Titus and Jamie's 20g Clown tank build

[Chino]

Great. I will find you on nanoreef

 

[Titus]

1 step forward and 2 steps back.... I got it all plumbed up yesterday and leak tested it... all good there. Unfortunately I managed to break off a tooth in the sump that I will need to fix, and I realized that the back of the tank needs another coat of paint.

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[Titus]

I added a couple more coats of black paint to the back of the tank tonight. I still need to fix the overflow tooth I broke yesterday, and I want to do some work on the bottom of the stand. I was hoping to install the American DJ PC-100/A that I won at the club meeting last week, but it is too big for the stand. I may look to trade it for a PC4 model but I am not sure yet.

 

[Chino]

Man, I want a setup like this so bad. If I brought a tank over for you to drill how much would you charge to do it for me? Also, I noticed you have a 26g bowfront in your sig. Where did you get this? Im looking for a reef ready bowfront between 20-30g for my bedroom but no luck.

 

[Titus]

@Chino wrote:

Being that I cracked the first tank I tried to drill, I am not too eager to risk destroying someone else's tank. [smilie=shake.gif] The Bowfront isn't reef ready... just a basic tank. I picked it up in from a member from the classifieds for $30 and found a stand made for it on a Facebook garage sale site for $20. I am running it with a foam filter and heater as a quarantine tank. They seem to pop up on Craigslist too every few weeks.

 

[Titus]

I purchased a pair of "Todd's Long Island Reds" at MACNA, and they are doing well in QT for now.

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I also purchased about 20lbs of Marco rock at MACNA for the tank. I will be working to get the tank up and running by the beginning of next week.

 

[Titus]

The tank is up and running. I ended up going with an inexpensive fishneedit.com 4x24w T5 fixture that seems to get decent reviews on Nano-Reef. It is running the stock bulbs for now but I plan on replacing them with 2 Blue+, an Aquablue Special, and a Coral+ soon. I also have an old Neptune AC3 controller hooked up to it. It was on my big tank but I recently got an Apex Lite for the big tank and so the AC3 was freed up for this tank. I put my MACNA Maxi-Jet 900 in it for now but it is big and noisy, and really a little too much flow for the tank, so I have a Koralia Nano 425 on order. I haven't had a chance to get the wiring mess cleaned up, but at least the tank has water in it and can begin cycling.

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[Titus]

Today I replaced the Maxi-Jet 900 with a new Koralia Nano 425. I love how small and quiet it is compared to the MJ900, but it seems like a lot less than half the flow that the MJ was putting out. I'm glad that it doesn't blow sand everywhere like the MJ, but I am not sure if it is enough flow.

 

[C0pe]

I started with a single 425 for my kids 20g and ended up buying a 240 to add in after seeing how little flow the 425 created by itself.

We just added a couple heads of frogspawn the other day and the kids love watching the pair of false percs hosting it.

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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Titus]

@C0pe wrote:

Cool... I was thinking a second small one might be as good idea as well. I am hoping to pick up a frogspawn at the frag swap to give my clowns something to do while I wait for the tank to be mature enough for a RBTA.

 

[Titus]

The cloudiness in the tank has cleared up so I snapped a pic with the blue bulbs on. They come on an hour earlier than the whites and stay on for an hour after the whites go off.

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Here is the current state of the sump. You can see that the skimmer is producing a decent amount of foam. From the skimmer section it goes down my media rack section. Currently there is just some filter floss on top, but soon I will add a Chemi-pure elite bag below that. From there it flows out the bottom and in to a chamber where I added some rubble from my the sump of my big tank (I haven't decided if I will fill it to the top with rubble, or if I will add a light and some chaeto). From the rubble chamber, the water overflows into the return section with heater. I never fixed the broken tooth on that overflow. I will fix it if I decide to add chaeto to the rubble section.

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Cycling- I dosed a small amount of ammonia on day one to get things going. I got a couple free bottles of MicroBactor7 at MACNA, so I am giving it a try as well. The Ammonia alert shows that ammonia is still high, but I am already testing a 2 mg/l of nitrites in just 5 days of running. Between the use of rubble from my established system and the MB7, I am hopefully it will not be a long cycle.

The Clowns- They have now been in QT for 2 weeks and are doing well. The like mysis most, but will take the IO Marine Chips too. I have tried some flake that free from MACNA, but they don't seem interested in it at this time.

