen. Over 72 hours later, the water hasn't cleared up one bit.

Lesson learned, I'm going to start over with dry special grade reef sand that has been *thoroughly* rinsed in a bucket, and use Dr. Tim's One and Only to give the dry sand a kick start. And throw out all my old powerheads.

 

[nothing_fancy]

all good choices. I would consider a titanium heater with an outboard controller like an ink bird though. I use the Jager's for my salt mix and have had them for years so nothing wrong there, but if you're using a temp controller (which you should) I would go with a BRS titanium.

-for ATO I would go with the Avast Marine model or a float as your main. The pressure switch is really tough to beat IMO and you do not need a controller with that although down the line if you go that route you have that option. I also use a Prism ATO optical as my backup but I wouldn't recommend going optical as your main unless you have some sort of fail safe.
- If you're going to go HOB filter theres tons of options but I would look into the aquamaxx stuff or Fiji cube. You could used a Fiji cube HOB fuge as your filter and that will give you some options if you want to add dosing lines or probes.

 

[NotReefsafe]

I recommend a glass top and manual top off. With a glass top, you will experience far less evaporation, and manual topping off will be enough.


I really like the Nero 3


start with zoas, mushrooms, duncan

good luck!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Quick, humbling update --

I got the Fiji Pink live sand and managed to maintain water clarity without rinsing by putting the sand in the tank, covering it with the plastic bag the sand came in, placing a small vase in the center, and slowly pouring in the saltwater cup by cup into the vase. The water was clear when I went to bed on Saturday, with an old powerhead on the back glass of the tank near the water line. I was right on track to dose with Dr. Tim's ammonia in the morning and see how "live" the sand really was.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the powerhead was dead, had fallen into the center of the sand, and blown a hole in the 1-1.5" sand bed (the bottom glass was showing). Needless to say, the water was as cloudy as I've ever seen. Over 72 hours later, the water hasn't cleared up one bit.

Lesson learned, I'm going to start over with dry special grade reef sand that has been *thoroughly* rinsed in a bucket, and use Dr. Tim's One and Only to give the dry sand a kick start. And throw out all my old powerheads.

I used a mix of live sand and Dr. Tim's one and only and it worked great for me!

 

[kevgib67]

You should get all the bacteria you need when you add the live rock. If it is true live rock your tank is cycled. Just add a fish or two and then wait a couple of weeks and repeat. Best of luck and I look forward to seeing pictures of the tank full of livestock.

 

[Rozeen]

One more question -- I keep seeing that tangs are recommended for algae control. Hopefully someday! But are there any algae-eating fish that would actually squeeze into a 20 long? Thanks!

 

[Rozeen]

I recommend a glass top and manual top off. With a glass top, you will experience far less evaporation, and manual topping off will be enough.


I really like the Nero 3


start with zoas, mushrooms, duncan

good luck!

I'm already topping off about half a gallon a day (and this thing only really holds 15 gallons, so that's like 3% a *day* in evaporation). I'm going to get a cheap glass top for now.

 

[kevgib67]

One more question -- I keep seeing that tangs are recommended for algae control. Hopefully someday! But are there any algae-eating fish that would actually squeeze into a 20 long? Thanks!

Lawn mower blenny.

 

[Rozeen]

Lawn mower blenny.

Looks perfect. I'll get a small one, and everything's moving into a bigger tank at some point soon anyway.

Edit: And Biota has them captive bred. Cool!

 

[Rozeen]

I recommend a glass top and manual top off. With a glass top, you will experience far less evaporation, and manual topping off will be enough.

With a glass top, how much of a gap is required to ensure that the air between the glass and the water has plenty of oxygen in it? I figure the fit should be a little loose, but I don't want the gaps to be large enough for small fish to jump out. Thanks!