My new custom 20/15 Nano, journal.

[NanoReefWanabe]

Well bit of back ground first...

I am now 30...been dying for a saltwater fish tank ever since i seen a book my dad had about 20 years ago..i now own that book and the desire never stopped...i have a three year old girl who now is also in love with fish, and not from what you would think either...she loved going to Big Al's to watch all the fish swim around and the crabs do thier thing etc...So that brought me to this web site...and then Travis Stevens went and ruined it all for me...giving a step by step on how easy it is to set up a small tank and how affordable it is...

needless to say i am in 1000.00 bucks now for a 20 gallon display tank and such and loving every minute of it...

well not every minute of it..drilling my brand spanking new 20 gallon was not a happy moment being the first time i had ever done anything like that taking the word or several members that it was easy..and it was piece of cake...

here is the bare bones of it, i decided that i wanted to make a cabinet that would house everything, and at the same time match the living room furniture that i had already built..

Next step was to trim the cabinet out..i used 1x6 T&G pine flooring for all the wood other then the 2x3's i used for the frame.

then i chose to use minwax ebony to stain it to match the black leather sofa's..

i cant find a pic of that though right now..

now it was time to build the sump...i took the design from a fellow member who said if your gonna have plant etc..down there you might as well display them. so i did...

sump consists of three chambers like most...built into a 15 gallon AGA
drain basin area is 5 1/2" x 11 1/4" (might squeeze in a DIY skimmer later)
the return area is 12" x 7 1/4" (fits the mag 9 nicely)
the fuge is 6 1/4" x 15 3/4" across the front of the tank
there is also a bubble trap baffle section in the back of the tank where most of the flow goes through...one portion of that is 3" x 5 1/2" where i keep the big bag of Activated Carbon
and then the typical 1" baffle..

i will add more pics in a bit..wifey is coming home for lunch now..

 

[kase]

great start.
what are you plans for lighting and skimmer?

 

[BLKTANG]

nice wood work.

I wish i had some carpentry skills.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

one shot of the sump with pump and sand in..

next up i suppose is the plumbing...and man i am no plumbing wizz by any means..

sump/ return pump = Mag 9 @ 4' of head, that then goes through a SQWD and out as two returns..one return is just 45* into the water the other has a 'T' on it and is directed at the waters surface aswell as the side wall of the tank..

CL...just using a Maxijet 900 @ 2" of head (otherwise 0) this is 90* off the bulkhead and then45* to the back wall of the tank and then capped...there are strategic holes drilled along it and out the end as well..to keep water moving around the bottom and back of the tank..

all 3/4 inch PVC piping

Durso stand pipe with DIY air valve..pipe end is submerged 1" below water level..

everything runs pretty darn quite, aside from water flowing down the drain line...

just another angle to show the CL a little better..it is only using 1/2" lines though CPVC..

and finally what it look like from the front stained, urethaned, sand and some lace rock with the moon lights on..

closer

different angle

that pretty much wraps it up for today...

it was originally going to go in my daughters bed room...wifey came home today at lunch to axe that idea though..and she hates it in the living room too..which i stained it to match..so all that is left is to put in in our bedroom...of course the ONLY room in the house with carpet too...

anyway...we will see how well i can drag it across the carpet to get it in place..

as for lights, i have a 70 W 10K K metal halide, possibly going to try and squeeze in my 24 watt PC actinic, and then i have a LED moonlight strip about 18" long with 16 LED's in it...

more pics to come as the water goes in etc..the live stock...

As for livestock:

i want to keep it pretty simple..
couple clowns- tank size is going to more or less determine species.
i really want a manderin fish
a fire scallop (i think that is what they are called)
a star fish or some sort
a long spiney black urchin (they told me they are coral safe)
a couple cleaner shrimp
an emerald crab
a couple blue and red legged hermits.
some snails (not sure which variety or how many to get though) say 5 in the display and 5 in the fuge
possibly a couple bluegreen chromis ( i love how they school)
possibly some sort of reasonably safe anemone for the clowns

corals etc..

mushrooms
ricordia's
zoa's and mabye some paly's
maybe a bubble coral ( or something bubbly frogspwan)
some green star polups
some white star polups

and if something really cool catches my eye then it might go in too..

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i forgot to mention that my sand is CaribSea Aragonite and i will be using instant oceans salt mix..

since i will be cycling the tank today..should i buy uncured or cured LR...my LFS has both right now..they just got some uncured in today...should be full of a bunch of good and bad stuff eh?

 

[rickh]

How are you going to be able to remove that MJ for cleaning. You need shut off valves in the close loop. R

 

[Avalanche1201]

i would suggest going cured...it help speed the process up ALOT faster.

also uncured has to cycle...that can take quite a while as well as some horrible aromas coming off the rock from all the decay coming off....so def go CURED rock to cycle

 

[malachai]

Hey man im from ontario too (carpenter) I help build a lot of custom tanks for people in and around my area, we have tanks, rock, frags etc. so if you need anything drop me a line (brucecountycomp@hotmail.com). now to add my .02 i like the setup and it is good work, but if your livestock list is simple id hate to see a hard one lol

first off and im surprised no one else said anything, a mandarin needs aminimum of 75 lbs of live rock in an established tank to keep it healthy, the store may say it eats frozen and it probably will but once in the tank the other fish will most likely get the food before it does so i wouldnt suggest it

secondly bear in mind that those cute chromis are damsels and damsels can be aggressive again its up to you but i wouldnt

thirdly anenomes require a very stable tank as do starfish and it isnt reccomended to add them to a tank until it has been running for at least 6 months or more

also your clowns do not need one, i have had a pair host in xenia, my current pairs host in hairy mushrooms and my friends despite all his anenome attempts host in his GSP

and just a friendly warning, flame scallops move around until they find somewhere they like and it usually tends to be in the back of your tank where you cant see them


anyway it looks great and good luck keep us posted

 

[EWC88]

thats a nice tank. I like your stand you built! And how you placed your rock. What rock is that?

