Intermediate Nano Reefer

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Clownfish11790

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I have a 20L gallon nano reef with an orbit light. like 180 watts. I have coral and it has been set up for about 4 months. I have one clowngoby. What other fish could i put in with it? _CF
 
For my filtration I have a penguin 200 filter and a 100gph pump. After reading many threads, most people have sumps and things like that...I am interested in them, but I do not know much about them...Please help me!
 
I have always liked:

6-Line wrasses (i love them and recomend them and they do fine in a 20 galon, feeding may be hard but mine eats flakes so ya never know)

Percula clowns ( a pair would be a nice addition)

chromis (active and colerful)

Firefish (never had one but i know that they need a COMPLETLY covered aquarium)

Neon gobies (small colerful)
 
I want to have a 20gal or 10 gal sump/refugium, but i am worried about the water overflowing in the sump/refugium. How do you prevent this from happening? I have also read that when the power runs out, the water could go everywhere? Please help.
 
"google" - "search tools"
IMO-you will not be able to keep clams or most SPS....that will be good for LPS and softies.......you also might want a little more flow in your tank if you notice ant dead spots.
 
you are going ot be severely limited to the SPS coral you can keep under PC light. even though you have 130 watts, PC light just isnt that intense.

you might be able to get away with a monti if it were at the very top of your tank, but it will grow slowly. I had a monti in my tank and it did OK under the PC lights, but as soon as i switched to halide, it trippled in size in no time. it was an amazing difference.
 
hey clownfish11790,
i'll give you my take on this.

first, if you are serious about wanting SPS here is some links to good info. SPS FAQ

i am assuming your tank has been setup fairly recently. i would wait until your tank has had some time to establish & stablize...at least 6 mos IMO, if not longer. as for the light, as mentioned, you may be able to keep some montipora if you keep them high in the tank, but the growth and color may not be that good. also, if you want to keep SPS you'll need more flow. 15x turnover (just a guess, i'm not sure exactly what you HOB filter's GPH is like) isn't enough. i would probably get rid of the HOB and opt for more powerheads...i'd look for small powerheads like the micro jets or the tunze mini, and you would want to at least double the turnover you have now.

even if you don't want to keep SPS i would remove all the media from your HOB filter, and just use it for flow, or to run carbon...or if you don't end up adding a below tank sump/ refuge you could convert the HOB filter into a HOB fuge.

to answer your questions about the sump...well, first you need a way to get the water down to the sump (obviously:D ). you can either have your tank drilled for an internal overflow, which is tough because your tank is already setup...you could buy a second 20gL and have that drilled and then use your current 20g as the sump (not sure how much room you have below your tank). or you could use a HOB overflow. one of the problems you mentioned is only a problem for HOB overflows. with a drilled tank w/ internal overflow there's a drain in the tank and the water flow is controlled by the overflow, but with a HOB overflow there has to be a siphon created to get the water up and over the back of the tank. certain types of HOB overflows have a flaw in the design that can cause the siphon to break, so if the power goes out and the siphon is lost when the power comes back on the display overflows. now, i have no personal experience with HOB overflows, so i'm going largely by what i've read about them in my research on RC in setting up my own tanks. the lifereef overflows get great reviews, and people claim that they never lose siphon after a power outage or something. my father-in-law has used Amiricle overflows on his 125 for 9+ years w/o problems, so those are another HOB i would trust. the CPR overflows are ones that have been known to have problems, but as i said i've never used a HOB overflow so i can't comment on that.

now, your second problem with a sump/ fuge setup that your talking about is actually pretty simple to prevent, and really shouldn't be a problem for anyone who takes the time to set things up properly. if the power goes out, your return pump stops, if that happens you need to have enough room in your sump to hold the water that's in it, the water that's in your drain and return lines, and how much water will drain into the sump until the water level drops below the teeth on the overflow. as long as you put some planning into it, this really should not be a problem. the only other thing is to add siphon breaks to your return outlets if the return outlets are below the water line. this is simple, its just a matter of drilling a little hole in the return just below the water line of your display. if the return pump is shut off, when the water falls back down to the sump it creates a siphon. the holes allow air into the line once the water level drops below them, and this breaks the siphon.

whew...typing that all out makes it seem a lot more complicated then it really is.:D
 
Thanks for all the feed back. Especially phenom 5.

I really wanted to keep SPS, but I guess I don't have enough light. And I can't upgrade because my parents would yell at me because I have already spent a lot of money on the aquarium.

I don't think I will do a sump because it seems too complex and I dont really have and cutting tools or anthing, but hopefully when I am older.

But thanks again...I still can't think of what other fish/shrimp to put in my aquarium. I only have one clown goby and two skunk cleaner shrimp (Full Grown)
 
Another quick way to do a refugium on a nano without haveing to drill or anything is to get a CPR AquaFuge Refugium. It hangs on the back of the tank and is fed by a powerhead. The return is a simple siphon that is baffeled so it won't drain the whole refug. into your tank. I've got one on my 29gal and think it's great.
As far as fish go, you have to stay with fish that will stay small, so most fish are out. You could go with clowns, some types of basslets or gramma, gobies (although you might not want to have more than 1 since they might fight), blenneys, or a Pseudochromis. I'm probably missing some...
 
glad i could help out. sumps and overflows aren't as confusing as they sound, when you see one in action it really isn't that complex.

i would suggest something like this...HOB refuge mod

replacing you HOB filter with a HOB fuge would be a nice improvement that would help out with water quality and it wouldn't be too expensive or difficult. you might be able to do the mod to your current HOB filter, although i'm not familiar with that type of HOB filter so it's tough to say.

and just because you aren't ready to tackle SPS that doesn't mean you can load up your tank with zoos, shrooms, softies & LPS. :thumbsup:
 
I dont know if this will help since you are unsure about drilling, but I built my own sump out of an extra 20L so i have about 35-40 gals total. Although I dont have any pic of doing it to my tank, I got the idea from this thread

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=751988&perpage=25&pagenumber=2


It is really easy to do and it only took me about 3 hours (including lowes and FFS shopping time) to build with a cost of 60-70 dollars, ($30 for the extra tank, and 30 bucks for the bulkheads tubing and clay) all you need is a dremel (the generic brand is $25 and a diamond tipped drill $8)

I have two clowns, a redheaded goby and a royal basslet (sp?), but I only had the clowns when it was only 20 gal.

The only way you can keep the more light intensive corals, clams, or anemones is if you upgrade to MH. I have a coralife (aqualight)clamp on 150w and that works wonderfully ($250, but I bought mine that was a display model for 170 after 2 weeks of use), but I also have heard that there are some cheaper competetors coming outsoon in the 100-200 dollar range, goodluck with your tank.
 
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