my 20 nano from scratch

merlinsmagic · Nov 1, 2011

I got a bug up my but and this last may I descided to turn my previous fw 20 gallon into a salt water tank. I have never done this before, since my other salt water tank was inherited/given to me already set up but with really crapy lighting. I wasnt sure what I was doing but I did it, I think.

Here is what the tank looked like the day I descided to turn it into a sw tank.

This was sitting on my desk in my room this way for a year. I had it as fresh water for three years but all of a sudden every fish I put in there was dieing. All water parameters checked out ok. Found out the decor and the paint on the rocks were possibly contamiated with lead or mercury....aka the time of the Japan toy recall, of paints used on kids toys. Never mentioned fish decor or rocks.

So the tank sat like this for a year or so no water but algea everywhere and cooties.
I joined the northern WI reef society and wamo descided lets do it. So I scrubbed the tank.

merlinsmagic · Nov 1, 2011

Next was to find some rock and the sand. The sand was easy cause I have a foster and smith retail store here, the rock was a bit out of my reach at the moment. Then on my reef forum one of the members annouced she was breaking down her 175... I think all i know it was a huge tank, and she was selling things off as quick as she could as cheap as she could. So I went and bought some rock After filling the tank and adding hte rock this is what it looked like.

The rock to the right already had mushrooms growing on it and I got that from her basement sump/cureing area. very surprized but happy. The rock with the hole in it in the middle came from the 12 gallon inherited tank. After many failed attemps at rock scapeing I descided I needed more rock.

merlinsmagic · Nov 1, 2011

I went back and she had some other cool peices that I figured would work. So I got them and added them right away, of course since I am unique I didnt want a solid rock wall or corner walls so I arched. Hardest part was trying to get them balanced and stay there. I had to take the rock out several times before comming up with some sort of art form. After and hour I was getting realy bummed out cause the rocks just wouldnt stay where I wanted them. I even thought about glueing them together. After turning them around and around I got this

I was happy but still felt like I needed more rock. I guess I love live rock! amazing what you can find in a piece of something that looks dead, and well like a rock.
So once again I called them up and told them I needed more rock, some arches, some sort of funky pieces. They still had over 100 pounds to pick from so back I went. Being a 20 gallon regular they told me I should have enough rock, this is when I learned the 1 poung per gallon. But the tank still looked to empty. So I dug through her sumps, her bins, and found just what I was looking for almost.
this it what it looked like then

Pretty close to the same just will more rock piled on and not so many arches. I did change the background to black and it looked better, but yet I felt it still needed more rock. So I went to a reef club memeber and got some more.

merlinsmagic · Nov 1, 2011

This is what it looked like a few weeks ago

The rock in the front is acctually a zoa rock I bought from foster and smith, most of the zoas have left that rock and I am not sure where they went but plesant hitchhikers that cam on this rock were a Xandia(sp?) crab still dont know if he is reef safe or not.
Tons of brittle stars, regular starfish, the ones that I have to keep an eye on the white ones that only have three legs or look like blobs. Copeopods, amphiopods and the whole back side of what I thought was a rock is the shell of a large clam.

I did not realize it was there till June 29th, the zoa "rock" had been in my tank two weeks already. I have since moved him down to the sand bed.
The zoa's are not happy and are disapearing and shrinking but the clam is happier.

Here is a picture of hte crab's shed from what I was told a cupped claw is safe a pointed claw is not....I think he has a cupped claw.

I also got a new filter box with a surface skimmer.....not sure if I care for it really but there is no place where I have this tank for a sump or a surface skimmer.
I forget the brand but foster and smith sells them.
I upgraded? from corallife dual compacts to dual aquasun t-5's really dont see a differance. Except the green is still green, and not all brown or redish looking.

merlinsmagic · Nov 1, 2011

I have more rock to add to the tank, some tonga branches and large dead branchy coral.....Currently it is in a 5 gallon tank of sw mix a heater, filter and a light just sitting there. It looks like dead rock but we shall see.