Victor's 20L Nano Log (pics)

[Don_Gnomio]

hello everyone

where to begin...well, for the past year or so i have been wanting to set up a nano reef in my bedroom, well the time has come! since august, i have been slowly piecing together the equipment to build this tank, and to do everything i was not able to on my 55gallon tank. the plans are simple, and i want to keep sps and a few clams.

the first problem we ran into was that there really was not a lot of space in my room, i had 2 desks that had glass tops and could not hold the weight of a tank. so we cleared out one of the desks and rearranged my room so we can put in a stand. now another problem we had was that we really didn't like many of the stands, and we didn't want to spend too much money or time making one, as the one for my 55gal took a long time, so we went scavenging and found this nice table in my grandparents garage, we cut it to the size that we needed, and reinforced it, and put it in place. after that was done we hung the light fixture and thats it as far as we've gotten.



equipment:
standard 20L tank
closed loop w/ mag5 pump
small hob filter converted to fuge.
150w MH pendant
i think thats it..lol

full view, tank and stand



side



closed loop


full view, side




the chain that is holding up the fixture will be replaced with wire, because we don't like the way it looks and is giving us problems.

this coming weekend i will get the rock, sand and water and the cycle will begin.

any comments and criticism is much appreciated.

thanks for looking,
victor

[cherubfish pair]

Wish I could put a tank in my bedroom.

Don_Gnomio, did you paint the pvc and fittings? Or did you buy them black?

[Snowboarda42]

Awesome! I dig it! Got plans for livestock?

[gigs]

hey Don_Gnomio w00t!
l33t tank mate cant wait to see your progress.

[pbukow]

Good so far, good you show a closer pic of the SCWD. Did you modify it or is it a stock setup

[racksteris]

cool set-up.

[nybyrne]

looks good

[MikePowell]

pbukow- that closedloop idea is from melev's website.

nice looking tank. i would lower the light to about 6 - 8 inches from the water level. looks a little high. other than that sweet tank.

[Don_Gnomio]

cherubfish pair - i painted the pvc with krylon fusion spray paint

Snowboarda42 - im not 100% sure what livestock i want as far as fish go, but i do know that i want the tank to be sps dominated as far as corals go.

gigs - thanks

pbukow - thanks and yes it is stock, ill put up another pic in a moment

racksteris - thanks

nybyrne - thanks

MikePowell - the light is about 9 inches from the tank, i did this for 2 reasons, one because some of the corals im going to put into this tank are from my 55 which only has pc's and two because i was not sure how much of an issue heat was going to be seeing on how i live in miami..lol


which reminds me that yesterday i conducted a little experiment to see how hot the fixture would get and how hot the surrounding area would get and to my surprise it was a lot cooler than i expected which means i might not have to get into a chiller

thanks again to everyone

[chriis716]

nice, can't wait to see this up and running.

[Don_Gnomio]

thanks chriis

[norcal99]

Cool your tanks and plans look good! Sounds to me like you're off to a good start and will be following your progress. The only thing to look out for is that pump. It looks like a MAG so I'd be a bit cautious about running one externally as I've heard they leak, so maybe putting it in a small rubbermaid tupperware box or something just to be on safe side in the event that it does leak. Anyway, good stuff.

[Don_Gnomio]

thanks norcal , it is a mag and thanks for the heads up on the leaking.

well hopefully tomorrow or saturday ill get the rocks and sande and water !! yay

[Don_Gnomio]

so ive been thinking, i relly dont have good luck with fish lol so i dont want anything too expensive, and i want something colorful, and nothing that gets big or is very active, so i was thinking one of the folowing:

- yellow clown gobies
- some sort of hawkfish
- maybe a maroon clown?
- sixline wrasse? not sure how active they are


i know that i dont want the common clownfish, i also dont want anything that sifts sand, i put one of those gobies in my 55 and it went ballistic sifting sand, and i had a huge sandstorm for like 2 weeks till i was able to get it out..lol

any other ideas?

thanks

[jdpierce21]

I love my Purple Firefish. I also like the Royal Grammas. Good luck with your tank!

[pbukow]

6 lines are always moving around, might want to stay away. Would you mind showin a pic of the scwd close up. I just want to see how you connected the tubing to the wavemaker.

[Don_Gnomio]

ill post a pic later because my comp is retarded and isint letting me download any pics right now, but its connected using a piece of flexible tubing and some hose clamps.

[Don_Gnomio]

pbukow- here is the picture you wanted.






well today was the day!

so me and my rents went to the lfs to get the rock, sand etc.

we ended up with 22.5 lbs of lr and 20lbs of ls

i wanted to have a very open aqua scape, so this is what i came up with, im quite happy with it.
everything is still kinda cloudy from the sand, ill take more pics tomorrow when its less cloudy
pics:
FTS:


FTS from angle:


top down:


right side:


left side:




thats all for tonight, as always comments/ criticism is always welcome

thanks for looking,
Victor

[keekalmatter]

hey man
its looking good
as far as fish go i love fish and havent lost many except for the time my salinity skyrocketed then my clown gobies, shrimp goby, and boxfish died but i loved the clown gobies they werent at all shy and would just perch themselves on almost anything, the shrimp goby was pointless and didnt even pair up with my shrimp he just stole his home then died, and the boxfish was adorable and just looked like something to cuddle with lol
but i think pygmy angels are good additions as long as they dont start killing corals :] i have a coral beauty and love it even tho i would have rather had a flame angel but i came home and my dad had put him in there lol
also naked clownfish are adorable and if i had another tank i would get one or two
and as far as hawkfish, flame hawkfish gett really big lol but longnose hawks look nice but ive heard thye can pick at corals sometimes or maybe it was inverts i dont remember but something drew me away from them
and maybe a basslett like a royal graamma or something of that nature :] theyr can be shy but when you feed them they pop out of their home to grab food and its adorable
hope this helps
what kind of inverts are you going to put in

[pbukow]

Thanks for the pics, i am setting a tank up soon with SCWD wavemaker and i wanted to see some ideas. Thanks.

LOVE the aquascaping btw, very natural. Its not just a wall of rocks like most tanks.

[reefman13]

Looking good.

Any plans for stocking?

Protein skimmer?

Carbon/phosphate filtration?

[Don_Gnomio]

kiki - thanks

pbukow - you're welcome for the pics, and thanks

reefman13 - thanks, plans for stocking aren't very apparent at the moment...lol as far as corals i do want sps, fish, not 100% shure yet. i dont have plans for running a protein skimmer right now, my 55 has been skimmerless for 3 years, and does just fine. and for carbon/phosphate, i have a small hob filter which im contemplating whether to rum media such as carbon etc. or to make it into a small refugium


thanks again to everyone

[Don_Gnomio]

ok so i just tested my water to see if the cycle had begun or what not


ammonia- 0. 6
ph- 8.3 ( im not sure exactly what the ph level is supposed to be at)
everything else - 0

now i set up my 55 gallon the same exact way that i set up this tank, and i remember that my cycle was complete in about 3 days, i set it up on the 25th of august and by the 28th i had fish in it

the thing im not sure about is if the same thing could happen again? this morning i added some ls from my tank into this tank and i put some macro and lr rubble from my 55 into this tank also.

[cherubfish pair]

What is your flow turn-over per hour? I know it's recommended to have a lot, however I can't remember recommended range. I think it's over 20x per hour for SPS.

[Don_Gnomio]

in mot even sure, but i think its in the range of like 610 gph