Essential items to have a successful 20g nano tank?

[jaganshi066]

I don’t agree with anyone who says no protein skimmer for smaller tanks. Is it 100% essential? No it isn’t. But it’s going to keep the water cleaner and reduce the need for more frequent water changes. It makes life easier. There are a lot of nano skimmers though that are junk and the good ones are expensive.

I don’t have a skimmer on any of my tanks, but my parameters are always good and water always clear. I do think skimmers could help though if you don’t want to do water changes every week

 

[elorablue]

If you over skim your tank and get dinos, youre doing it wrong and don’t know how to keep a reef tank.

Wow you're awesome! Go get yourself a cool and refreshing beverage and calm down.

 

[elorablue]

To the op. I have the same tank so you can take or leave my advice and what I do.
The only things I added to the tank were a tunze ATO, replaced the stock return pump with a sicce 1.0 , I have 2 Nero 3 powerhead (but only because I have mostly Acropora, 1 is sufficient) , added 6 or 7 biospheres or whatever they're called, to the middle compartment, run a small mesh bag of carbon in the middle, heater and heater controller. I have no skimmer and no refugium.

I do a 15%water change every Saturday (takes 20 minutes total) and I manually dose 2 part and phytoplankton.

My nitrates are always between 15-20, my phosphate is 0.05 ish and all other Parameters are dead stable.

If you want all the "toys" then go for it, but in my experience they aren't necessary and keeping it simple has helped my success greatly I believe. Good luck and have fun!

 

[Tamberav]

My comment it to say just take it slow. Start with what you need... skimmers are fairly pricy and sometimes not useful, maybe detrimental. Sometimes people jump into this hobby with a nano and add everything... thinking more is better. Chemi pure blue, purigen, floss, biomedia, fuge, and a skimmer. You don't always need or even want all that on a nano but every tank will be different. You can overfilter so keep an eye out.

All you have to do is look at the health of your inhabitants and maybe some testing and your tank will tell you what it needs.

You don't need a doser day 1.

An ATO is something I always like... it's very quality of life.

You will find some people don't use ATO or doser or many things at all. Sometimes the reason is point of failure. Equipment sometimes fails and they trust their own hands better. This is ofc time consuming and more difficult to go on vacation!

Regardless, every tank is unique. Find what works best for your tank. You can always add as you go.

 

[Falreef]

Aquaclear 110 and a coralife protein skimmer filter. This works great on a 20 long or 40 Breeder. Add in Jebao SLW10s and a Jebao gyre on the 40 long. You can then do anything you want with that tank.