 

[kkyyllee]

ive never heard of chromis being agressive like the damseles
there a peacful fish not agressive, although mite pick on each other if you have a school but nothin bad

they are pigs when they it comes to eating tho :]

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

Malachai, thanx for the tips...the cost of this thing will make sure that nothign gets added to soon..LOL

the guy at the LFS told me today that the manderin wasnt a good idea either..

what aboout a BTA? the guys said they will be getting them in next week...

and yeah i ended up getting about 8 pounds of 5 year old LR from thier established frag and critter tanks..i got about a two pounds of reasonably cured rubble rock for my fuge from thier regular rock tank...this was the stuff right off the bottom of thier tank where all the broken pieces end up...i ended up with about half a pound of sand in the deal too..LOL after i shook out the rocks..

as for the CL i have plugs made for the inlet and return, that way i can clean them too..

got it running now...

i checked all my parameters...and i am a little upset..
temp seems to be sitting at 81* right now
SG = 1.025 (not bad for my first time mixing...)
PH = 8.0 (gonna have to bring that up a bit)
hardness....well ti took 16 drops of the stuff in 5 mL of water...i dont think that is good..
ammonia was 0

i will check them all again tommorow after thigns really have a chance to move around

i scored about 8 feather dusters on the rock three or four of them are green and the rest are the white and orange ones.....and a couple things that look like water beatles, which ended up in my fuge...damn things are to fast to get a pic of..

now holy poop i have got to get the drain line quite...sounds like a bloody torent running through my bedroom...hopefully the slime will quite things down in a couple days or so...the durso is working perfect...

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

well i checked the water peramters today and they are the same as they were yesturday...

i have yet to check the nitrate though..if that is in check would it be safe for fish yet or should i try to lower the dH first?

 

[oddiseus]

Your tank is coming along nicely. As for adding fish, I would suggest that you check and see if your ammonia, is down because cycle has started not because there is no cycle. Depending on how new your tank is, you really dont need to test every day because its going to read right around the same until your cycle kicks in high gear. I would just let it sit for about 3 weeks and then test to see where everything is sitting.

Maybe even through a lil fish food in there to decmpose too.
That will add to our cycle.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

yeah the rock was fully cured so i will have to get something in there to feed it..

 

[oddiseus]

even thought your rock is fully cured, you will have die off because of the parameters of the water. But the food will induce ammonia, this in turn gets the nitrate and nitrates to start to kick in. Once you measure nitrates and nitrites you will notice the ammonia level drop and then all the levels will drop as your tank reaches an equilibrium. Thats the point at which you can stock your tank. A lil thing I do... I add a snail just when my levels tell me Im good, if the snail lives then I can usually add fish. Snails are so suceptable to bad water and they will croak if its not ready. I will probably get harped for this but, its worked for me.
I hope this helps.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

yeah i just found a little wee dead snail in there...

i just bought some PH buffer as well...gotta bump that up a bit, for my personal taste...

well she is dead silent now...just a sight humm from the mag 9...

not even sure what i did though...

put the air tube in but i have it closed right shut....there must be a tiny bit of air leaking in somewhere though...i also covered the top of the strainer in the bulkhead..that stopped the vortexing and restricted the flow a wee bit...and i throttled down the mag9 a tiny bit...i can run it full open but the water level in the overflow box gets a wee bit too close to the top of the teeth..

i think i may have to make the teeth a little bigger...

and all the micro bubbles are gone....the sump flow (drain line) dropped drastically once i got the air out of the line...before my sump looked like a skimmer...millions of bubbles going a mile a minute...no there are next to no bubbles in the sump...

 

[malachai]

everything sounds good so far but i would still reccomend againts the anenome until your tank has proven itself stable for a few months, never mind the $$ wasted if it doesnt make it but its a shame to see something die for no reason, good luck and keep us updated

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

more new pics...and new additions...FINDS

more new pics...and new additions...FINDS

well it has now been 3 days and things seem to be going smoothly...still no sign of ammonia in the system though..

but i did find...

what looked like a barnacle...

i also found a little tiny snail creping up the glass yesturday but forgot to pic him...

and today i found...this...how do i feed him and keep him happy so he make more of himself? and what is he?

another pic with flash..

i also found this...what is it? is it aptasia?

it is hard to see in this pic...my camera sucks for water shots apparently..but it is right in the centre of the pic

it is a pale pinky white colour...seems to be very sticky, since the sand is sticking to it...it is very crystaline looking with a very distinct branching pattern..it seems to be growing fast too..since i didnt see it three days ago and now it is almost and inch tall...it almost looks hairy...there things like this on a couple of the live rocks i got...

i have also found a couple more mini feather dusters...

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

just some more random shots too...hopefully fish next week...most likely not though..

the water surface...

FTS...

FTS no flash..and only has a 15 watt phillips daylight bulb on it right now...still waiting for my MH to get here...

thats all for now...until i start stocking it...

 

[BLKTANG]

Nice rock work.