Newbie needs some love - venturalvn-cc's 20 long

Hey guys, new to the forum and pretty happy to have found a local club!  Thanks to shrum1340 turning me on to this forum, I've already lined up a decent buy from Aaron from Socalcorals within two days of hearing about it!

Anyways here's my current tank, would love to hear any comments or feedback from you guys.  I'm always lookin to clean things up, add new stuff, fix what's broken, etc.  Most recent pic on top.

June 20, 2013



June 4, 2013




May 3, 2013




April 3, 2013


Tank is only 4 months old, and comes as a rebuild after crashing my mini 10 gallon after moving into my new place.  So far everything I have in are frags, but hoping to get some good growth towards full colony by same time next year.

Equipment
20 Gallon Long - 30x12x13
LEDtric Full Spectrum Par38
LEDtric Full Spectrum Plus Par38
Hydor Koralia 425
Hydor Koralia 250
Aquaclear 30 w/ charcoal, sponge

Stock
Sebae Clownfish
Six Line Wrasse
Cleaner Shrimp
Hermit Crabs
Snails

Coral
Zoas
-Bam Bam Orange
-Vivid Rainbow
-Blues (ID?)
-Armor of God
-Fire and Ice
-Radioactive Green
-Candy Apple Red
-Stargazers
-Purple PE(?)
Green Hammer
Ultra Green Hammer
Acro
-Blue/Purple
-Ultra Green
Acan

Welcome. The tank looks great! Very clean rockscaping..not much much of it...which is key in a small tank as water volume is always a challenge.  I have a 28 Gallon JBJ Nano that has been running for 5 months and joined this forum a couple months ago or so. 

I'm running all LEDs and loaded up with new SPS frags. By the way, I'm now realizing nano tanks loaded with stony corals rapidly use up available calcium and alkalinity.  I used to be able to maintain my numbers with weekly water changes, now I'm having to top off with Kalkwasser and routinely adding sodium bicarbonate and Calcium Chloride.  This is just an FYI that may help you as your tank grows and flourishes.

Welcome to the club!  Hope to see you at the next meeting!

Hey thanks guys! I would love to start getting involved with MASVC.

Unfortunately my pictures make the scape look so flat, but there's a ton of caves/swim throughs/nooks & crannies/etc to keep the fish busy and explorative.

ericpkeith wrote:By the way, I'm now realizing nano tanks loaded with stony corals rapidly use up available calcium and alkalinity.  I used to be able to maintain my numbers with weekly water changes, now I'm having to top off with Kalkwasser and routinely adding sodium bicarbonate and Calcium Chloride.  This is just an FYI that may help you as your tank grows and flourishes.

Yes I'm finding this out over the past few months. I see some amazing growth on acros on some forums and it blows my mind. Over the past couple months I've noticed no growth on my first acro. There's been a little, but it's been microscopic. I have some calc/alk part A+B, but I've been gun shy when messing with the tank after experiencing a total loss in my 10 gallon after moving late last year.

SPS = stability promotes success

A good rule of thumb is only dose what you are testing.

Btw, are you testing for Calcium and Alkalinity?

I have the tests but I'm not currently testing for either since I don't dose. I'm assuming they're both pretty low at the moment. It's just been so stress free the past few months not having to worry about it haha

Tank is looking good!

Thanks for the comments guys!  Here's a quick shot of a FEW of things I picked up from Aaron at socalcorals the other day.  Green hornet, halloween milli, and joe the coral:

Great looking frags!!