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OK, so it is time to start a thread for the newest tank in my line up. For any newcomers that don't know my tank history, I started out my saltwater venture with a 10 gallon tank. I ran that for about a year before I was devastated by two week long power outages that ended up killing everything in the tank. So instead of trying to start over and go through the battles I had gone through already in the 10 gal I decided to upgrade, so I've been running a 40B tank for about a year now and I'm in the process of upgrading to a 240 gallon DT w/ 75 gal sump and 40B refugium. That tank will be coming on-line soon, but in the meantime I have decided I'm going to do a 20 gallon saltwater tank at work. I had a 10 gallon planted freshwater tank on my desk at work for the past year, but one of my co-workers decided to bring his 20 gallon freshwater tank in right behind me, so I decided we didn't need two freshwater tanks sitting there in our little group of cubes, so I sold the 10 gal planted tank and will be taking the new 20 gallon saltwater tank to work tomorrow. I feel like now that I have a couple years of experience under my belt I'll be more successful with a nano tank to take to work (the key difference between how this tank will be set up and how the old tank was set up is that I'll have an ATO on this one. I'm going to take my JBJ ATO to work, and I bought the components I need to create a DIY breakout box and ATO using my apex for my home tank.
The tank has been set up since 12/16, I haven't really watched it cycle, but I had moved a piece of good live rock over from my 40B and saw there was a hermit that moved in with it, so I don't think it will cause a cycle since I'm using good established rock that shouldn't have any die off, but it will still be a few weeks before I put anything in the tank. I did test for ammonia and nitrite today and both were not detectable, so I'm starting to toss more food in it to see if I start creating ammonia or not or if the existing rock was good enough to cycle it. I moved a second piece of rock over today, and will probably move a couple more small pieces of live rock over to it before I take it to work, then I'll end up buying dry rock to finish off the aquascape once I get it situated at work.
I'm running a DSB (40lbs of sand in a 20 gal tank, made for about a 3" DSB) with the intention of doing very few water changes once it is up and running (and the water changes will mostly be for replenishing fresh salt ingredients). I have a small skimmer that came with my 240 gal tank that I might be able to clean up and find a pump for eventually, but for now it is going to run with no skimmer. For the lights I am going to attempt to use spiral CFL bulbs in an old style incandescent light hood, this gives me a full cover so I won't have any jumpers, and I believe based on research I had done setting up my planted tank and now a couple of years under my belt playing around with corals that if I get the right size CFL bulbs I will be able to keep softies / LPS without a problem (but only time will tell, this is partially an experiment to see if it can be done... if not I'll upgrade to T5HO or LED)
Here is an initial picture of the tank today. I don't have it completely full because I would just have to drain it again to move it to work so I didn't fill it up. I am about to order the hood for it and will add more rock once I have it at work.
The tank has been set up since 12/16, I haven't really watched it cycle, but I had moved a piece of good live rock over from my 40B and saw there was a hermit that moved in with it, so I don't think it will cause a cycle since I'm using good established rock that shouldn't have any die off, but it will still be a few weeks before I put anything in the tank. I did test for ammonia and nitrite today and both were not detectable, so I'm starting to toss more food in it to see if I start creating ammonia or not or if the existing rock was good enough to cycle it. I moved a second piece of rock over today, and will probably move a couple more small pieces of live rock over to it before I take it to work, then I'll end up buying dry rock to finish off the aquascape once I get it situated at work.
I'm running a DSB (40lbs of sand in a 20 gal tank, made for about a 3" DSB) with the intention of doing very few water changes once it is up and running (and the water changes will mostly be for replenishing fresh salt ingredients). I have a small skimmer that came with my 240 gal tank that I might be able to clean up and find a pump for eventually, but for now it is going to run with no skimmer. For the lights I am going to attempt to use spiral CFL bulbs in an old style incandescent light hood, this gives me a full cover so I won't have any jumpers, and I believe based on research I had done setting up my planted tank and now a couple of years under my belt playing around with corals that if I get the right size CFL bulbs I will be able to keep softies / LPS without a problem (but only time will tell, this is partially an experiment to see if it can be done... if not I'll upgrade to T5HO or LED)
Here is an initial picture of the tank today. I don't have it completely full because I would just have to drain it again to move it to work so I didn't fill it up. I am about to order the hood for it and will add more rock once I have it at work.
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