Is a 20 long a good choice?

pshootr · 01-30-2007, 04:46 AM

I am in the prelimenary planning stages for a reef tank. I have kept fresh/salt fish tanks in the past and have a fair amount of experiance regarding such tanks, however I am new to the reefkeeping scene. I have done a fair amount of reserch though. $$$ is an issue. So I am hopeing to use a tank I already have (20 long-30x12x12) I would like to be able to keep all types of corals. Would also like to be able to use one of the flouresent options for lighting, mainly because of cost, and heat produced by MH. Would probably construct a overflow, and a sump with rubbermaid or a ten gallon tank, to add water volume as well as provide out of sight placement for a heater and such.
I guess my question is how many people think these options are suitable for this size tank? Or would this size tank be suitable for these options?
If so, and you had my tank what kind of equiptment would you choose? Keeping $$$ in mind ofcourse. Thanks

inwall75 · 01-30-2007, 05:08 AM

Stay with softies due to lighting issues and you're good as gold. If you've ever used copper in this tank before, make sure you scrub down the glass real good....preferably with muriatic acid.

Pisces23 · 01-30-2007, 06:04 AM

I'm sure the 20 long would be just fine for your first reef. I have a 20 high myself and my PC lights are taking care of my soft corals just fine. The more shallow 20L would do even better, I'd imagine.
What kind of skimmer are you planning on getting?

pshootr · 01-30-2007, 12:51 PM

Hey guys,thanks for the feedback. One of my concerns comes from the fact that a friend with adaquite experiance in reef tanks advised not going under 40 gallons for the pupose of maintenance. It was said that he had a 30 gal reef tank at one time and spent nearly an hour per day on that tank. On the other hand I read an artical by an apparrently very succesfull reef tank owner/administrator who lists his 20 gallon reef as being not much different than some larger tanks would be. Partly, I assume because he made an auto tank topper-offer. Here is the link to this artical.

Tank of the Month - July 2002 - Reefkeeping Online Magazine

I would like to replicate his set-up as close as possible. My tank is 20L long his is 20H, I do not see this as to be of too much concern. Another difference is that he has MH and I wish to use florecent (preferably T5) As I understand so far, because of this I should stick with softies. Is this a clear fact. Has anyone here had luck with hard corals under good florecents? Note that his setup is skimmerless. Due to $$$ as well as whitness to his success, I would like to go skimmerless.

Thanks

inwall75 · 01-30-2007, 01:02 PM

1 hour per day???? Wow. Get your tank set up and then keep your hands out as much as possible.

Nice tank for a nano. I liked his setup but I would DEFINATELY not run a felt filterbag for 8 weeks. YIKES A couple days at the most.

Another reason you should stick with softies is because you are going skimmerless. While SPS can be done in skimmerless systems, it's much harder.

pshootr · 01-30-2007, 01:35 PM

Thanks for your input Kurt. Do you think this means I may be able to keep SPS useing good florescent lights, as long as I run a skimmer? Or for that matter, do you think I could do without the skimmer if I used MH instead of T5? I'm pretty certain that his tank has SPS. I know it has clams. Sorry Kurt, I'm a little confused. Gotta luv newbies eh LOL

Matt Rogers · 01-30-2007, 01:42 PM

My last tank was a 20 long for the last couple of years.

20 longs are nice shallow tanks that are easy to light and don't cost a fortune to stock. However...

It was the hardest aquarium I ever had. I found that if I didn't stay on top of supplements and buffers - even with weekly 5 gallon water changes - the alkalinity wanted to reside around 2 - 2.5, not in the 4's where I wanted it. The pH liked being in the high 7's and would not go to 8's unless I buffered with marine buffer.

Some contributors to this may have been my RO water which is low pH, the fact that I had a big calcium reactor on such a small tank and the X-factor was my DIY rock.

That said, it easily handled softies.. but I had to go for glory and throw a bunch of acros in there. The monipora digitatas did well most of the time, but the really hard stuff was difficult. As soon as I slacked a bit running around with friends or went on a business trip, the acros would decline.

On top of that, I overstocked fish like a madman after a year of good discipline, a series of stupid decisions led to a doubling of the fish, which doubled the food, etc..

So there is not too much margin of error with these tanks. Mine even had a 10 gallon sump and a Tunze top-off. Definitely UNDERSTOCK and stick with the hardy stuff and you can have a really nice tank like I did for a while.

Anyway, hope this helps.. Good luck!

matt

inwall75 · 01-30-2007, 02:29 PM

Number one...I would rely on Matt's comments more than mine because he's actually kept a 20g tank and I haven't.

With that said....with SPS corals, most want extremely clean water that is fed regularly. People read that SPS live in oligotrophic conditions (free of nutrients) so they try to starve their tank. That doesn't really work. What you need to do is just what you do at home. Eat regularly and throw away the scraps. (You don't throw them under the kitchen table to rot). This is harder to do with smaller tanks because the easiest way to remove scraps is a combination of flow and a protein skimmer. Like I said, it can be done...it's just easier on larger tanks.

Most of his tank was a combination of softies (who actually like nutrients in the water) and LPS (most of which tolerate higher nutrients as well). He had a few SPS. He had a green slimer acro and some monti's. As far as SPS go, I think I could throw them in my toilet bowl with some table salt and leave the bathroom light on for half of the day and they would survive. However, I seriously doubt that blue stag is still alive in that system.

Here's my recommendation....don't worry about SPS right now. Learn how to keep your chemistry balanced and practice with easier to keep animals like mushrooms, zoanthids, etc. for a while.

With SPS, cleaner water=less lighting requirements to keep coloration. With my 200g SPS prop tank, 3/4's of it was lit with regular old PC lighting. Only at the very end was a MH light (which I don't recommend on a 20g system because of heat issues). I grew frags faster in that thing than you can believe by using the "Feed and then clean-up" system I described above.

inwall75 · 01-30-2007, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt Rogers

Some contributors to this may have been my RO water which is low pH, the fact that I had a big calcium reactor on such a small tank and the X-factor was my DIY rock.

I doubt it was the RO water or rock. I suspect the Calcium reactor.

Quote:

On top of that, I overstocked fish like a madman after a year of good discipline, a series of stupid decisions led to a doubling of the fish, which doubled the food, etc..

You also doubled the respiration of CO2 which drives down pH. I don't know if you had a protein skimmer or not but they don't help keep pH higher by shoving Oxygen into the water....what they do is off-gas or de-gas the CO2.[/quote]

pshootr · 01-30-2007, 02:46 PM

Wow, thanks alot Matt for sharing that experiance. It really tells me alot. Because of my buget I currently have not much choice other than useing this 20g tank. As it is, I need lighting, pumps ect. So I will have to accept the responsibilty of keeping up with the ph, and alkalinity often. Although, I have a well here, and such well water usually has a decent ph level. I wonder if this may make it easier to maintain proper ph if used for the topp-off's.BTW what type of lighting did you use in your 20L set-up?