20 long build

[petere1989]

well, due to my skimmer blowing out i did transfer them. and i put the skimmer from the other tank in this one while i figure out how to get a replacement since its got a warranty on it. due to the algae i also went to my lfs and picked up 20 red leg crabs 10 of which went into the 20 gallon and the rest into my other tank. I also picked up this little thing.

Sea slug. It looked really cool in the store. this picture doesn't get the color this thing even has. pretty neat.

the coral are in this tank only temporary until i get a replacement skimmer.

we shall see how this plays out.

 

[petere1989]

well the sea slug is no longer. this morning he was on the mp10 and was flopping all over the place. when i took him off he was definitely dead. other then that i'm just kinda in the waiting period for my algae problems to go away before doing anything.

 

[petere1989]

so because of all the problems i've been having recently, i decided to thin out the tank a bit. I took out one of the large pieces of live rock to give more space and I think it actually looks better. I may just keep it out. I put it in my 10 gallon and re-stacked the rock on there.

so here is the tank now.

This is one of my favorite pieces right now.

and here is what i did with the 10 gallon. I just stacked against the back wall.

both tanks are looking a bit cleaner since i put all the crabs in there. I hope that they continue to do their job. some crabs i got a month or so ago got lazy.
Also i am returning the broken skimmer and aquaticlife is sending me a new one. Their a good company to work with for those of you with aquaticlife products.

 

[petere1989]

little update. The crabs i got are doing a good job cleaning up the algae problem. Most of my bubble algae is all gone and i had a lot! I had to put the toad stool mushroom back in my 10 gallon because it was shivering up and turning purple. I don't know what to do for it anymore. the people at my LFS said they were easy to take care of. anyway, i got two pieces of coral today.

This one is not open all the way as i JUST put them in my tank.

Also today i sent back my broken skimmer and hope to get a replacement soon. I did put the skimmer from the 10 gallon on this tank so it isn't running skimmerless.

 

[petere1989]

just another picture. here is an overview of how the tank looks now.

 

[petere1989]

Update: So due to all my algae problems i went 3 days with the lights off. it did ok and killed a majority of it. i still have diatoms but not to bad really. I ended up getting another piece of coral today. I'm not sure what the name is but it looked really cool. it was on sale big time because it had been burned by another coral so the guy gave me a huge discount. he said that over time it will grow new sprouts over the burned area.

Here it is. Its not opened up yet and i will put a picture up when it does. but you can see the half burned part. i just put that end to the back of the tank and hope that this one does good.

and here is an overview shot.

I also picked up this little guy for my 10 gallon.

 

[petere1989]

just some more pictures

 

[Veganbrian]

cool, Looks like a huge dendro colony.

 

[mjames6688]

Have you made any mods to your filter? Seems like you would need a bit more...
I also have a 20L and have a AC70 with 2 ACP500 Power Heads, still seems like it's not enough flow... Just my .02, but if perimeters are good then tell me off
I like the tank tho.
The cabinet it is in is perfect!

 

[petere1989]

Have you made any mods to your filter? Seems like you would need a bit more...
I also have a 20L and have a AC70 with 2 ACP500 Power Heads, still seems like it's not enough flow... Just my .02, but if perimeters are good then tell me off
I like the tank tho.
The cabinet it is in is perfect!

the filter thing just has the pads in there like they have for freshwater. i haven't done anything to it, but i do have to replace the filter pad like every 2 weeks but thats ok w/ me. and also whenever i have more flow in there, my corals go into hibernation and don't come out, so they do not like the more flow. my mp10 is on about medium power during the day and night mode at night. also my perimeters are good. the only thing is the diatoms. they won't go away. i'm still having blooms of it. i'm just not sure what to do to stop it.

i am going to have to mod my skimmer here soon because i'm emptying it 2 times a day. its getting a little annoying at this point. What i think i'm going to do is drill a hole in the side, and get some kind of bracket to screw together on each side of the hole, then put a piece of tubing from the skimmer catch tray down to a gallon jug with the same bracket attached to the plastic cap.

 

[JasonBJones]

If your skimmer is filling up twice a day, you likely have the water level in the skimmer set too high. Try lowering the water level a bit and that should help. It should take a few days to fill up the skimmer cup once you get it dialed in.

 

[petere1989]

If your skimmer is filling up twice a day, you likely have the water level in the skimmer set too high. Try lowering the water level a bit and that should help. It should take a few days to fill up the skimmer cup once you get it dialed in.

ok thanks. i turned the little dial on top a bit, it was wide open. so maybe that'll help. thanks!!

also a few more new things happened. I lost one of my damsels yesterday. I don't really know what was wrong with him besides he was always kinda on the shyer side. Because of that I checked my water perimeters and everything is spot on correct so i know that my water is ok. Today then I went and got a new damsel. I wish i could remember the name but it black and has blue fins and blue stripes on him. and then he's got a white vertical stripe with a yellow dot on the white part. I tried taking a picture but he moves to fast for my iPhone. I also got some star polips (i think?)

Also the lady at the store said to use distilled water in my tank instead of RO water. I've been getting my RO water from Kroger. She said that the unit may not be taking all the stuff out of the water and may have trace elements in there i don't want, and because of that i am still having brown algae over everything. Is that necessarily ok to do? i've done research and have found people that have said both ways: not to use it and to use it. I'm just not sure what to do. The algae is on there thick and whenever i scrape it I feel i need to do a water change because it is so bad floating around.
So my question is this: can you use distilled water? and will that help with the brown algae?

 

[tommer725]

pretty fish

pretty fish

I also picked up this little guy for my 10 gallon.

What type of fish is he? Love him and his color!

 

[kenc87]

That would be a purple firefish

 

[gregm11]

20L is such a cool size for both fresh and salt

 

[tommer725]

20L is such a cool size for both fresh and salt

yeah is. because of this im setting up a 20 long

 

[petere1989]

i've been asking around about why some of my corals look the way they do and some people on here said potentially bleeching. so they said to lower the lights a bit, so i did. i like the look of it better too and we'll see how the coral is affected.

so it went from this:

To this:

also here are a few shots with just the blue plus t5 bulbs on.

they aren't the best pictures. sorry. i need to get something besides my iPhone.

 

[petere1989]

got some packages from Fedex and Ups today. I got 3 new coral and my replacement skimmer for the one that broke on me.

First piece of sps. I hope that it goes well for me considering all the stuff i've been through with this tank.

I also got a new mushroom and some polyps but i'm going to wait until they open up more to post pictures.

 

[petere1989]

got another box the other day. I got 10 turbo snails. I thought these were bigger then they are, and they dont eat that much algae. maybe i didn't get the right ones, I don't know, but here is some pictures.
I love getting boxes!

I put some in this tank and then some in my 10 gallon.

The tanks been doing ok. the corals all seem to look very good recently but the algae issue has not gone away. I only had my two blue lights on for a week and just today turned the other two back on. I'm not sure what to do as i am out of things i can think of.

 

[Forrest3320]

updates?