New 20 Long Office Reef Build

[ibanez2k]

I'm so excited for this one, everything is just about ready. I've been gathering equipment and setting this up for about two months now. This whole idea began about 6 months ago. I thought it would be really cool to set up a nano reef at work but at the time I didn't have an office of my own and it just would not have worked out very well. We ended up in luck as our department (IT) ended up relocating to a newer and much better location about a month ago. I now have my own office with some pretty good space for a reef so I got set to build. It's going to be a mixed reef with mostly softies but a few sps and lps thrown into the mix as well. I'm thinking 3 small fish and a cleanup crew consisting mostly of snails. Here's what I've got right now.

Tank: 20 Gallon Long (30x12x12)
Lighting: 135 watts PC - 65 10k/65 actinic
Flow: 2 Hydor Koralia Nano powerheads
Heater: Jager 100 watt
LS: 20 lbs Caribsea Ocean Direct Original
LR: 25 lbs Premium Aquacultured (SeaLifeInc.com)
Salt: Instant Ocean
SG: 1.025
Temp: 78 F

I've had the rock and the sand in the tank for almost 2 weeks. I did a 4 gallon water change last night and things are looking quite nice. The parameters are starting to get more in check as it's starting cycle is winding through. I'll keep watching the tank and I'll post another update when the cycle has completed and it's finally ready for some livestock. Also as part of this project I'll be converting my 10 gallon nano at home into a small frag tank. I'll post about that process as well. Here are some pics of the tank as of tonight:

[Loverotties]

Looking good!I'd buy a skimmer and better lights as a upgrade(some T5HOs).

[Dragonist]

fyi(if you don't know) Instant ocean is a low calcium salt. Think I recall seeing a post from Tom advising that its like 330 calcium per gallon(per mixing instructions). Reason stating that is your doing and calcium demanding corals I would recommend going w/. a higher calcium salt.

[ibanez2k]

Originally Posted by Dragonist

fyi(if you don't know) Instant ocean is a low calcium salt. Think I recall seeing a post from Tom advising that its like 330 calcium per gallon(per mixing instructions). Reason stating that is your doing and calcium demending corals I would recommed going w/. a higher calcium salt.

yeah, I was actually thinking about that when I was testing last night. I've almost finished off this bucket of IO and I'm thinking of picking up a bucket of Coralife to try. I've heard good things about it.

[Dragonist]

are you going to do any lps or sps?...if not you should be ok?

[ibanez2k]

Well, I want to perhaps have a few LPS and SPS so I could use a salt with higher calcium. I have a question on lighting though. Are lower wattage T5s comparable to higher wattage PCs, and how so? I'd like to go with T5s but I'm worried about the wattage to go with as it's hard to buy for a 30" wide tank. Any advice? That's why I went with these PCs in the first place. For what I could afford when I bought them the best option I could find was 130 watts of PC lighting. For about $100 more I could get a T5HO 96 watt light fixture with timers built in but I couldn't justify it. How does wattage compare between PC and T5? I want the best for my money but is 96 watts of T5 actually brighter and better than 130 watts of PC? I really would appreciate some help with this as the whole thing is quite confusing to me. Thanks a bunch!

[ibanez2k]

FYI, if anyone's interested I stumbled across a great comparison of PAR in lighting types over in the ReefBuilders forum. The data compares PC, T5, and MH lighting at a controlled depth and makes an excellent arguement for MH. Just very cool to see put this way. Just wanted to share.

http://www.reefbuilders.com/forums/e...-pc-vs-t5.html

[Dragonist]

great thread imo... thanks for sharing the info. have you tried craigslist for alight fixture?

[ibanez2k]

Yep, I checked around on Craigslist and there unfortunately isn't anything around that fits my tank size right now. Oh well, that's what I get for living in the middle of reefkeeping nowhere. I've gotta turn more people around here on to the hobby. I think more people don't do it because of the fear of it being too difficult or too expensive than out of a lack of interest. It's a MUCH simpler hobby than I thought it would be when I first started researching. Yet it can be made much more expensive and complicated if you take things too fast in the beginning.

[ibanez2k]

Just a quick update. Things have been going pretty good with the cycle. I've got an INSANE amount of copepods in the tank now. Every day there are more and more it seems. Starting to get a little coating of some shallow grass looking algae on parts of the rocks and substrate. I'm leaving my lights on for 5 hours out of the day in attempt to keep some of the cool coralline algaes and other stuff encrusting the rocks, although some of it has faded a bit anyway. I'm kinda sad cause there was a patch of encrusting coral or something on one rock that was a bright hot pink color and shown tremendously under actinics. It is all but faded to just a hard white patch of calcium now. Oh well. I knew I'd lose some stuff in the cycle. Lots of cool looking stuff left at least. This was some of the most amazing looking rock I've seen. My ammonia levels were pretty high during the first couple weeks of the cycle but they are dropping quite a bit now. Nitrites and Nitrates are going a bit crazy though. I need to get in and do another large water change I guess. Things are looking pretty great though, despite the bit of algae. I'll post another pic soon. I've found that I have a 3 inch Curly Cue Anemone that hitchhiked in on one rock and has been hiding in a hole. It comes out regularly during the day now and looks pretty cool. I'm not sure if it will survive the rest of the cycle but I have to say it looks quite cool in the tank for the time being and appears to be quite healthy actually. I'll try to get a good picture of it if I can too. He's tucked himself under a ledge a bit and has been a pain to try and photograph. Don't know if I'll want to keep it in the long run but he's a nice addition for now. Any advice on him perhaps? Thanks guys.

[Dragonist]

grats on nem hh ... from reading office tank build threads I always wanted one on or near my desk

[Dragonist]

also upon looking at your fts Ithink you would like the look of a black background. I have one on my 55g reef it allows the colors of the fish and corals + coralline to stand out imo

[ibanez2k]

Originally Posted by Dragonist

also upon looking at your fts Ithink you would like the look of a black background. I have one on my 55g reef it allows the colors of the fish and corals + coralline to stand out imo

Actually I do like black backgrounds. My 10 gallon that I have currently at home has black paint for the background and it looks quite nice. I just thought I'd try blue for this one and see how I like it, although honestly I may just end up wishing I had gone with black like my 10, Haha. Guess we'll see what happens. I think I like it though. It gives the tank a different feel than the one I have at home.

[Dragonist]

I don't like the blue background...lol makes me think my tank is a lfs tank.

[ibanez2k]

Haha! A very good point. Didn't think of that.