Back After Long Break

Well after about 4-5 years another boy and a different house I'm ready to get back into this hobby. It's been about 6 years since set up a new tank and I've decided I'm going to set up a 20L with plans to grow out to a larger tank within a couple of years. I decided on a 20L to cut down on inital costs on rebuying equipment I've still got some stuff from my last 55gal tank but having to get alot of it over so have been shopping around for alot of used stuff, Man amazing how technology has changed in just those few years espically with lighting LED's. Please look this over and give me suggestions for what I'm needing to get things going right and give me suggestions.

Tank-20gallon Aqueon

Stand-already got found 1 on craigs list $20.00

6-Bulb T5 fixture with ledmoonlights going to hang on conduit arms I build-found a used 1 for $50.00 might end up having to change bulbs.

Sand-Still have 3 bags of southdown left from previous tanks never used.

Heater 50 watt Ebo-found new one $18.00

2 Nano Hydor Korilla 425 powerheads- found to gently used $35.00 shipped

Aquaclear 70, Going to put a intank mediatray in and run some purgien and chem-pure elite in and maybe some cheato.

Going to put about 20lbs of dry rock in it then about 5-10lbs premium live rock in to keep out pests if possible.

optional items to get:

Timers- to put lighting on a set schedule so don't have to be chained to tank

ATO- same as above to make it more enjoyable and not have to be chained to tank

Been planning this for a while just wanted to make sure son was old enough he could enjoy the tank some also Planning for this to have a light load of fish (either a single or pair of clowns, and maybe 1 more YWG or something like that) and the rest will be corals, alot of zoa's, softies, shrooms, and maybe a few of the hard corals after tank has established more.

 

Try LED instead of T5 could end up saving money from that what with replacing bulbs.
Perhaps 2 boostled Par30s?

 

List looks solid, welcome back to the addiction.

 

Thanks guys, The whole LED is new to me don't really understand setting them up and how to incorperate the bulbs into the tanks without having spotlighting, maybe that will be an upgrade will do once tank is up and running. It's amazing how much has changed since 06-07 even the types of corals people are keeping has changed alot.

 

There are LED in strips and banks as well as the PAR style bulbs.

 

The PAR bulbs do get spread, and 2 would be fine. Let's do some calculation shall we? $50.00 for a fixture. An average T5 for a 24" is about 10$ X6 Total, 110$. Now, another $60 in 6 months, total 170$
2 PAR30 bulbs, 140$. Now LEDs do have a lifespan, but its 50,000hrs with only 30% loss in lumen output. But thats a lot a T5.

 

I'm having a problem understanding how you would put these over the tank what kind of fixture would you use to put them in I have actually looked at them but was figuring I'd need 3 over a 20 long and can't figure out how to hang them unless you used something along the lines of brooding lamps for raising chicks or something.

 

When I got out of reefing Powercompacts were very popular and now see that they ended up not producing nearly the quality lighting everyone was hoping they would produce.

 

Pretty much that is it without the reflector though.

 

Any regular socket fixture without a shroud would work. Ikea makes some, there are also some on BoostLED