Jesus's 20 gallon shallow reef

[jsanchez]

Hey guys, my name is Jesus (heyzues) just wanted to share my new reef build with everyone. Had to take a 6 month break and tore down my old tank. The itch got me and I had to set up another tank. First the specs

Stand: 36x24x36 Cabinet based with added bracing to support the weight of the tank.

Tank: Advanced acrylics 20 gallon 24x24x8 drilled tank.


Light: Aquaillumination Prime
Return: Sicce 3.5
Skimmer: Bubble magus curve 5
Controller: Neptune apex with added on PM2, and I/O breakout box. Didn't want the gold package since I have no use for the ORP probe.



Filtration is provided by a 30 gallon long divided into 3 chambers. Using 150(?) micron diy filter socks. (still working on cleaning out the sump area and making it look cleaner


Im running three reactors. 1 is a tlf phosban reactor running biopellets. 1 is a Brs reactor running rox carbon. And the last one is running Brs high cap gfo. Bio filtration is from 10 lbs of Pukani rock and 1 Gallon of Marinepure spheres.

This time around I'm running a 10 gallon quarantine tank.


Have 2 clowns, one Wyoming white and one frostbite, and 1 flasher wrasse(not sure which one it is)



I'll try to keep this thread updated. I'll post better quality pictures soon.

Thanks for looking!

 

[jsanchez]

Forgot to add. It's going to be SPS (acro/mili) and Clam (Maxima/Crocea) heavy. As any tank should, I will be including some very nice zoas. For the rest of the fish I will be adding a pistol/goby combo and a helfrichi or purple firefish.

Dosing will be provided by a Jebao DP2 and my ATO is tunze 3152.

 

[MOPAR]

Great looking tank!

 

[Reef_Junkies]

Cool little lagoon!

 

[jsanchez]

Well my return bulkhead is leaking at the rate of about a 2 drops per minute which sucks... ordered a new bulkhead from brs and it'll be here on Tuesday. Looks like the bulkhead had a crack on it and I never noticed it, had to clean the back of the stand to remove the salkcreep caused by the dripping water.

However the Tank is nearly cycled. The bio filtration will take down 2ppm ammonia in about 12 hours but nitrites still take 2 days to reach 0 ppm. Should be cycled in a week or so. Went ahead and added TLF biopellets to the tank on 9/30. My nitrates where above 40 ppm and have now come down to a little over 10 ppm. GFO and GAC and being used on my brs single brs reactor until I can get a second reactor. Also added sand a chaeto to my fuge and replaced my 7w cfl bulb with a 15w led bulb and the chaeto is taking off in growth. Hope everything keeps going smoothyl!!

 

[jsanchez]

So the flasher wrasse was constantly attacking my clowns and that was a nono so it had to go. Aquapros was kind enough to take the wrasse back and let me swap it out for a different one. I wanted the wrasse to be one of my defenses for pests on my corals and I also did not know that flasher wrasses don't really eat pests. I originally wanted a tanaka's wrasse but I have not been able to find one locally and I'm not a fan of shipping fish to my house. UPS has let me down to many times.

So I swapped it out for a smaller Cosmetus wrasse


Being that it burrows in sand and I wanted a shallow sand bed I went ahead and added an extra inch of sand to the middle and rear of the tank, keeping the front shallow for aesthetics.

Hopefully before the wrasse gets much to large for my tank I'll be able to find a tanaka's

 

[jsanchez]

So I have a question for you guys. My pH has been fluctuating pretty badly. I still don't have any fish and my tank is still cycling so at this point in time I'm chalking it up to the excess co2 being produced by the nitrogen cycle. Here is my graph from my apex.

Checked pH with api and salifert tests also and it's all constant results. I don't want to chase pH but a swing of 4.0 pH is pretty high I think. My last tank never moved more than .5 pH a day.

 

[jsanchez]

So the tank is cycled and my fish are now done with QT! I did 7 days of Paraguard and 21 days of cupramine. All fish are fat and healthy and eating everything I throw into the tank.
The frostbite clown seems to have a deformity in its jaw and doesn't open it as wide as the wyoming white. Since the fish is eating fine I'm not going to worry about it.

Diatoms have kicked in and now it's time to wait them out.



My parameters are

ALK 12.8 dkh (salifert)
Calcium 412 ppm (Hanna)
Mag 1425 ppm (salifert)
NO3 2.5-5 ppm (salifert) hard for me to tell which color it is. I will be buying either a red sea or nyos kit for this.
PO4 .03 ppm (Hanna)

Everything but my alk is where I want to keep it. I'm using IO right now but will be switching to either the Non coral pro Red Sea salt, or HW Marine.

I want my ALK,Cal,Mag at 9dkh,450ppm,1350ppm. And the those two salts are the closest for his. I also want to try and test out running this tank on zero water changes. Main elements and trace
elements will be dosed in and nutrients will be (hopefully) be maintained at near 0.

I removed my chaeto as it was a PITA to get to tumble and will order a algae turf scrubber from santamonica filtration to work along side my biopellets and skimmer. Speaking of which the biopellets
and skimmer are working great!! I'm getting a nice dark green wet skim and po4 has dropped from .23 to .03 and nitrates went down from 50+ppm to around 2ppm without water changes.

If I end up running to clean of a tank I will dose NO3 back in to the tank to around 2 ppm. I have so much potassium nitrate laying around because of my planted tank.

Sorry this update was long but I was excited that the tank is up and running now. and everyone wish my little pup a speedy recovery, the dingus jumped off the deck and tore his ACL.

 

[TheEngineer]

Nice looking setup. I wouldn't worry about the pH swings, they look like regular daily swings to me.

A word of caution about the wrasse though, I've known all wrasses to be jumpers so you might want to put a screen over the top of the tank.

 

[jsanchez]

I put a screen in the day before I put the wrasse in the tank I was going to go without a top but the guy was jumping so much just during acclimation.

 

[jsanchez]

Biopellets are kicking butt! My nitrates are down to .5 on my salifert kit and unreadable on an api test kit. Im getting a nice thick skimmate going in my cup.

 

[philfree]

Neat!
How are you liking the AI prime?

 

[jsanchez]

Great so far. It gives me the exact spread I want. The middle is perfectly Brite for sps and clams like I want. And the edges are dimmer for LPS and zoas. I however don't like how the red led leaves the center noticeably red.

 

[jsanchez]

Added my first coral to the tank. I went out and got me a cheap green slimer to test the water for adding acros in the future. Figured I rather risk losing this 10$ frag over a 200$ CC acro. Polyp extension is already really good. I have the Aquatic Experience frag swap coming up in 2 weeks and hopefully this piece does well and I might risk adding in some rarer pieces. I know slow and steady is better and I should mature the tank more but that has never been my best trait. Purple Firefish is in QT and should be getting added to the tank tomorrow.

 

[jsanchez]

Added some clams to my tank after the aquarium experience event.
New 1 5/8" Maxima
New 2 1/2" Derasa clam

Also added a couple three polyp frags of rasta and utter chaos zoas. Got a nice little frag of purple bonsai that is just starting to encrust.

I'm not 100% happy with my lighting. The prime with whites on come in at around 12k in colour and im getting a ton of shadowing. I ordered a Hamilton Aruba sun retrofit t5 kit and blue plus/coral plus bulbs from brs. My gyre is in place now to provide flow.

Parameters are
NO3 5ppm (dosing daily since it was to low for my liking.)
PO4 0.03 ppm
Calcium 450 ppm
ALK 9.1 dKH
Mag 1405
PH 7.95