Help me improve my tank

[needmorecowbell]

I'm posting the most recent pic of my tank and a few of the things in it. For livestock I have 1
Sixline wrasse, 1 bangaii cardinal, and one flame hawkfish. I also have a few inverts but no shrimp.

For coral I have too much too list, it is an sps dominant with several Lps and a few softies. My main/favorite corals are a purple tip stag, frogspawn, Hollywood stunner chalice, a neon green seriatopora with a brown skeleton, a kryptonite candycane, and a bonsai I'm working on to get the color back.

My equipment is a 20 gallon sump, external overflow. 2 koralia ph's, 1 750gph, 1 550gph. Skimmer is a red sea Berlin triple pass in sump protein skimmer. I have chaeto in my sump along with purigen and some Xenia, lotsa pods. Return is a mag 5. I have an ato from autotopoff.com, the 3gal reservoir is outside of my tank. My lighting is a 120w dimmable led unit running at 35% blue 25% white. I can't go higher or my corals bleach but lower is fine. I can't think of any other equipment, If you ask I'll list.

I'm big into DIY and have made a canopy and painted my trim and stand black.

Id like you guys to tell me what to do differently with my tank, what I could change, anything. Please be as tough as possible. My tank is in no way perfect and I'm willing to do almost anything, I'm addicted no super nice comments like its fine how it is, I need some tough people lol. If you need more pics I'll take/post them.

 

[Nu-Nu the eel]

Im going to try and be as rude as possible. Lol

Umm the sump looks a bit messy. I think if you could hang that light it would look much better. Also are there any cheto or anything in your sump? I think that would look nice.

I think you should try and hide that ATO as much as possible also, the cords on the right side are a bit messay as well. Is there anything you can do about that? Sorry.. Thats all i got because that tank is awesome...

 

[Convict2161]

Mail it to me... Lemme see what I can do with it and I'll get back to ya. I'm still new to the saltwater side so it doesn't look bad to me. Jack pointed out things I wouldn't even have noticed until he pointed them out.

 

[scottayy]

The canopy could be built to match the stand.

That's all I've got

 

[Gboy66]

Im in the same boat as jack for his comments. For the resevoir, is there any way you could hide that too? Maybe put somthing there, like furniture (a toy box would be perfect) and hide the resavoir in that. Forthe wires, at the very least i would try to mount them to the wall or side of the stand. Ive seen in done in biocubes and stuff, and it looks really good.

Thats all i got. Took everything i had in me to even think of those lol. Great tank adam

 

[needmorecowbell]

Im going to try and be as rude as possible. Lol

Umm the sump looks a bit messy. I think if you could hang that light it would look much better. Also are there any cheto or anything in your sump? I think that would look nice.

I think you should try and hide that ATO as much as possible also, the cords on the right side are a bit messay as well. Is there anything you can do about that? Sorry.. Thats all i got because that tank is awesome...

Lol thanks. Unfortunately the light needs to be there until I get something higher powered, which might be soon. I have some xenia in there and don't want it to die. I did remove part of the eggcrate though. There's a clump of chaeto I'm there that I trim once a month so it doesnt kill the corals.

Was thinking the same about the ato, I'm going to try to find something that matches the tank that will hide it, it sure won't fit in the stand lol. The wires are normally tucked into the side, I just wanted to show what I had. I'm waiting for my dad to help me/ let me put in an additional breaker so I can add a few extra outlets and it would all be on its own circuit, I'd do a 10ma breaker.

I agree with you about the canopy, I'm going to build it again in a while with composite wood, I thought I used enough primer to hide the grain.

Thanks everybody, keep it coming!

 

[Sniperhank]

What I ended up doing with my ATO is putting a small coffee table over it. One of those custom ones you make in college out of beer caps. Classy.

 

[needmorecowbell]

What I ended up doing with my ATO is putting a small coffee table over it. One of those custom ones you make in college out of beer caps. Classy.

Lol I'll keep that in mind. I was thinking maybe something like a foot stool with a hollow base. It would keep everything hid and I could drill a hole in the side for the tubes/wires. Not sure, I definitely need something. My mom said I need to get rid of some bodies of water today.

 

[scottayy]

+1 new canopy build! It is a lot of work lol. I would try to emulate the look of your stand. Looks like it could be done using some 1x4. Maybe some front access doors to match your stand.

That's what I tried to do with my canopy, whether it looks like it or not lol.

The angle of that picture sucks, lol.

 

[needmorecowbell]

I sanded the stand down and I know it's composite, I also painted it so I can get the color spot on. I was thinking of adding doors to the one I have now, I could always take them off and out them on the new one later.

 

[Nu-Nu the eel]

Adam how deep is your sand bed? Thats one thing i would make deeper. Tanks look nicer with deeper sand IMO.

 

[needmorecowbell]

It's about 1.5 inches. I would be worried to add any more just because of the corals in my tank. I'd like to get it around 2" if I could.

 

[Nu-Nu the eel]

Ya i know what you mean, but more sand looks SOOOO much better!