My 20g Setup

yes the lfs was open today! I got another ocellaris clown and three snails, one nassarius and two astreas...

New fish! The one on the left is new
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Nassarius snail...sorry kind of hard to see my camera sucks This snail is actually really cool
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Astreas...
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GARF: www.garf.org
IPSF: http://www.ipsf.com/

I started my 29 gallon with the start-up from IPSF. I started my daughter's 14 gallon with the GARF start-up. For IPSF send them an email and they will reccomend what they think your tank needs. For GARF, call Leroy and tell him what you've got and he will tell you what you need. Now, that being said, these are expensive ways to enhance the bio-diversity of your tank. Both the guy at IPSF and Leroy are way nice and seem very educated. They will answer any questions you may have. If I were to do it again, I would absolutely spend a lot of time building my sand community and janitor crew but there are lots of ways to do it without spending so much. GARF explains a lot but you've really got to dig around his sight to get the information. I believe I managed to side-step a few problems by working on diversification but honestly, I don't really know that for a fact. Also, remember, I've only been up and running since November, I don't know what I'm talking about, just making a suggestion that you might not have considered.

Your tank looks awesome!

Catherine
 
Alright I've made some additions to my setup. I now have a 10g sump running that I'm going to turn into a refugium as well. I'm using an Eshoppe 800 overflow box to drain my display and a maxi-jet 1200 is more that enough for a return and is actually added quite a bit of flow to my display.

My tank is currently stocked with 2 clowns, 2 shrimp, a crab, and 5 snails.

I've got some more test kits, calcium supplements, refugium mineral mud, a u-tube return, and a new protein skimmer on the way so after I get all of this it's time to buy some little soft corals. I think I'm gonna get some mushrooms and zoanthids. Hopefully should be an easy start.

I decided to go with the coralife needle wheel skimmer so hopefully it will work out in my sump.

Here is a full tank shot...
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The new sump up and running...
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My new overflow box working hard, no bubbles at all in the u-tube yet...
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Wright and Wallace, My Peppermint Shrimp...
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Bumble Bee Snail, I also have 2 Astrea, 2 Nassarius, and hopefully getting a turbo snail tomorrow...
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Carter and Eugenia, My clowns look happier and more lively everyday! Can't wait until they're older I hope they form a strong pair!
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As you can tell I have a pretty bad problem with hair algae, it has stopped growing it seems like it's actually starting to die off so I'm really hoping when I add macro algae in the sump it will help and I've started to manually remove as much as I can but it's actually harder to get out than I thought...hopefully it will all be gone soon cause other than that my water looks super clear and everything has been pretty solid for over a month now.78F, 0 ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and 8.3-8.4 ph
 
I dont think I would leave it there, under the stand would be ok but not up high like that. If if were to fall into the sump it would be doomsday for sure!
 
Alright It's been a long while since I've updated any info on here and some things have changed...I've finally added some corals to my tank and attached some pics. I've also upgraded my protein skimmer to a coralife skimmer and it's working great. Refugium is also doing good with some macro-algae and mineral mud.

Downside, I've lost a couple snails and a peppermint shrimp but still have the two clowns, 1 nassarius snail, 2 astrea snails, 1 peppermint shrimp and the emerald crab.

I've also been battling some pretty bad hair algae and some other green algae (I'm guessing cyano?) but it's a lot better than it was and seems to all be dying out now.

Full Tank Shot
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Refugium/sump with new skimmer
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zoanthids, kinda dull, only colorful with just the actinics on, had for about a month or so
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Xenias, just added last night
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Green Star Polyps?, Just added them last night as well, love them
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They are bright green and besides them the purple encrusted rock they're on is the brightest thing in my tank. Definitely a better choice than the zoos I started with.
 
nice additions!! :) are you thinking of going into a reef with this tank? I have a 20g reef with 2 small clowns in it :) its pretty neat to get into the nano reefs...
 
Yeah thats exactly what I want to do...This is my first tank so I've started kind of slow and been putting it together piece by piece. It's also hard because I'm two hours away from any good lfs so I rarely have the chance to buy any new corals. Hopefully I can add some more soon I don't know how I'll do with them though we'll see
 
i know exactly how that is!! we are 1-2 hrs away from anywhere decent... but its usually worth it... once you get into corals you won't be able to start... ive become addicted LOL
 
Well I did a bit of an upgrade! Still have a 20 gallon but I got a 20 gallon long and love it, complete with a canopy and I mounted my pc's into it and built the stand myself. It was quite the move but here are some pics!

FTS
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My Clown I've had now for about a year, my green star polyps are the fastest growing coral and dominate the right side of my tank, and the xenia seem to do ok too.
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Here is my Frogspawn in the front that I wish would grow a lot faster I think they are so cool when they're big it's grown a little but slowly, These rocks are also starting to get some good coraline on them.
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Finally, the left side is where my return and powerhead are, I finally found a cool blue mushroom that has 4 good size polyps but I have been having a lot of trouble with the zoanthids, they all seem to be dying slowly
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Tank looks really nice. If you are having trouble with zoahs look for nubibranches (sp) I found some eating mine yesterday:frustrat: did a freshwater dip and they look so much better today. Gonna try something drastic tomorrow but thats another story.
 

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