TH08TU's 20G reef build

[th08tu]

Hi everybody! after a long break from the hobby due to some health issues, I am back! (I know it's not that exciting for you, but it is for me )

Anyways over the past weekend I decided to take my ten gallon "reef" and upgrade to a 20 Gallon reef, using the ten as a sump. So I picked up an overflow, cleaned out the twenty, moved the rock over, plumbed the overflow into my ten underneath, and let it run. The trick was to do this without killing any of the livestock, without causing a cycle, and still being happy with the end result. So here is what I have:

Hardware:

Aquaclear 40? powerhead
HOB overflow
Rio return pump
20 gallon disply
10 gallon sumo
2 - 50 W heaters
Coralife 65W 24" with 10000K bulb
Coralife T5 HO 24" with 10000K bulb and Actinic

Livestock

2 False Percs.
1 Lawnmower Blennie
1 Yellow Coral Goby
1 Giant Cup Mushroom Frag
1 small (15 polyp zoo colony)
2 ricordea frags
Clean up crew of assorted snails and crabs
Chaeto in the sump

Here are some pics:

More to come of course, just been crazy round here.

Anyways no post would be complete without questions! So here they are to:

Am I overdoing it with the lights? PC and T5?

When should I remove the carbon? I put it in place simply to protect myself in case of a small cycle because it was a new tank, with some new sand and a little more base rock.

Because of my neglect when I was ill, I developed a small algae problem in the ten, if you can't tell from the pics. It was on the rocks and glass. So I left it in the ten, thinking that that way all of the algae would grow in there. Yesterday I also added a large ball of chaeto to the sump, which isn't in that picture. Do you think the combination of the above will help the growth of algae in my display tank, or should I start cleaning off the rocks?

My ricordea has gone almost white. You can see it in the third picture. I can still see a hint of the green, however I really have to look, should I just wait and see or is there something I can do to help it out?


Thats all I can think of for now, but I know I will have many more questions and I promise there will be many more pictures!

 

[cmor1701d]

Welcome back.

If you have much more light now than before you need to acclimate your Ric and corals to the new light. Either raise the lights, use some layers of screen material or just use less light and slowy build up over a few weeks.

That may also help the algea problem in the main tank. Cut back feedings to every 2- 3 days too.

Remove the carbon after a week. Replace it if you need it.

 

[th08tu]

ok thanks for the help, tonight I made some progress I think.

I didn't have baffles in the sump, because when I put it together I ran out of time, so tonight I cut some 1/4" acrylic and made some baffles. I was hoping this would help with bubbles from the overflow getting sucked up into the pump and then into the return tube. Note sure if it has worked yet, but will be able to tell in the morning hopefully. (I stirred up the sump a lot, and added newly mixed salt water, so it is still a little foggy)
The baffles work as follows:

Water In - Over- Under- Over- fuge area with 3" of sand, live rock rubble, and Chaeto - Over- Heater and return pump.

I might do another under over before the return if this doesn't help with the bubble problem, but I'll give it a bit to "break in"

Pics to come soon, but it turned out a lot better than I thought it would.

One question I did have was about switching the other t5 bulb to actinic. Would that be just a waste of the t5 fixture having both actinic, and the 65W 10000K? I like the look of the blue, but right now it is really hidden because of sooo much 10000K. Anyways would love to hear some opinions on the lighting!

Also on a side note, now that it has been just over a week, the algae seems to be fading in the display tank, there is a little bit of growth on the sand, but on the rocks it is slowly dying off (I think)

And lastly on a sad note, one of the clowns has been missing for a day now. I have no idea where he got to, because there is nothing on the floor, nowhere for him to get out of the tank except for an inch or so at the back, and he wasn't in the sump when I took it out to put the baffles in... a bit of a mystery, but maybe that is why I have sudden growth on the bottom of the tank, little bit of an ammonia spike because clean up crew hid her from me?

 

[pokmijn]

wow i like your rock work way better than mine...but why dont you get actinic for the pc instead

 

[th08tu]

haha thanks. I honestly did the best I could with it, but the pieces are pretty small, so it was hard to keep spaces in them, but I am mostly happy with it now.

I would get actinic for the PC, but I am a little concerned considering it is the majority of the wattage over the tank, and I just bought the 10000K bulb a few weeks ago, so I don't really want to drop another 60 bucks on another one...

 

[pokmijn]

60 bucks for a pc bulb wow...even though your pc have a higher wattage your t5's might be more intense and better for the corals...better yet do what i did get halides(hehehe)

After seeing how much room you got in your 20 i might just upgrade my ten as im out of space.

 

[th08tu]

yeah, I might just replace the bulbs a little before I need to and that way I can play around with different configurations before they become useless. I like the twenty better, I had the ten (which is now my sump) running for a while and it was my first tank, and it was very frustrating to try and keep everything balanced and high water quality. The 20 is nice because you have more options, a little more room for error, and as you said more open space.

