Wednesday, January 14, 2015

My Piece of the Ocean: An Overview of My 20-Gallon Nano-Reef.

I have mentioned my coral reef tank on this blog before, however, I have never given an overview of what I have and how the whole tank is run. First off, I have a 20-gallon tall (24"L x 12"W x 16"H) aquarium with a black rim. The equipment is listed below.
Filters: 2 Aqua-Tech 5-15 filters with phosphate removing filter pads and carbon
Heater: Tetra 10-20
Lights: Odyssea 4x24 watt (96 watt total for those who don't want to do math!) T5HO lights with a DIY retrofitted moonlight LED (Tetra GloFish LED). Bulbs are all WavePoint brand (1 actinic "Super Blue460", 2 10,000K "Sun Wave", 1 purple "Reef Wave")
Protein Skimmer: Lee's Counter Current Medium skimmer run with an Aqua-Tech 40-60 air pump and limewood air stone (run from outside due to pH being low if run inside).
Powerheads: 2 Koralia Nano 425's
Corals: green mushrooms, blue mushrooms, kenya trees, clove polyps, zoas, acan, blasto.
Inverts: 6-7 blue legged hermit crabs, brittlestars, asterina stars.
Fish: Royal Gramma
Food: Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef (frozen), Brightwell Aquatics Zooplanktos-M, Kent Marine CromaPlex (very rarely used), Omega One Super Color Flakes.
Water Changes: ~2-gallons every week. I usually use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals or Aqua-Vitro Salinity salt mix with distilled water.
Parameters: Calcium 450-460ppm, Alkalinity 7-8dKH, pH 8.1-8.3, Nitrate 5-10ppm (most often around 6ppm), salinity/specific gravity 1.024-1.025
Here are a few pictures of some of the corals.

No comments:

Post a Comment