Graham's 20L reef (college budget)

[gboduszek]

So I've been a member of AA for about a year now and finally decided I would start a thread for my 20L reef to get some input and also to inspire others who might want to start a reef on a college budget. I set the tank up my sophomore year at college when I moved into a house off campus and it is now a little over 2 years old. The adventure has been absolutely WILD to say the least (as you can imagine with moving and living with several other buddies). The things I've gone through with it and things that have happened to it I'm sure makes me just about the only person who would have stayed with it to this point. If anyone is interested to hear more of be glad to share but for now here is a little background on the setup:

For equipment I am using 2 hydro 425 gph powerheads a hang-on-back remora-s skimmer since there is no sump and a marineland canister filter which is stripped of all packaged media and replaced with chemipure elite and purigen. I also do 20% WC's each week. The light is just simple 120 watt blue/white LEDs from eBay.

For inverts/coral there is a few mixed hermits, ~10 mixed snails, strawberry crab, a skunk cleaner shrimp, and a red harlequin serpent star. Corals are some green hairy shrooms, ricordea shroom, pagoda cup, pink and purple zoas (don't know name), meteor shower cyphastrea (I think), frogspawn (rescued & slowly coming back), green montipora digi, red monti digi, red monti cap, purple monti cap, and then some frags I just got of maroon monti undata (I think it's spelled), acans, and golden eye & stunner chalices.

And for fish I have a red firefish, purple firefish, cherub angel, mccoskers wrasse, and a spotted mandarin. Ive had the mandarin a little over a year and trained him onto Frozen mysis myself. Not sure he even knows he's a mandarin as he likes to swim in the water column and eats just as voraciously as the others do. I know I will hear it for the wrasse and angel but I just got them a few months ago only b/c I worked a deal for them at $15 bucks each. Now that I've moved into my own apartment away from campus for senior year I am going to move it all into a 40B as soon as the next $1/gal sale happens. The 2 fish were on my list to get for the 40 and I only got them because of the price and the guy I got them from told me if I had issues he would take them back. Both are ~1" and to this point neither has paid any mind to the other or the other fish in the tank.

Recently I just got a jebao wp10 to replace the 2 hydors and when I tried it out I ended up removing it after 10 mins since it really seemed to tick off my corals and polyp extension receded. Is this too much flow with the wp10 (and canister I guess which is used for surface agitation) or should I give it another shot and hope the corals just needed to acclimate to it?

Also I've always struggled with bubble algae and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions to get rid of it? I've tried emerald crabs with no luck and also about 6 months ago took out each rock during a wc that had some and scrubbed it off in the old saltwater and then rinsed each which did the job initially but slowly the bubble algae made a comeback.

Any suggestions/opinions I'd love to hear. I'll do my best to keep things updated but for now here's a FTS..
Cheers everyone



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[gboduszek]

Couple other pics I have on hand also..





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[Jamesonfamily]

Looks good!!



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[cushadow]

Hard to imagine this was on a college budget! Good job finding deals.


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[gboduszek]

Haha ya its been a work in progress for 2 years and running now. I've definitely had to choose between "living the college life" on weekends and making a purchase for the tank on many occasions.

As far as the tank goes, I gave the jebao wp10 another try and all worked out. Guess I just needed to mess with the settings some more.. I would really like to use the "else" mode though. Does anyone think that might be a little too much for just a 20L?

Also I am going to trade in my rocks with the mushrooms on them. They just grow way too fast for my small tank. When I get the replacement rocks, should I cure them in a bucket before putting them in or do you guys think putting them right in would be ok?


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[Sniperhank]

If it is kept fully submerged in transit, cured rock would be just fine being added directly to the tank.

[gboduszek]

So a few updates. Grabbed an Acro frag that looks to be reddish in color, a purple/green hammer, and a blue stylo frag the other day. I'll post some pics a little later today.

