Our mission

First Tank!

————————

Front tank shot- 2/16/18
af3e88174361921c21f8eff171ef470c.jpg



————————


First off, I'd like to start by introducing my self. My name is Kevin, I am 28 years old and live in Walnut Creek. I've lived in the east bay all my life and work for PGE. I have always had a strong interest in salt water fish tanks and would often go to stores just to view them. My girlfriend gave me the idea to get a fish tank and so I started my studying from there. Two months down the road I decided to start swiping the credit card.

Tank- IM nuvo20
Return Pump- Sicce 1.5
Pump to reactor - Sicce 1.5
Lights- Nanobox Duo plus m
Heater- Eheim Jager TruTemp 75 Watt Fully Submersible UL Approved Heater
Slimmer- Innovative Marine AUQA Gadget Ghost Protein Skimmer - DeskTop
Two little fishies reactor with chaeto (I think)


So, building my first tank and I've never been more excited. After spending countless hours reading and researching on this site and many others I decided to start my tank on 12-15-17. I decided to go with the innovative marine 20 because it is an all in one tank and I figured that would save space.

I started off by building the stand my self out of some shelving I had left over from a kitchen remodel. I than found an extra piece of granite that I cut down to fit the stand and tank. Made the stand heavy but at least I knew it was stable.

3b3c28c38be62f842d4f1aac3e4796ec.jpg


1a7b93e5b1d3fd7ef441f477004c01e8.jpg


Ordered my tank through marine depot and was super excited for when it arrived. I had barely bought the essentials, I mostly just wanted to get water in and moving so I could start the cycling. Must say this tank was well packaged. Because UPS put that to the test. When received the tank at 830 at night I quickly thought I was going to have to return it. But sure enough I opened it up and not a single scratch or crack.

6e164a3ff3a9af604a92ced2711bc275.jpg


The next day I was visiting my family out in Brentwood so stoped by Brentwood Reef Supply. The owner of that store was very helpful, I ended up walking away with lots of information, rocks, sand, and water to get the tank started. Now was the fun part, putting together the aqua scape in such a way I believed a fish would be happy. But this is my first tank. And I knew nothing about pouring the salt water in, so I knocking over rocks and ending up with a cloudy tank. Few hours later it settled down and I was happy be sitting in front of it watching water circle through it with no issues.

8428dfa4f9dedbe5cc700425d6a101f0.jpg


b0d4440aab2700b2eee36409b1c73192.jpg


12ff93ee6585f0e84a81d97096e6fbc2.jpg


I ended up going with the Nanobox duo plus m because I believed it was built for a tank this size. After reading many reviews It seemed like a wonderful product, with iPhone access and bright enough led lights for any kind of coral. But I knew nothing about lights, and still don't [emoji848]. I got it used for half price. So I am still happy about it. My corals seem to be responding well to it. These are the setting it had when I fired it up so I've been running them ever since. I truly have no idea what strength the lights should be running at.

a5419199979441b14e5362aed2ff4e93.jpg


After running many many tests my water parameters are,

Salt - 1.026
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10
Ph - 8.2
Alkalinity - 7.5
Temp - 78.2
Mag - 1380
Cal - 480

My girlfriend says I look like a chemist because I've been sitting in front of the tank mixing chemicals and shaking vials.

I decided to turn the reactor into a DIY algae reactor to grow pods and build up algae to fight nitrates. It's just a simple rope led strip I got from Home Depot, I don't know how much flow or light is required so learned by trial. Seems to be growing so far.

b7a38f0f526695ebc99bdd3a75810d6f.jpg


d072dc15ddebc1082aaac59deb76b364.jpg



Live stock-

Three snails, one disappeared instantly and never saw him again. Another roams around my glass regularly, and the last pops in and out of the sand. He's actually pretty fast.

9bd8d7e6be09f1283623046e672afbdc.jpg


One hammer frag-

49ad223050a61c16351bceffd525d8ef.jpg


One blue mushroom frag -

a26c9d78763a35168af0726fa1cb01ed.jpg


One LPS (I don't know it's name) -

d8a6c2895fd1134e2daf0260984a0d35.jpg


One zoa -

a18b438442d00ad2d4007d02f3454db3.jpg


- Future Plans -

I have no idea what corals I want just yet. I really like the look of chalices, mushrooms, LPS.

Thinking about doing 3-4 fish, so far I've narrowed it down to 1x yellow goby, 1x clown (girlfriend's one rule for getting a fish tank), 1x green chromis, 1x long nose hawkfish. Trying to figure out a final list and which one to get first.

Anyways, thank you guys for spending the time to read about my little fish tank adventures. And I'd also like to take the time to say thank you guys for all the help you have been providing for me. It has been invaluable.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
LPS there almost looks like a Nem. Looks like a great set up. I am out in Dublin so let me know if I can help out with anything - no expert, but quite a lot of experience over the years here. - Dave
 
Nice tank! You sure you don't want to go with two clowns? Part of the fun of having paired clowns is watching the interaction between the two. My clowns almost never separate, they even sleep side by side together at night. Believe me, you're GF will love you (and the hobby) more for it! ;)
 
Without fish, you'll eventually run out of nutrients for coral and cheato. While you're fishless, you should feed lightly once or twice a week to keep nutrients slightly elevated.
 
Nice tank! You sure you don't want to go with two clowns? Part of the fun of having paired clowns is watching the interaction between the two. My clowns almost never separate, they even sleep side by side together at night. Believe me, you're GF will love you (and the hobby) more for it! ;)

Ideally I would like two, but I don't want to over stock the tank and also want to keep some variety. Maybe I'll do two instead of the chromis. That one was that I wasn't sure about.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
On the cabinet wiring, make sure you have a drip loop BELOW the transformer, just incase anything drips down there :)

Thank you. I did not think about that. I also want to get a label maker so I can label all the cords. That way I can unplug exactly the ones I want to unplug.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Without fish, you'll eventually run out of nutrients for coral and cheato. While you're fishless, you should feed lightly once or twice a week to keep nutrients slightly elevated.

That's what I've been doing. Testing out different coral foods every four days. It's fun to see the corals reactions when they get fed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ideally I would like two, but I don't want to over stock the tank and also want to keep some variety. Maybe I'll do two instead of the chromis. That one was that I wasn't sure about.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

With your list of fish, i think you have plenty of room to add an extra clown. Those fishes on your list are fairly small anyway. The trick is adding them to your tank slowly so that your system can keep up. My first add were the pair of clowns, then added a goby after a month, then my anemone after another month, so on... Whatever and how many fish you do decide to get, good luck and enjoy!
 
Looking great and welcome to the hobby/obsession!

I’m in Walnut Creek too and always happy to help out if I can with anything.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
another day of testing done.

Date- 1/5/2018
Salt- 1.026
Tempature- 77.6
Amonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nirate- 10
PH- 8.2
Alkalinity- 9
Mag- 1380
Cal- 410
 
Back
Top