My nano reef (in progress)

[af0929]

I seem to only be posting on here when something goes wrong...so i thought i would post some pics of my nano reef...remember it is a work in progress...

It is just a standard 20 gallon glass SW tank that i started about 7 months ago. I have been taking it a piece at a time trying to figure out what im doing as i go along. Ive had a ton of lessons learned....

It has 2 Rena XP1's. Thats 90 gallons of filtration. If i have learned anything scince i started this its that there is no such thing as overfiltration with SW.

Fish-wise it has 1 royal gamma bassalet, 1 firefish, 1 purple firefish, 1 longnose hawkfish, 1 spotted mandrin. Obviously i am done adding fish to the tank...i know how close i am to too many in such a small tank.

Invert-wise it has 1 huge skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 camel shrimp, 2 peperment shimp (my wife is a tad shrimp obsessed), a ton of hermet crabs, 4 snails, and a chocalate chip starfish.

I just started doing coral and have 7 different kinds of polyps. There is also about 30 ish pounds of live rock.

let me know what you think

 

[mr.reef24]

look's good I will give a suggestion once I can take time to read your thread. Look's great though nice work

mr.reef24

 

[micstarz]

It's a bit overstocked, but fine.

 

[sostoudt]

what type of lighting do you have?

i would say you can overfilter if you get a skimmer 5x the rated size for the tank. it takes out food the coral eat you may notice some bleaching. but general i support a overrated skimmer.

 

[sostoudt]

what type of lighting do you have?

i would say you can overfilter if you get a skimmer 5x the rated size for the tank. it takes out food the coral eat you may notice some bleaching. but general i support a overrated skimmer.

that with that mandarine i would make sure you ween him over to flake or frozen food as it will probably starve in that tank if left to find copepods

 

[Otto_VonBacon]

Yeah, get that manderin some food right now. If that tank is only 7 months old there probably is not enough copepods for it to survive. You'll have a better chance getting it to eat live feeder shirmp, or brine shimp than flakes, but the easyer the food the better.

 

[af0929]

I decided to get the mandrin bc after replaces a filter in my 43 gallon i noticed the filter pads were absolutely covered in cophrepods (sp?). That tank has only been set up for about 3 months of so...i figure if that one is producing that many cophrepods...i thought the 20 would be as well....

I would agree with the overstocking...i think the filtration is taking care of the waste...havnt noticed any crazy spikes or anything yet...

I dont have a skimmer on it bc of the coral....i only have the filters....

right now i have a standard light set up on it... i couldnt tell you what kind...i need a new one for the corals before too long....these are all beginner corals that do well in low - med lighting...so i should be alright for now....

 

[af0929]

oh and ive got a ton of frozen foods stocked up for the mandrin...how would you suggest i wein him onto them? the tank gets a good stock of flakes/pellets/ and mysis everyday...should i try brine?...or will it take larger feeders?

 

[Finalfire9]

that is one doomed manderin golby

 

[micstarz]

that is one doomed manderin golby

Agreed.