My 20 gallon tank

[sewagner86]

Hello!!

I have a 20 gallon AIO innovative marine tank that I just moved my stuff into. I started with a 5 gallon, then a 10 gallon. My friend got me the tank for Christmas and I just got it set up (everything moved from my cycled 10 gallon plus more rock and sand) and running. I am waiting until this tank cycles completely to add any fish but I have some (2-3) hermit crabs, a cerith snail, a turbo snail, and 2 nassarius snails currently. I have a nicrew light over it and it follows whatever the controller had preset. There is a protein skimmer and a reactor, both of which are not running at the moment due to not have enough outlets available, but I will be fixing that today.

My dreams for this tank are a few corals, a watchman goby, a pistol shrimp, and maybe 1 or 2 other fish.

Any pointers or information would be accepted. I last kept fish (goldfish) when I lived with my parents and my mom helped with them.

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

Hello!!

I have a 20 gallon AIO innovative marine tank that I just moved my stuff into. I started with a 5 gallon, then a 10 gallon. My friend got me the tank for Christmas and I just got it set up (everything moved from my cycled 10 gallon plus more rock and sand) and running. I am waiting until this tank cycles completely to add any fish but I have some (2-3) hermit crabs, a cerith snail, a turbo snail, and 2 nassarius snails currently. I have a nicrew light over it and it follows whatever the controller had preset. There is a protein skimmer and a reactor, both of which are not running at the moment due to not have enough outlets available, but I will be fixing that today.

My dreams for this tank are a few corals, a watchman goby, a pistol shrimp, and maybe 1 or 2 other fish.

Any pointers or information would be accepted. I last kept fish (goldfish) when I lived with my parents and my mom helped with them.

how many pounds of rock you got in there?

 

[sewagner86]

how many pounds of rock you got in there?

I don't know exact weight, but probably 10-15 lbs

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

I don't know exact weight, but probably 10-15 lbs

it honestly looks like you could add some more if you want to give the fish more places to hide

 

[unclejed]

Hello!!

I have a 20 gallon AIO innovative marine tank that I just moved my stuff into. I started with a 5 gallon, then a 10 gallon. My friend got me the tank for Christmas and I just got it set up (everything moved from my cycled 10 gallon plus more rock and sand) and running. I am waiting until this tank cycles completely to add any fish but I have some (2-3) hermit crabs, a cerith snail, a turbo snail, and 2 nassarius snails currently. I have a nicrew light over it and it follows whatever the controller had preset. There is a protein skimmer and a reactor, both of which are not running at the moment due to not have enough outlets available, but I will be fixing that today.

My dreams for this tank are a few corals, a watchman goby, a pistol shrimp, and maybe 1 or 2 other fish.

Any pointers or information would be accepted. I last kept fish (goldfish) when I lived with my parents and my mom helped with them.

Buy a power strip with breaker. Add more rock and construct arches and ledges. Do you just have "Blue" lighting? If so, add full spectrum lighting.

 

[Daz_1978]

Nice! You're off to a good start.
The amount of rock you put in there depends on what you like! If you love it the way it is, then you have enough rock. If you want it floor to ceiling with corals one day, then add more. You can always change it later, either way. More caves and cliffs will provide hiding spots for fish, but you aren't going to have many fish anyways... and hopefully you'll go for the more peaceful fish. You can literally have fish in a tank with no rock and SpongeBob decorations if you wanted. (Yes, I have a little version of the Krusty Krab decoration I had in the QT tank. My wife liked it, so I got it.)
If you look at a lot of frag tanks, they're mostly bare bottom with no live rock... plastic light fixture grate to hold the plugs... and a fish to keep the algae eaten. Those fish and corals have no rocks or sand... Only plastic grate to elevate their height. It does limit the amount of fish very much though, because the sand and rock provide more surface area for bacteria to grow on.

I don't know which Nicrew you have... 50W, 100W, or 150W. Gen 1 or 2? Does it have one, two, or three circles of LEDs? The 50W has one, the 100W has two, and the 150W has three.

I have a 100W Gen 1 over a 36 gallon (about 22" deep without sand). I use it as a frag tank for soft corals & LPS corals. If your tank is similar depth, you could probably start out with almost the same schedule.

I currently have the lights set up on a schedule using that controller. If memory serves me right, I run a 10 hour schedule. The blues are on for all 10 hours and the whites are on for the center 6 hours. Simulates the dawn/dusk... plus I just like the blues a lot better than whites. (If you have the Gen 2 Nicrew lights and controller, then you'll have 5 channels of light to control. The Gen 1 only has 2 channels.)

10:30am: 0% on both White & Blue
- At this time: The Blues come on and begins the 4 hour ramp to 70%. The whites are still off.

12:30pm: 0% White - 35% Blue
- At this time: The Whites come on and start the 2 hour ramp to 10%. The Blues hit 35% or mid-way to 70%.

