High Tide Aquatics

tribbitt's 20L Nano Build

It's been a month since I pulled out all my montis, and I've been doing my best to fill in the gaps they've left. I'm definitely missing the vibrant pops of warm color, especially on the SPS side where there's not as much orange as I'd like. But the tank still looks alright, I've got some warm-colored acros to fill in the space, and I just need them to color up and grow.

Side view: one photo straight on the reef, and one photo pointing at the inside of the front glass to get the reflection for a different angle

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Nice growth on the Hawkins Echinata. Only really took off at the 8 month mark, so this is 5-6 months of growth

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I just got a sudden burst of growth tips on the first Acro I ever got, which had been encrusting for the entire year I've had it. It's the one that I got 3 months in, and fragged up to save from RTN. Nice little highlights of yellow on the rims of the corallites. It's usually fuzzier too, but turning off the flow irritated it

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Sunkist bounces look alien when they're eating. I should film a time lapse!

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I figured out that my phone was making the whole tank look cloudy/blurry because the exposure was too high. But manually tweaking the exposure is hard, so please bear with me as I figure it out lol

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tribbitt said:
It's been a month since I pulled out all my montis, and I've been doing my best to fill in the gaps they've left. I'm definitely missing the vibrant pops of warm color, especially on the SPS side where there's not as much orange as I'd like. But the tank still looks alright, I've got some warm-colored acros to fill in the space, and I just need them to color up and grow.

Side view: one photo straight on the reef, and one photo pointing at the inside of the front glass to get the reflection for a different angle

View attachment 64910View attachment 64911



Nice growth on the Hawkins Echinata. Only really took off at the 8 month mark, so this is 5-6 months of growth

View attachment 64912




I just got a sudden burst of growth tips on the first Acro I ever got, which had been encrusting for the entire year I've had it. It's the one that I got 3 months in, and fragged up to save from RTN. Nice little highlights of yellow on the rims of the corallites. It's usually fuzzier too, but turning off the flow irritated it

View attachment 64913View attachment 64914



Sunkist bounces look alien when they're eating. I should film a time lapse!

View attachment 64916


I figured out that my phone was making the whole tank look cloudy/blurry because the exposure was too high. But manually tweaking the exposure is hard, so please bear with me as I figure it out lol

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Click to expand...
Looking good! What are those zoas you have on discs on the bottom left sandbed?
 
tribbitt said:
Last four months have been crazy, went from reef-tankless and sad, to tankful (?) and broke lol

Setup:
Custom-designed stand, built from 2x4s w/ wall tether (overbuilt for earthquakes)
Petco Aqueon 20 gallon long tank
Aquaclear 70 HOB filter
Caribsea Arag-alive special grade sand (20lb)
Dry rock
Aqamai LRs50 Kessil A360N light

I'm lucky enough that I was gifted a light: the Hydor Aqamai LRs50. It's a 50w LED light, almost AI style with the little compact circle of LEDs. I also tossed some media into my LFS's sump a couple weeks beforehand, and was allowed to collect cycled media on tank startup.

The tank being set up next to my freshwater system:

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I then spend two hours scaping the tank. It'll turn out later that I scaped badly: while I did add a lot of surface area, in certain areas there wasn't enough clearance to the glass, and some entire "surface area" was very steep: i'll have to rotate some rocks to better the scape later.

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Filling the tank (this took all day because I had no RO reservoir: I had to ferry the water back and forth one gallon at a time, in a milk jug

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It cleared up a little the next day, and I played with the lights a little.

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First inhabitants after cycling: 3 hermit crabs (2 pictured here)

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First uglies! I was genuinely excited about this stage, as I had read about this extensively. I would very quickly grow tired of the algae haha

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Shortly after, I got four corals within a week: First, an unhappy (no flesh band) green tip hammer, and later a small zoa colony, and a green and plain leather. The green leather, unfortunately, died. It just started to collect algae, and eventually started to fall apart. I removed it when it started to mush. The plain leather is on the right side, behind the rock.


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very cool! I like the DIY stands !
 
tribbitt said:
It's been a month since I pulled out all my montis, and I've been doing my best to fill in the gaps they've left. I'm definitely missing the vibrant pops of warm color, especially on the SPS side where there's not as much orange as I'd like. But the tank still looks alright, I've got some warm-colored acros to fill in the space, and I just need them to color up and grow.

Side view: one photo straight on the reef, and one photo pointing at the inside of the front glass to get the reflection for a different angle

View attachment 64910View attachment 64911



Nice growth on the Hawkins Echinata. Only really took off at the 8 month mark, so this is 5-6 months of growth

View attachment 64912




I just got a sudden burst of growth tips on the first Acro I ever got, which had been encrusting for the entire year I've had it. It's the one that I got 3 months in, and fragged up to save from RTN. Nice little highlights of yellow on the rims of the corallites. It's usually fuzzier too, but turning off the flow irritated it

View attachment 64913View attachment 64914



Sunkist bounces look alien when they're eating. I should film a time lapse!

View attachment 64916


I figured out that my phone was making the whole tank look cloudy/blurry because the exposure was too high. But manually tweaking the exposure is hard, so please bear with me as I figure it out lol

View attachment 64917View attachment 64918
Click to expand...
On first read I didn't go all the way down to this newest photo and wow that tank filled up!
 
My corals started growing faster, and my alk dipped. I then increased the dose. But somehow, after I increased the dose, alk PLUMMETED! Well, as it turns out, when I adjusted the dose, I also did a little cable managing. And during that process, I tugged the dosing line out of the dosing container!

Alk is 5. I was about to do a water change but now a little unsure whether I should: it's high dkH salt, somewhere around 12, and it's a 20% water change. that's a jump from 5 -> 6.4 instantly.

On the topic of dosing, I had some questions:
My current setup is baking soda and calcium chloride, and I put it in old plastic milk jugs.

1) Is there a more potent supplement I can use instead of these that is still cheap? It seems like I have to refill the container very often and it's a little bit of a mess every time.
2) How often should I be calibrating my dosing pump?
3) How do I clean the dosing lines?
 
An alk of 5 that slowly dropped is less scary than an alk of 5 that suddenly overnight due to an issue. You should be fine just dosing manually daily in addition to your normal dosing rate, increasing like 0.5-1dKh daily.

AFR would be the simplest but isn't cheap (however your size tank you shouldn't worry too much about additive cost). Sodium carbonate is a stronger base than bicarb, but it's falling out of favor due to pH swings. What you're doing is working so don't change it.

When I ran a tank like yours in college I just used kalk on a gravity fed Kent dripping doser and heavy water changes.

I'd probably only calibrate after cleaning the tubing. Can soak the tubing in vinegar or citric acid, the pharmed tubing is pretty resistant.
 
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