I need to get some more salt in the next couple days and was just curious on what people think about IO reef crystals? I currently use Kent and I know it's essentially almost the same but was wondering if anybody has used both and liked one better. Thinking of changing it up and trying out the IO this time around


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[Sniperhank]

Salt is salt. Each will have their own deal, be it higher alk, calcium,...whatever. It ends up being what you like. I like kent besides the issues I always have with alk.

[gboduszek]

Blue stylo


Unknown Acro slowly extending polyps


Purple tip hammer I got as a freebie


Mandarin cruzin' in the water column after feeding

Now I just need to get rid of those "nuisance" green hairy shrooms..


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[gboduszek]

So finally found a guy who will trade some rock and credit for my hairy shrooms. Can't wait to get rid of them as they're bugging the hell outta my pagoda cup & multiplying at an astronomical rate.

On an unrelated note I am eagerly awaiting the jump to the 40 (might not wait for the sale and just buy one since I work at the LFS and get some discount). I am going to go with pure sand since I hate the mix w/ a little crushed coral I use now. Also I'm planning on going with a thicker layer from what I have now which is only about 1 cm.

First question I have is can I put the sand in first and then the rock or overtime will rock structure shift/ collapse from the sand moving under the pressure from the rock?

Next question is should I go with live or just dry sand? I only ask this b/c I'll be transferring over everything from a tank that's obviously already cycled. Would live sand have traces of ammonia in it from just sitting in the sealed bag it comes in? Or would the live sand do the opposite, helping to keep the tank cycled?
I would like to just use dry sand as it would be the cheaper route but if the live sand would help prevent a mini cycle or atleast minimize it, then that's the route I'll take.

I've become a pro at moving the tank from house to house having done it about 5x lol but moving everything from one tank and into another is new to me.


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[gboduszek]

Originally Posted by cushadow

Hard to imagine this was on a college budget! Good job finding deals.


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I already had the tank and stand sitting around at home and was lucky to find a guy on Craigslist taking down his tank who sold me live rock at $2/lb
Forgot to mention I work at a LFS too. Haha the discount has definitely helped along the way.




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[gboduszek]

So little update. Should have the 40B within the next few weeks or so. Can't wait for it.

On another note my skunk cleaner shrimp went MIA on me. Not quite sure what happened to him. He's about 2 years old and was full grown and healthy as could be one day and the next was nowhere to be found. I know something probably eventually made a meal of the body but I'm stumped as to what killed him in the first place. Everything in the tank is doing just fine. Is it Possible my red harlequin serpent star may have gotten him during the night as it's about a foot in diameter now?


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[gboduszek]

Nice pearl/green bubble coral I got the other day. Just lettin it sit in the sand until I get the 40 going. Should be soon. Got everything I need. Just waiting for the funds to get the tank and stand now


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[gboduszek]

So I took back the wrasse a few days ago as I haven't really had the time to set up the 40 yet and it was obvious he needed some more room to swim.

What do you guys think about adding a female target mandarin? Would mine most likely pair up with it? And since mine is already eating frozen could getting another that's not trained yet revert mine back to eating only pods?


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[cgthebeast]

Really nice tank, I can't speak for the target though. Never had them.

[gboduszek]

So little update. Nothing really new in the tank. I will be honest and say there was a bout a 5 week period I did not do a water change on the tank and as it did show with some algae growth, the exact opposite of expected occurred with corals. My frogspawn, hammer, and bubble I have never seen extend/inflate so much and on the hammer I even noticed about 6-8 new heads staring to grow. Everything else was pretty normal including the monti's which I would think would show some sort of irritation. Anyway things are back on track now but I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this before?

