[Rp Marine]

got a 20 gallon tall. was looking around walmart and saw a t.v stand and it give me an idea to make it my tank stand.

i asimble the t.v stand and leave out some part and put my tank in with sand


Now i added my rocks and some water

fill it with water

This is how i wanted to look.

but this is how it look with light fixture that was on my old 30 gallon. 20 watt actic and 20 watt daylight. but waiting for my 4x74 watt Vho kit to come in

this is my picture at night.

this is what i got in my tank. 40 lb of LR. 2 inch of dry sand with some sand from my 30 gallon. a maxi jet 1200 that i'm goin to remove because it create to much heat. whar would your recommand? 40watt lighting which i'm goin to upgrade to 445 watt i think. and a HOB aquaClear 500 which i'm goin to convert into a fuge. any recommandation?
so what your think about my setup. good and bad? tell me the truth and what would your change about my set up. thank you for the response

[Reefer769]

Nice


i gotta hand it to you, i wish i did something special to my 30gal. all i did was build a custom stand out of some 2x4's and put the tank right on that, i also only have 18lbs of LR, so i will probably get more in the future.
i got some pics for you, tell me what you think:

[Rp Marine]

yea i was looking at your setup too and looking very nice. i got ride of my 30 gallon just because i saw the tv stand and thought of my 20 gallon hahahah.

[Reefer769]

haha thats cool, did you use the same rock/water/sand from your 30?

[Rp Marine]

i did use the same rock and got finner sand put took some of my sand in the 30 gallon on top of the dry sand. yes all the water came from the 30 gallon so my tank will cycle in no time. your rock don't look like any algea is growing. or could it be the picture? because when i look for live rock i want alot of color. lucky my friend give me 20 lb of rock. YEA. It got some mushroom on it and loving the light. the light is getto lucking. but i'm ordering a vho kit from hellolights.com for 149. 300 watt. 4x75 watt bulb. this was chep so i'm goin to get it. have you got lighting from your tank?

[Reefer769]

yea i posted another thread about my rock, ive seen picture of fiji and mine doesnt look like those pictures. i can see purple and green spots on some places, but definetly not like the pics ive seen, do you think its just bad rock?or will stuff start appearing sooner or later?, and i still have the 15w fourescent light fixture the tank came with, but im planning on getting a 150W HQI PFO mini pendant from marine depot soon, because im planning on keep some SPS coral.

[Rp Marine]

i'm goint to use Kent Marine Kalkwasser Mix to letthe purple and green algaes grow. i heard that this work. when i got my rock i make sure there is a lot of purple and green algae because it look nicer. but i fo have some with no algea so i use it as a base rock

[Reefer769]

thats cool, i need to look into that kent marine stuff, maybe ill give that a try and see what happens, thanks for the advice! ill ttyl rpmarine

[Reefland]

Don't spend the money on the Kent Marine Kalk, or any other marine brand name kalkwasser. Look at your local grocer for Mrs. Ball's Pickling Lime, which is EXACTLY the same thing for a fraction of the cost. Do a search for pickling lime, Poseidon has posted in a few threads recently on exactly where to look in the grocery for it.

Scott Z.

[Poseidon]

a maxi jet 1200 that i'm goin to remove because it create to much heat. whar would your recommand?

I never thought a powerhead got really THAT warm, are you sure it is the pump? If it is getting HOT enough to warm the water something must be wrong with it.

Other then that the tank looks good. I know what you mean about lighting looking Ghetto, mine does too. BUT mine is on the other side of the wall!!!! (lucky me)

A far as Kalkwasser goes, Scott is EXACTLY right. There are 2 brands, Mrs. Wages and Ball. I bought the Ball stuff, just cause it came in a resealable type can, instead on a paper bag. It cost's like a 1.79 for 16 ounces, Kent Kalk is MUCH MICH more, like $9.99 for 8 ounces. You have to be VERY VERY careful when you use Kalk though, cause too much will crash your tank in no time. It is very HIGH in pH when you make the solution so it has to be added over the course of HOURS, not all at once. Otherwise your pH will go from 8.3 to 10 in a blink of an EYE, especially with the small volume you 2 have. That's the biggest reason of wht bigger is better, cause changes happen more slowly.

[Rp Marine]

i'm looking at my tank and notice air bubble under my LR. is this ok. and i leave it alone?

[Reefer769]

yea they should be okay, ive had airbubbles on my live rock too, they will eventually just float up to the top, but if they dont then your critters or fish will definetly do it.

[Rp Marine]

i just tested the water and all signs are good 0's on my test. But i will wait for a month before i even decided what fish i should put in it. right now there are 3 damsel in if from my 30 gallon where i transer it to my 20 gallon when i set it up.
i was wondering if my sand is Carib-Sea Reef Sand- 30 Lbs but its not the sugar size i think just a little bit larger. do your think this is ok?

[Rp Marine]

First of all i like th thank Reefland for letting us use this great web site to post our question. and thank for all the people who answer my question.

i really can't take picture in my tank the quilty is not all tat great i got a fuji A303 and i just don't know how to use it. its 3.2 mmega pixels. but taking picture on the out side is fine.

here is my kalkwasser diy drip system. hahahahah. this is goin to be a very slow dripper about i drop in every 6 sec because this is only a 20 gal tank

now its on my AC500 HOB

here my geto lights waiting for my VHO to come in. this is a walmart fixture 40 watt.

this is my lights on

[Rp Marine]

delete

[Poseidon]

I don't know about the Moon light... After doing some research, I think the hole "moonlight" idea is just WRONG! The amount of light that actually reaches the reef even at FULL MOON in nature is so dark we could barely make out shapes, since our eyes are not perticularly good at seeing in the dark. Granted the animals that live on the reef may be able to see or "feel" the light, but it is so dim that to try and duplicate it in our tanks is POINTLESS. I think someone somewhere thought up the moon light idea and decided they could market it and make MONEY!!! I don't think it is of ANY benefit to the tank inhabitants I actually think it does more harm then good...

Just my .02!!

[Rp Marine]

thank you for the great input.

[Rp Marine]

aquamedic 250 de. it have a hood. would it be a bad ideal to put glow-in-the-dark stars under the hood so that when the lights go out the stars will light up the tank for a few minute and slowly fad? a single star is pretty bright so have a few of them will light the tank up for a while. so whould this be a bad idea?

[Poseidon]

Hmm sounds interesting, the glow would only last for 90 minutes tops and the amount of light would be pretty low. Try it and see if it works.

[Reefland]

Originally Posted by Rp Marine

aquamedic 250 de. it have a hood. would it be a bad ideal to put glow-in-the-dark stars under the hood so that when the lights go out the stars will light up the tank for a few minute and slowly fad? a single star is pretty bright so have a few of them will light the tank up for a while. so whould this be a bad idea?

It wouldn't be a bad idea but there wouldn't be any benefit to it at all.