20L Nano Reef Build

[Nytelighter]

Double Zeroes!!!!!!!

[Earlgrey23]

Originally Posted by Nytelighter

Yep!!!!! Moved along pretty quickly like you said. I started cycling around November 22, with 30lbs of live sand, 7lbs of live rock, 15 lbs of base rock and 1 shrimp. Kept the lights off the whole time to keep algae at bay. Only thing I'm worried about is the pH is at 7.8 consistently (which may not be a bad thing), but I eventually want to put some corals in there and my research has been showing 8.2 to 8.5 to be more favorable. Been researching all the remedies but I'm gun shy on putting chemicals in the tank like Kent Superbuffer or Seachem Marine Buffer. My Alk is testing at 4.5-5.0 consistently. Any thoughts?

I have been having the same issues with PH. Since I plan on corals eventually too I was going to take Beengirls advice and get some Kents buffer. But since I am just adding fish for awhile and they can handle it I am going to hold off till I have them settled and my protein skimmer and PH going. That way I know for sure that it can be solved another way. Fewer chemicals I need the better for my pocket in the long run

[Nytelighter]

Yeah, I think I'm going to follow that same plan too. Going home to do a 50% water change today and maybe stop by the LFS and pick up a small cleanup crew. Anyone care to share ideas on what size CUC I should put in a 20L? I'm Thinking; 5 Bumblee Snails,
5 Nassarius, 5 Astrea, 5 Cerith, and 3 Red legged Hermits. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Nytelighter]

Two ocellaris clowns and clean up crew on deck!!!!

[Earlgrey23]

Awesome!!! Sending you good vibes. I started with two clowns and one bit the dust

[Nytelighter]

Thanks man. I'll need all the good vibes I can get. They are both the same size even after I told the stupid girl at the LFS to give me one bigger than the other so that the whole dominance thing won't be an issue in the future. They are getting along fine so far though.

[Nytelighter]

Tank Update: So look like I've had two casualties on the CUC. Two Astrea snails bit the dust and got cleaned up by the hermits. One of them got stuck in between some rocks and met his demise. The other....I think the hermits had it out for him. I won't be getting anymore of those Astrea since I have to spend so much time tipping them back over.

Also I have a question on flow. I woke up this morning and almost sh!t myself when I saw my clowns swimming funny and having a really hard time with the current. As you know I have a 20L with two Hydor Koralia 425s (one of each side, one blowing behind hte rocks and the other in front). Is this too much flow for them?

[Evansimp]

Originally Posted by Nytelighter

Tank Update: So look like I've had two casualties on the CUC. Two Astrea snails bit the dust and got cleaned up by the hermits. One of them got stuck in between some rocks and met his demise. The other....I think the hermits had it out for him. I won't be getting anymore of those Astrea since I have to spend so much time tipping them back over.

Also I have a question on flow. I woke up this morning and almost sh!t myself when I saw my clowns swimming funny and having a really hard time with the current. As you know I have a 20L with two Hydor Koralia 425s (one of each side, one blowing behind hte rocks and the other in front). Is this too much flow for them?

It's just the clowns! Mine did the same thing for a week and I was freaking out! It's just their behavior at first! Completely normal! It's not the flow. Mine swims around normal now with the same flow as before.

[pairenoid]

very nice, my clownfish is gone now i think my midas made my clownfish uncofmortable andd so my clownfish starved himself to death over a week (

i want another but im not sure

[Nytelighter]

Originally Posted by Evansimp

It's just the clowns! Mine did the same thing for a week and I was freaking out! It's just their behavior at first! Completely normal! It's not the flow. Mine swims around normal now with the same flow as before.

Thanks for the info. Looks like the guys have figured out the flow in the tank because now they jump in and swim against it or jump in and ride it to the other side of the tank. My only beef with them is with my lighting. I have moonlights on the tank but I had been turning them off late at night but when I turned them on in the morning, the clowns would look all disoriented. So I decided to leave them on througout the night.

@ parenoid: Sorry to hear about your clownfish. I hope these guys hangout with me for a while. Still not eating the way I want them too but I have some Kent Garlic Xtreme coming in that should fix that.

[Evansimp]

Clownfish can be weird huh! You know how they look while swimming in the current? Well mine sleeps like he's swimming for his life... But hes staying in one spot... It's really funny

[Nytelighter]

Hey Evansimp, what are you feeding your clowns? These guys are being extremely gun shy on San Francisco Brine Shrimp that I got from the LFS. :-(

[Evansimp]

Originally Posted by Nytelighter

Hey Evansimp, what are you feeding your clowns? These guys are being extremely gun shy on San Francisco Brine Shrimp that I got from the LFS. :-(

I feed him brine shrimp, and another frozen food with a mixture of stuff! Also hikashi pellets everyone once in a while! My clown eats like crazy! He's always hungry!

Tonight I'm thinking about making my own food though! I saw a good thread on it, and want to give it a try! You should check it out also!

[Nytelighter]

Okay.... Can someone tell me if this is green stuff is good green or bad green???

[Nytelighter]

Well I finally found a way to get these guys eating. Selcon and Garlic Extreme was all it too. Now these guys come flying up to the surface when I get near the tank. They are taking Brine, Flakes, and IO Marine Blend.

Had a stocking question though. Will a Six Line Wrasse be compatible with my two Occ Clowns?

[TigerBarbs]

Originally Posted by Nytelighter

Well I finally found a way to get these guys eating. Selcon and Garlic Extreme was all it too. Now these guys come flying up to the surface when I get near the tank. They are taking Brine, Flakes, and IO Marine Blend.

Had a stocking question though. Will a Six Line Wrasse be compatible with my two Occ Clowns?

Be careful with that garlic extreme. I tried garlic guard for a mandarin and got some hair algae. That stuff is pure liquid phosphate

[j_diaz01]

Very nice setup! Beautiful scape.

[Nytelighter]

Originally Posted by TigerBarbs

Be careful with that garlic extreme. I tried garlic guard for a mandarin and got some hair algae. That stuff is pure liquid phosphate

Thanks for the info TigerBarbs, I'll research and see if any others have had that same experience. I'm going to ween them off the garlic extreme in the food adn just put a drop in the tank everynow and then.

@j-diaz: Thanks for the compliment. I'l actually thinging of losing the purple rock adn just putting two smaller ones in that spot. Still debating......

[Nytelighter]

HELP!!!! Spotted what looks like ich on one of my occ clowns. What's the best way to attack this? My goal is to get the ich gone from him plus out of the system. Tank is 20L with 20 lbs of rock and hob filter with chemipure elite.

[aadair22]

Hey!

Tagging along as I have also started a 20L about a month and a half ago! Sorry to hear you might have ich? Can you get a picture of it? There are many threads on here about do a hypo on your tank.. Since you don't have any corals you should be ok to do it, how much CUC do you have left? I know you lost a couple.

Also, just wanted to mention that I saw 2 bumble bee snails in one of your pics. They are not ENTIRELY reef safe.. Most of the time you will be alright but they may munch on some zoos and other polyps. Just thought you might want to know

As far as your PH goes, I don't think mine has ever gone past 7.8 and I've seen a ton of people that had the same problem.. Having a consistent PH is more important than having a perfect PH.

Looking forward to your updates, everything looks awesome!