Reef Sanctuary - View Single Post

koffee · 10-31-2007, 02:51 PM

So, by now I had a tank, sump, pump, overflow, coil-tube denitrator, some power heads, heaters, a 24-inch CF fixture with a bad bulb, and other stuff. Most of this stuff was accumulated for free or cheap. Some of it was running the goldfish tank, while the rest was sitting in the closet.

I tore down the tank, and cleaned everything with bleach. Once it was aired out, I thought all I needed was some sand, rock, salt, and eventually the puffer. ("Thought all I needed" - is this one of the common beginner mistakes?) I decided to go with mostly tuffa with just a pound of LR. Since I had some nice coraline on the rock, I also got a 50/50 55W CF bulb for the fixture I had sitting in the closet. Once all of this was in place, I decided that the sump had too-little water. So, I cut it in half, and put the bio-ball chamber on legs inside a 20G long. It could hold the return pump, heater, powerhead to drive the skimmer, and small pump to drive the denitrator. All I had to buy was the tank - all of our 20s were in use.

Here’s the sump redesign.

And here is the tank.

The return feeds through a custom PVC diffuser bar. When the tank had goldfish, the pump returned through a simple U-tube, and I had to throttle it back a lot or it would stir up the gravel. Now I can run the pump wide open.

The LR came with algae and more grew in the tank. So, I added a small clean-up crew consisting of 5 hermit crabs, 3 snails, and 2 mollies. The mollies were FW, so I acclimated them to salt over two days. Each night, when I got off work, I would check to see if everyone was still alive. I really enjoyed watching the crabs climb all over the rock. So, at some point, I decided that I did not want a tank with just one fish no matter how cool it was. (I already had a one-lobster tank.) I gave up on the idea of the puffer, and decided to go for a simple reef instead.

By the way, I know this tank is too small for a puffer over the long term. I will move to a 75G in a year. My only decision is: FOWLR, reef, or hi-tech planted.

Since I was going to shoot for a reef now in this tank, I added a bit more rock. I went form 1 pound all the way up to 4.5 pounds of LR - whee! Note that I also have about 25-30 pounds of tuffa. I also added a second powerhead and a simple wavemaker timer.

Here’s the tank with those additions.

At this point, I also added Reef Complete and a Calcium test kit to my collection of stuff. I already had alkalinity and phosphate test kits from my FW tanks, plus I had a SW master test kit and pH buffer from day-one of this tank.

10-31-2007, 02:51 PM	#2 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) So, by now I had a tank, sump, pump, overflow, coil-tube denitrator, some power heads, heaters, a 24-inch CF fixture with a bad bulb, and other stuff. Most of this stuff was accumulated for free or cheap. Some of it was running the goldfish tank, while the rest was sitting in the closet. I tore down the tank, and cleaned everything with bleach. Once it was aired out, I thought all I needed was some sand, rock, salt, and eventually the puffer. ("Thought all I needed" - is this one of the common beginner mistakes?) I decided to go with mostly tuffa with just a pound of LR. Since I had some nice coraline on the rock, I also got a 50/50 55W CF bulb for the fixture I had sitting in the closet. Once all of this was in place, I decided that the sump had too-little water. So, I cut it in half, and put the bio-ball chamber on legs inside a 20G long. It could hold the return pump, heater, powerhead to drive the skimmer, and small pump to drive the denitrator. All I had to buy was the tank - all of our 20s were in use. Here’s the sump redesign. And here is the tank. The return feeds through a custom PVC diffuser bar. When the tank had goldfish, the pump returned through a simple U-tube, and I had to throttle it back a lot or it would stir up the gravel. Now I can run the pump wide open. The LR came with algae and more grew in the tank. So, I added a small clean-up crew consisting of 5 hermit crabs, 3 snails, and 2 mollies. The mollies were FW, so I acclimated them to salt over two days. Each night, when I got off work, I would check to see if everyone was still alive. I really enjoyed watching the crabs climb all over the rock. So, at some point, I decided that I did not want a tank with just one fish no matter how cool it was. (I already had a one-lobster tank.) I gave up on the idea of the puffer, and decided to go for a simple reef instead. By the way, I know this tank is too small for a puffer over the long term. I will move to a 75G in a year. My only decision is: FOWLR, reef, or hi-tech planted. Since I was going to shoot for a reef now in this tank, I added a bit more rock. I went form 1 pound all the way up to 4.5 pounds of LR - whee! Note that I also have about 25-30 pounds of tuffa. I also added a second powerhead and a simple wavemaker timer. Here’s the tank with those additions. At this point, I also added Reef Complete and a Calcium test kit to my collection of stuff. I already had alkalinity and phosphate test kits from my FW tanks, plus I had a SW master test kit and pH buffer from day-one of this tank.