2:30pm: 10% White - 70% Blue
- At this time: Whites and Blues have reached the max that I have them set for, until 4:30pm.

4:30pm: 10% White - 70% Blue
- At this time: Whites and Blues both start the ramp down process. Simply the ramp up in reverse.

6:30pm: 0% White - 35% Blue
- At this time: The Whites turn off, and the Blues are half way through the ramp down.

8:30pm: Back to 0% on both White & Blue
- At this time: Both White & Blue go off.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hello!!

I have a 20 gallon AIO innovative marine tank that I just moved my stuff into. I started with a 5 gallon, then a 10 gallon. My friend got me the tank for Christmas and I just got it set up (everything moved from my cycled 10 gallon plus more rock and sand) and running. I am waiting until this tank cycles completely to add any fish but I have some (2-3) hermit crabs, a cerith snail, a turbo snail, and 2 nassarius snails currently. I have a nicrew light over it and it follows whatever the controller had preset. There is a protein skimmer and a reactor, both of which are not running at the moment due to not have enough outlets available, but I will be fixing that today.

My dreams for this tank are a few corals, a watchman goby, a pistol shrimp, and maybe 1 or 2 other fish.

Any pointers or information would be accepted. I last kept fish (goldfish) when I lived with my parents and my mom helped with them.

You could add more rock in there if you wanted, but that is up to you! You are off to a good start!

 

[sewagner86]

Nice! You're off to a good start.
The amount of rock you put in there depends on what you like! If you love it the way it is, then you have enough rock. If you want it floor to ceiling with corals one day, then add more. You can always change it later, either way. More caves and cliffs will provide hiding spots for fish, but you aren't going to have many fish anyways... and hopefully you'll go for the more peaceful fish. You can literally have fish in a tank with no rock and SpongeBob decorations if you wanted. (Yes, I have a little version of the Krusty Krab decoration I had in the QT tank. My wife liked it, so I got it.)
If you look at a lot of frag tanks, they're mostly bare bottom with no live rock... plastic light fixture grate to hold the plugs... and a fish to keep the algae eaten. Those fish and corals have no rocks or sand... Only plastic grate to elevate their height. It does limit the amount of fish very much though, because the sand and rock provide more surface area for bacteria to grow on.

I don't know which Nicrew you have... 50W, 100W, or 150W. Gen 1 or 2? Does it have one, two, or three circles of LEDs? The 50W has one, the 100W has two, and the 150W has three.

I have a 100W Gen 1 over a 36 gallon (about 22" deep without sand). I use it as a frag tank for soft corals & LPS corals. If your tank is similar depth, you could probably start out with almost the same schedule.

I currently have the lights set up on a schedule using that controller. If memory serves me right, I run a 10 hour schedule. The blues are on for all 10 hours and the whites are on for the center 6 hours. Simulates the dawn/dusk... plus I just like the blues a lot better than whites. (If you have the Gen 2 Nicrew lights and controller, then you'll have 5 channels of light to control. The Gen 1 only has 2 channels.)

10:30am: 0% on both White & Blue
- At this time: The Blues come on and begins the 4 hour ramp to 70%. The whites are still off.

12:30pm: 0% White - 35% Blue
- At this time: The Whites come on and start the 2 hour ramp to 10%. The Blues hit 35% or mid-way to 70%.

2:30pm: 10% White - 70% Blue
- At this time: Whites and Blues have reached the max that I have them set for, until 4:30pm.

4:30pm: 10% White - 70% Blue
- At this time: Whites and Blues both start the ramp down process. Simply the ramp up in reverse.

6:30pm: 0% White - 35% Blue
- At this time: The Whites turn off, and the Blues are half way through the ramp down.

8:30pm: Back to 0% on both White & Blue
- At this time: Both White & Blue go off.

It's a nicrew gen 2 100w light with a controller. The tank is about 12.5 inches deep if I didn't have sand in it. I have the light about 8-9 inches over the tank. I don't really have any more clearance for higher. I was playing with the controller and am very lost hahahahaha

 

[Daz_1978]

Yeah, Nicrew felt like they had to offer control of 5 different channels of light like the other companies. Pretty much a waste of engineering, if you ask me.

I would start with a setting like this... see attachment.
I don't like the red or green channels, as they seem to 'muddy' up the tank color. So I wouldn't use them. I like blues with a little white. You can adjust to how you like. The blues are pretty important for coral color. The blues make the corals glow.
That's just something to get you started, while you learn more.

Without a light meter of some sort, you'll be locked into the trial and error method of getting them spot on. Throw a coral in the bottom of the tank and see how it does. Move it up a hair in a month, see how it does. Etc... There is a cheap iPhone app that does a decent job of telling you the PAR level... It's called photone. I wouldn't swear by it, but it's better than nothing.

It's mostly personal preference as far as which color scheme you like. If it weren't for the fish in my tank, I wouldn't run anything but blue/violet. The fish colors look more natural with some white added in though.