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[54seaweed]

I've had times when my fox coral , torches , hammers , ect didn't extend much a lot of it had to do with water quality , I had high nitrates and phosphates corals react to these kind of things ,
lighting is another thing that effects coral to much light or to little light , water flow is another common factor it can be to strong or just not enough ,
It took me forever to dial in my lighting , getting the flow just right ect ,
I'm now on a set maintenance schedule that seems to help too

would Love to see a nice full tank view as seeing picts of just the coral just don't give that full effect , if you know what I mean , would love to see your progress get the full wow factor as no 2 tanks are the same

mandarins are one of the hardest fish in the hobby to keep alive , I had a pair for about 4 years lost 1 the other past a short time after, average cost each year to keep them fed was around $1200. to buy pods , as most tanks can't produce pods fast enough they can eat around 1800 pods a day along with what ever all the other fish snack on , I had to start raising pods it got so expensive , a lot of people try to train them to eat frozen foods along with pellets but it's not 100% guaranteed they will take to it , even trained mandarins can fall off the wagon of eating frozen and pellets , the success rate of keeping a mandarin is aprox 25% that's not really to promising ,
I had good luck once but that don't mean if I tried again my results would be the same , yes I love mandarins I would love to have another pair , but do I want to take that risk again no ,
this is the pair I had they are missed dearly as they had such personality.

[gboduszek]

Originally Posted by 54seaweed

I've had times when my fox coral , torches , hammers , ect didn't extend much a lot of it had to do with water quality , I had high nitrates and phosphates corals react to these kind of things ,
lighting is another thing that effects coral to much light or to little light , water flow is another common factor it can be to strong or just not enough ,
It took me forever to dial in my lighting , getting the flow just right ect ,
I'm now on a set maintenance schedule that seems to help too

would Love to see a nice full tank view as seeing picts of just the coral just don't give that full effect , if you know what I mean , would love to see your progress get the full wow factor as no 2 tanks are the same

mandarins are one of the hardest fish in the hobby to keep alive , I had a pair for about 4 years lost 1 the other past a short time after, average cost each year to keep them fed was around $1200. to buy pods , as most tanks can't produce pods fast enough they can eat around 1800 pods a day along with what ever all the other fish snack on , I had to start raising pods it got so expensive , a lot of people try to train them to eat frozen foods along with pellets but it's not 100% guaranteed they will take to it , even trained mandarins can fall off the wagon of eating frozen and pellets , the success rate of keeping a mandarin is aprox 25% that's not really to promising ,
I had good luck once but that don't mean if I tried again my results would be the same , yes I love mandarins I would love to have another pair , but do I want to take that risk again no ,
this is the pair I had they are missed dearly as they had such personality.

All parameters were in check. Light has been the same and adequate as I just use what most do with the 120w white/blue pendant as well as flow using a jebao wp10. Phosphates basically undetectable and same for nitrates. I'm sure all and calcium were low from not doing the WC in so long but I don't know for sure cuz I didn't test for them. It was just weird to see. I'll get a pic here in a bit for everyone to see.

Sorry to hear about the mandarins you had. 4 years is better than most can say. Theyre such awesome fish. I only bought mine because i saw she was eating live brine in the LFS. she's been doing well for a couple years now eating frozen mysis. Definitely my favorite fish as I trained her onto frozen myself. Pretty sure she's forgotten she's even a mandarin as she loves swimming in the current and chasing food with the other fish. Hopefully it keeps going well. Adding a male was just a thought but I will probably stick to just one since I don't want to potentially mess with the success I've had with her.

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[gboduszek]

So here's a FTS. Please excuse the algae and the rubble on the right. It's just rock I've thrown in to do a rescape. Got rid of my hairy green shrooms so I needed so new rock. Once I have a day to do the major rearrange I want to do I'll get another pic up. there are several corals on the sand bed you can't really see as I don't want to attach them until I have my new scape finalized

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[gboduszek]

The euphilias and bubble

7"red Monti cap that's gotta be fragged soon as it's starting to grow on/over the green digi

Stunner chalice and blue stylo

Meteor shower cyphastrea and some pink zoas

There's some others sprinkled throughout I'll get pics of in the coming days


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