ZachP's 20 gallon build

ZachP · Dec 10, 2016

I like mine a lot so far, he's warmed up to the tank pretty fast

HowardJ02 · Dec 10, 2016

That's a really neat fish! I've never seen one before!

ZachP · Dec 10, 2016

HowardJ02 said:
That's a really neat fish! I've never seen one before!

I hadn't until just a few weeks ago either. It was a hard decision between this guy and a goby pistol shrimp combo. So far I'm happy with my choice

ZachP · Dec 10, 2016

Ok so I need some opinions here. My planned stock was the waspfish, an oscellaris clown, and a zebra barred dartfish. Now I'm almost thinking about something besides the zebra barred. My thought process is since I will have the waspfish and clown, which are fish that aren't aggressive but definitely hold their own, the zebra dart fish might feel intimidated and just hide all the time. I really like the idea of a six line wrasse but there's soooo many differing opinions on them. What do you guys think? Is 20 gallons way to small for a six line, is a six line too aggressive for the clown and waspfish? Also open to any other suggestions

Wtyson254 · Dec 10, 2016

My Waspfish is extremely docile, I don't think the dart fish will be bothered, the clown is another story though

ZachP · Dec 10, 2016

Wtyson254 said:
My Waspfish is extremely docile, I don't think the dart fish will be bothered, the clown is another story though

I've just always had a tank with little gobies and such so I've never wanted something that would bully them. Now that I have the waspfish instead I'm wondering if I could be successful with something a little more aggressive or if I should just stick to the peaceful fish

Wtyson254 · Dec 10, 2016

I have two radial filefish, a Caribbean jawfish, and an Atlantic chalk bass with my Waspfish in my Red Sea reefer nano

HowardJ02 · Dec 10, 2016

I had a sixline in my old 29 gallon. It was a really cool fish; bright, colorful, always swimming out in the open. I never saw it showing any aggression, but one day I came home and it had jumped.

I didn't have a screen on the top.

ZachP · Dec 10, 2016

HowardJ02 said:
I had a sixline in my old 29 gallon. It was a really cool fish; bright, colorful, always swimming out in the open. I never saw it showing any aggression, but one day I came home and it had jumped.
I didn't have a screen on the top.

Sorry to hear [emoji53]

Paul87 · Dec 11, 2016

ZachP said:
Ok so I need some opinions here. My planned stock was the waspfish, an oscellaris clown, and a zebra barred dartfish. Now I'm almost thinking about something besides the zebra barred. My thought process is since I will have the waspfish and clown, which are fish that aren't aggressive but definitely hold their own, the zebra dart fish might feel intimidated and just hide all the time. I really like the idea of a six line wrasse but there's soooo many differing opinions on them. What do you guys think? Is 20 gallons way to small for a six line, is a six line too aggressive for the clown and waspfish? Also open to any other suggestions

There are ALOT of cool dottybacks that would add a ton of activity to the tank. I had an orchid that was such an awesome fish, until a couple years later he went jerk on everyone. In your situation you will be good. Clowns don't tolerate bullying, not 100% on the waspfish. Dottybacks definitely hold their own, most stay small, and most are beautiful fish.

ZachP · Dec 11, 2016

Paul87 said:
There are ALOT of cool dottybacks that would add a ton of activity to the tank. I had an orchid that was such an awesome fish, until a couple years later he went jerk on everyone. In your situation you will be good. Clowns don't tolerate bullying, not 100% on the waspfish. Dottybacks definitely hold their own, most stay small, and most are beautiful fish.

That's an awesome idea! I'll look into some for sure. And I could be wrong but I don't think the waspfish will put up with much either, he's docile but I think he knows he's venemous.

ZachP · Dec 11, 2016

So I know I post on here a lot and I hope it's not too annoying but kind of figured that's the point of this thread.
But anyway, I'm thinking about filtration. Right now I'm just running filter floss in the top of my intank media baskets. Soon I'll probably start running either carbon or chemi pure also. But I'm curious how good the flow actually is through the baskets, looks like a decent amount of water kind of just goes around the basket and doesn't run through it. So now I'm wondering if I should just put in a bag of either carbon or chemipure in the middle chamber or if it would be better to put down a layer of filter floss then put the carbon or chemipure on top of that in the chamber. That way the water would actually flow through the carbon or chemi pure and the filter floss would just be there to hold it from falling through. Thoughts?

ZachP · Dec 11, 2016

Can't for the life of me get a good picture with these lights

Paul87 · Dec 11, 2016

ZachP said:
Can't for the life of me get a good picture with these lights

Looks good. [emoji106]

ZachP · Dec 11, 2016

Did a water change and noticed a couple little larvae looking things floating around. Any idea what they are?

Paul87 · Dec 12, 2016

ZachP said:
Did a water change and noticed a couple little larvae looking things floating around. Any idea what they are?

Could be something nonmarine. Maybe a insect of some sort.

ZachP · Dec 13, 2016

I'm kind of unhappy with the intank media basket. I have a single layer of floss on top then added the smallest bag of chemipure elite in the middle. Now Im questioning how much water is actually going through it, I feel like half the water is just going right around the basket. Also now I have the noise of running water as it falls through the basket which is annoying and pretty loud.

ZachP · Dec 14, 2016

Now I'm kind of struggling with nitrates. I don't have hardly any algae or anything yet but my nitrates keep wanting to climb close to 20ppm and I'm not sure why. I've been doing a 5 gallon water change every 2-3 days trying to keep them below 10ppm and it's not doing much. The only livestock is the waspfish, cleaner shrimp, 1 nassarius snail, and 2 hermit crabs. I'm not feeding very much either. I've only been using about an 8th of a cube of frozen mysis a day to target feed the waspfish then a small amount gets away to feed the shrimp and hermits but not much.