Lob Stark's 20 gal Reef Tank

[Lob Stark]

Hello everyone!

Very recently I took a trip to the North-Pacific and had the incredible opportunity to do a serious amount of hiking along the coast. I had never seen reefs, or the creatures that inhabit them prior to the trip, besides maybe a few aquarium trips as a child and when I arrived home I decided to build a tank after much research. This is what I've built up with so far.

Equipment
Aqueon 20 gallon tank
Aqueon Quietflow Power Filter
Aqueon Submersible Water Heater 100W
Current ORBIT Marine LED 24"-36' (Dual Actinic & 8k/12k)
Rio+ 200 Powerhead
12.5 lbs of Fiji Live Rock
12.5 lbs of Live Branch Rock
2 lbs of Live Sand

Livestock
A few Turbo, Narcissus, Cerith, and Margarita Snails
An Emerald Crab
A Reef Lobster
A hitchhiking Micro-Brittle Sea Star (I believe that what he is, his arm is sticking out of a crevice in the last photo)

Goals
As it is my first one, I hope to build an all around tank with some of everything, maybe a couple of fish (I'd really like a pair designer clowns), some zoas & mushrooms, some anemones, LPS and SPS corals. My absolute favorite thing so far are the vast array of softies I have seen online. Future plans also include building a 15 gallon sump with a skimmer and refugium. I hope to keep a single small mantis shrimp in there also (most likely a green one, as they don't get so big.) Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!

 

[mnat]

Welcome to the club and looks like you are off to a good start. We have run nanos (12 to 34g) for years so we have a little bit of experience with them.

A couple of quick notes in random order:
Look for a HOB skimmer. It will help keep your water cleaner much better than the Aqueon power filter. They are not crazy expensive and you will appreciate the work they do.
We have always found that weekly constant water changes (like 10%) are one of the best practices with keeping nanos. What is your anticipated schedule?
I love mantis shrimp, but they really cannot be housed with any other livestock or the other fish/inverts are going to become food. People who keep mantis shrimp generally keep them in their own seperate tank.
Reef lobsters are awsome but they can also get a bit aggressive with fish and smaller inverts, just something to keep an eye on when stocking. You probably want to avoid small, sand dewlling gobies.
A pair of clowns for this tank would be an awesome addition.

 

[kschweer]

Welcome aboard! All great advice above.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mark_C]

Welcome aboard. I've been doing this for under a year myself and have been on a considerable learning curve so I can't offer too much practical advice for the long term.
Matter of fact, half the following advice may be garbage. But, I'll try.

The sooner you get to that sump with a protein skimmer (or at least a HOB with skimmer as mnat recommended) the better. I built a very workable 10g sump/fuge that I had going with a 40 gallon for 6 months and it worked fantastically, would be happy to forward you links/vids if interested.

If your keeping nassarius they like to burrow into the sand, if '2 pounds' is a typo and you meant to type '20' you're good, if not consider a bit more sand to allow then to burrow down and put up their periscopes.

Watch your shrimp/crab/coral interactions closely for the first day, some will dive at the soft corals and LPS like a hawk on a mouse, some seem to wait until you're not looking. I had a shy cleaner shrimp and every time I left the tank and returned I found small green strands floating in the water. As I turned a corner and watched my tank like a bad spy, the shrimp came out and was Edward Scissorhandsing my torch coral.

Get a quality test kit and monitor Calcium, Alk, and phosphates, balancing as required for your corals - softies like slightly dirty water and stoneys like clean water, you'll have to find a happy balance.

When you hit the inevitable post-cycling algae outbreak a simple and inexpensive GFO reactor (run temporarily) will be your best friend.

Thats about all I can offer aside from put out the extra money for good equipment now (especially in the skimmer and light department), as you'll just end up buying it anyway within a year.

Good luck with everything - tank looks fantastic!

M

 

[Lob Stark]

Thanks for the welcome guys, and for the advice!

I guess my first order of business will be to put a 15 gallon sump together with a skimmer and a HOB overflow then. Marc_C I would certainly appreciate any links to videos or pics for your 10 gal sump, I'm fairly handy but a working model would be great. I did in fact mean 20 lbs of sand too. As for the invert interactions, since I added the reef lobster, which spends 98% of its time hiding deep in the shadows, the emerald crab has completely disappeared. I'm not all that worried because hes so tiny, but I would like to know if he would just immediately destroy the crab upon seeing him. Also, what is a GFO reactor? and I'm assuming it would go in the return area of the sump?

As for my schedule, I am currently topping off the tank daily with saltwater, to try and raise my SG slightly higher as I am at 1.022 at the moment. I was planning a 25% water change every week, but if 10% does the job, all the better. I drop a little fish food in their too every day, to try and speed the ammonia spike up. MatteZ is a cousin of my good friend, which is the reason I'm on this site in the first place and he introduced me to the designer clownfish breeds, a pair of which I'm certainly getting. Has anyone heard of exotic-reefs.com? Their page says they are fairly new,but they are cheap in comparison to what I've seen. Oh and I was thinking of a smaller breed of mantis shrimp in the refugium part of the sump, my impression was they were pretty aggressive.

 

[Lob Stark]

Also, I have a bit more tailored of an idea after further research and I think I have a fairly good idea at what I would like to eventually put in there coral-wise. A few Zoas/Palys, a torch or two, a rose bulb tip anemone and some acros. I have some detailed lists as to what (breeds? genus?) exactly too, but I figure it's a little too early to be asking recommendations on things without having the tank cycled.

 

[mnat]

I would agree that a sump would be a great idea and opens up a ton of options for filtration. A GFO reactor is used to run GFO which keep your phosphates lower.

 

[MatteZ]

GFO=granular ferric oxide

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-5-single.html


You can also just run Carbon

 

[Mark_C]

Here's what info I have on the 10g sump fuge...

And a vid of it working...

[video]http://vid1328.photobucket.com/albums/w540/Ozone001/MVI_0535_zpsjragj5gr.mp4[/video]