 

[th08tu]

So time for an update, no pics though, but they will be soon I promise.
I am going to re-aquascape again but I need some pointers on how to do it without killing anything, or recycling the tank. I want to move the overflow to the far corner away from the return because it is right in the middle right now, and is turning into the focal point of the tank. Should I just take out all of the livestock and go nuts? Anyways thanks for the help, pics soon I promise!

 

[pokmijn]

when i moved mine i just drained the water into a bucket and store the rocks and fish in there put the corals in their own container and float them then move then put everything back and it went fine nothing happened.

 

[th08tu]

Ok I tried that and it worked I think! So now I have a two Island setup, with a tall on going up to the return, and a smaller one bellow/infront of the overflow box. I didn't move the overflow and I'm not sure if I am going to, it's a real pain to do it, so I might just leave it an hopefully it will be covered with something in the future. I am almost happy with everything right now, before I start to add more livestock, I just need to finish the background of the tank and attach it. All I am doing for that is painting a sheet of plexiglass black, and attaching to the back, since I don't want to have to remove everything to take the tank outside to spray it.
I will post some pictures once I finish that, which should be within the next day or so. I won't be getting any new corals though for at least another month, as my LFS is in the middle of a renovation of their marine section....and I can't find anywhere else nearby that sells any marine anything.

Thanks pokmijn for all your help, your tank is looking awesome too! can't wait for more updates! It's cool that we are both starting from kind of the same place so it will be need to see how the tanks progress!

 

[pokmijn]

NP, yeah but i think when all ends yours gonna turn out a lot nicer cause you have a bigger tank so you can put more stuff in there, cause right now I'm wanting to put more corals in there but i cant find any spot for it. Hopefully a upgrade will come when i find a spot for a bigger tank.

 

[Soundtrigger]

Coming along great

 

[th08tu]

Alright everybody time for an update and I need everybody's ideas on this one! So I have had to start over almost completely as I had an issue with a "helpful" neighbour filling my fuge to the rim with fresh chlorinated water while I was on vacation. If anybody is unaware or was thinking of trying this themselves, I would recommend against it. Not only will it kill everything living in your tank, but it was also cause a flood as the fuge is now overfilled.
So for the past month I have replaced the carpet, put down hardwood, and in the meantime worked on saving what was still alive in the tank, which seems to be a massive pod population, my lr, and ls, and a small amount of algae, and one yellow coral coby.
I have that I am going to completely rebuild, as I wasn't happy with several things in my tank, first being the stand. I work at a cabinet shop, so I have access to many professional level machines, however I haven't taken the time to draw up any plans yet. This is where all of you come in! I was wondering if you all could provide some input into what you wish you had in your stand, or something that when you were building your stand you wish you had planned for.

As of right now I am planning on building it in a way that would allow me to eventually expand the stand to allow for larger tanks and fuges, which shouldn't be too difficult with proper design.
Also I am planning on mounting the lights above the tank and fuge by aprox. 5" which will allow for better heat dispersion, and better light spread.
Next I am planning a sort of false back, which will allow all of the plumbing to be hidden and semi permanent. Also that will allow me to paint the back of the cabinet and the sides, without having to paint glass.
Next I am going to try and make the entire electrically self contained. This will mean making a waterproof area, which I will run all of the electrical cords, etc. in, and have only one plug running out of the cabinet. This will eliminate the need to have a mess of wires behind the tank, and also allow for better organization of everything since it will be contained inside.
Lastly, I plan on building the doors with opposite shelves. Much like a fridge door, which will allow me to store all of my chemicals, food, etc.
Other than that I am out of ideas, but I hate the idea of backtracking in order to make an adjustment that I should have thought about before hand. I will probably make a drawing in the next few days or so, but I really hope to hear from some of you about stuff you wish you had included in the stand.

As for livestock and tank stuff, I am going to approach this very slow, and make sure that everything is perfect before I move forward, so as of right now, I am keeping everything running and healthy, but there will be no more additions until it is 100% ready for it.

 

[th08tu]

Alright so here's another quick update. I got snowed in the other day, so I decided to build my stand. I was able to used doors from an old cabinet so it turned out to look pretty polished. Heres a quick picture:

So anyways now I have a few options, I am considering starting up a planted tank, thus getting rid of my failing reef and work up a planted tank, but I need to research that a lot. I picked up a 2.5 gallon tank on my way home from work today which I am going to set up as a nano-nano reef, which will have my yellow coral goby in it and probably the rest of the zoos and mushrooms that are still holding on.

Anyways more updates will come. I am looking for a way to light the 2.5 gallon, because I don't want to move any of my fixtures over to it since they will be needed for the planted tank. Any ideas? Must be cheap!

 

[th08tu]

So I found a dynamax LED fixture that was being used at the lfs for a pico reef, and I thought it was perfect. So I picked it up, and moved everything keepable to the 2.5 gallon.

This includes:

- Live rock
- Live sand
- Clean up crew (5 or 6 snails)
- 1 Yellow coral goby
- 1 small zoo frag (8 heads approx)
- 1 small mushroom rock (4 heads)
- 1 ricordea frag rock (2 heads)

Here's a pic: