Getting back into salt (20 long)

Hello everyone!
its been well oner a year since ive posted here, but ive recently gotten the bug to get back into salt.

So my plans are to set-up a small nano-reef in my bedroom, a 20 gallon long tank with a 10 gallon sump.

from my last set-up, i have a octopus110 in-sump skimmer, and 2 little giant, 500 gph pumps that im going to put to use one as return, one as closed loop.

this is going to be a fun, low-cost build that I plan to stock with a pair of misbar true percula's and an anemone for them, along with a bunch or corals and maybe a goby or other small fish(suggestions welcome)

oh i forgot to mention, lighting will be a single 150W HQI diy pendant, with some LED moonlights

im open to suggestions and help, and will be posting my progess here as i make it (dont expect anything to speedy, i dont have much money to work with)

I wont!
I'm using dead rock from the old tank(boiled and cleaned)
but I plan to cycle with a raw shrimp...or buy a couple lbs of live rock

since you are doing only a 20g long I would suggest instead of the whole shrimp thing to just get some live sand 1-2 peices of live rock, and see if someone is generous enough to give you 10-15g of water out of their tank from a water change, leave the lights on for 24 hours straight and you will be good to go in no time.  Rather than the shrimp cycling idea anyways, this might be easier to get your levels not only down, but stable.

Oh, my actual only point of this whole post was to give you a suggestion to build a jaw fish condo, that and you should get a pearly headed jawfish, they are awesome.

Edited by Ahanix - April 08 2010 at 4:58pm

Well, people have found out that you can take PVC and actually make them a burrow, that way they feel safe, you dont get sand blown all over your tank, plus its kind of a fun project.

They seem like they are pretty hardy fish, every one that I have seen had fed like any other, will usually swim a little bit from their burrow to grab food (but most people suggest feeding near the pvc condo so they stay put)  and there are some orders that are placed around here where the jawfish run around $20 for the Pearly and $60 for the Blue Spot

If you make it down to salt lake fish4u consistently has jawfish.

makin the first home depot run today, hoping for water by 4 this afternoon!

I'm just curious about your circulation plans.  I'm not at all an expert so help me understand... isn't 1000 gph (from your return + closed loop) a whole heck of a lot of flow for 20 gallons?  Maybe it's not and it would be great for sps or something.

hey, is there a source of bulkheads in cache valley?