fishymommy's 20g reef

[fishymommy]

So, since I'm really excited about starting my first reef and I love posting on here, I figured I would start my own journal. Like the title says, I'm building a 20g Long mini reef for both fish and peaceful corals. So far, I have 20-25 lbs of live rock, a 1-1.5in sandbed, BakPak 60g reef ready skimmer, and Sundial T5HO 10,000k/actinic/lunar Current USA light. I'm already stocked with fish, which probably wasn't the best for a beginner but I didn't know better. I have two different types of clown fish, both with three white stripes but one whose middle stripe doesn't meet in the middle, my male named Bennie. The other has a solid white stripe going all the way down (top to bottom). She's my female, Cora. I also have a cleaner shrimp named Kratos, God of MOAR, and peppermint shrimp named Athena. No name for my emerald mithrax crab (except for crabbie haha) yet. My CUC consists of 6ish blue legged hermies, 2 semi-dumb margarita snails (they fall off things a lot and haven't moved for a while...), two other aestria snails (tall points shells about an inch tall and wide.. any ideas?), and one nessarius snail. I need a couple more nessarius snails and that should be good I think.

Any tips so far? Any idea what the names of the two different types of clowns are? What could my pointy snail be? Any ideas why my margarita snails are sorta stupid?? haha

Thanks for listening,

I'll try to post pics soon.

Fishymommy

[Harls]

Souds good fishymommy, good luck!

[fishymommy]

Thanks! I hope it goes well

[fishymommy]

So, as promised, here are a couple pictures. These were taken about a week after I got everything setup and running. Now its about 5 weeks old but I haven't gotten any new pictures yet. A full tank shot and a pic of my two clowns checking out their reflections.

[rich311k]

Very nice tank!

[fishymommy]

yay! Thank you! I was just trying to research what specific types of clownfish my two are.. Does this sound right? Could the larger one with the solid stripes be an Ocellaris clownfish and the smaller with the 'broken' stripe be a Misbar Ocellaris clownfish?

[Sharon]

That tank is stunning!!!

[fishymommy]

Wow, thank you :o) I must be doing something right haha

[fishymommy]

Just an update. I finished building up my clean up crew and now have:

2 astraea snails
4 nassarius snails
cleaner shrimp
peppermint shrimp

I also bought 6 blue legged hermies but.. I'm not sure how many are left after their civil wars so I think only one or two are left.

Other than that, my algae and cyano is starting to let up some. Also, I got a phosphate reactor so now phosphates are down to 0.

I've been having trouble keeping my pH stable. It took a divebomb a few days ago from 8.8 to 7.9 but now its back up to 8.8. What is a good product for raising my buffer capacity?

[AABatteries]

Nature, is a good way to keep the pH stable. Just let the tank stablize its NSW(natural sea water) levels by itself. Once that happens, it SHOULD keep a steady pH. If not, you will probably have to dose kalkwasser to keep it up.

As for the hermits, they'll fight for the shells, usually for that reason. I've had my scarlet kill 1 other scarlet, 2 blue legs, and an astrea for the shells. He's finally found a shell he likes. So, I haven't had any more fight related deaths lately. It you throw in some empty shells, that will reduce the chance of them fighting each other.