 

[Titus]

Day 9-Ammonia is all gone and the nitrites are now way up. Diatoms are out in force. The temperature gets up near 80 by the end of each day's light cycle. I ordered a little hang on fan made by Zoo Med and plan to control it with my AC3 to keep the temps between 78 and 79. I am still dosing MicroBactor7 daily and I am ghost feeding i bit of mysis shrimp every other day.

Clown update- They have completed their 2 rounds of Prazipro in the QT. The plan was to treat them with copper next, but I have changed my mind on that. After lots of reading, I see that Brooklynella is the biggest concern for clowns and the consensus is that it can not be treated with copper. I have chosen to go with Mardel QuICK Cure. It is supposed to work on ick (like copper), but it is Formalin based (known to treat Brook). The treatment only lasts 3 days, and after that I will just leave the clowns in QT until the tank has cycled.

 

[Titus]

Small update... I added a small bag of Chemi-pure elite to the media rack in the sump today.

Unrelated note... As part of the same order I got a Reef Gently Acclimate Pro. I had wanted one as soon as I saw their video on it, and although I haven't used it yet, the build quality and features have so far exceeded my high expectations. I can't wait to give it a try. I am a little surprised by how small it is. If It works as good as it looks, I may add the XL version to my wish list.

 

[Titus]

So last night I added the Chemi-pure elite. I then cleaned the glass in the tank. Less than 24 hrs later, the glass is again covered in algae. I have never seen algae blooms like this in my big tank. Is this a common occurrence in a cycling tank? Maybe it is related to the fact that I am still running the cheap bulbs that came with the fixture? The fact that it coincided with the addition of the Chemi-pure has me even more baffled.

 

[Titus]

Day 16, the tank has cycled. It was a nasty mess in there. I did a 15% water change and sucked out the worst of the GHA and Cyano. I didn't think to take a pre-cleaning pic, but below is the after cleaning pic. still nasty looking, but not as nasty. I also added a single head of candy cane that I had in the sump of my big tank. Not sure when I will add the clowns. They have gone through all the QT treatment I had planned, but I just hate putting them in there during this nasty time.

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[Chino]

Looking great Titus! My Nanocube 12 actually finished cycling in exactly 16 days as well. I had a massive GHA breakout at day 11 or so and it just melted away after a week. I should have my 20 wet within the next week. Just trying to tweak the sump, plumbing, and lighting before I set it up. Few questions if you dont mind:

Correct me if I read this wrong but is your sump a 5.5? It looked like a 10 to me. I have a 10 and have been trying to figure out what skimmer will fit in the drain area. I have about 8" X 6 1/2" area for one with a 9" water level. Im wondering if that Aquaticlife skimmer you're using is what I should use and if it's too small. Id like to have a larger skimmer if possible but have not found one to fit. Just need one that works good. Im trying to steer away from HOB skimmers.

 

[Titus]

Yep, it is a 5.5. I had intended on using a 10g, and even bought one at a $1 a gallon sale, but got home and it wouldn't come close to fitting in my stand. I had always assumed I would have plenty of room in the stand for it, and never thought to bother measuring. Sadly even the 5.5 needs to sit in there at a slight angle... I just WAY over built the stand. [smilie=crying.gif]

The Aquatic Life Skimmer works well, but it is small. There is enough room in the skimmer section of my sump to upgrade to a Tunze Nano Skimmer, but I didn't start with that because I was trying to keep this somewhat of a low budget build. Given that the tank will not be heavily stocked, I am going to try and stick it out with the Aquaticlife for now. After buying the AquaticLife, I came across the even cheaper Reef Octopus NS80. if I had seen that before, i might have gone with it.

 

[Titus]

8 little red legged reef hermits moved from the invert QT into the clown tank yesterday. They seem to like it and are busy cleaning things up in there.

 

[Titus]

While still present, the cyano is been reduced significantly. I added a little bit of GFO in a filter bag to the sump today and hopefully it will wipe out the last of it. More importantly, I decided the tank was ready for the clowns and moved them over this morning. They seem to dig their new tank.

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[Titus]

While still present, the cyano has been reduced significantly. I added a little bit of GFO in a filter bag to the sump today and hopefully it will wipe out the last of it. More importantly, I decided the tank was ready for the clowns and moved them over this morning. They seem to dig their new tank.

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