Erec's tank builds (mangroves, inverts, macros, oh my!)

[Eric R.]

[Edit: as of 12/10/22]

I'm currently teaching 10th grade high school biology as a long-term substitute. I have 6 aquariums in my classroom, 3 salt, 3 fresh. The SW tanks are a 13.5g fluval mixed reef, a 10g macro tank that's doubling as a QT invert and an attempt to breed the lettuce sea slug, Elysia crispata, and a 4g AIO that has a mantis shrimp I received on some live rock from KP Aquatics. I also have a 5g bucket with 2 year old mangroves growing in FW. I love interesting invertebrates, and find they make excellent additions to my classroom.

At my girlfriend's house, I recently purchased a used Red Sea Reefer 250 (plus equipment). We are going to repaint the stand as well as the hydronic baseboard heaters next to the tank and set it up as a seahorse/macro/softie tank.

Below you'll find many posts with various ideas for tank builds as they've evolved over the last couple years, and some stacks of the many used parts I've acquired. I'll continue to document all of the tanks as they evolve.

My original plan was to do a lagoon tank with mangroves. I'd still like to do it at some point.

Here are a bunch of tanks (and 1 pond) that I'm using for inspiration:

Brad908's 40 gallon shallow coastal mangrove and macro algae biotope - November 2016 Featured Reef Aquarium

Congratulations to community member brad908 and his 40 gallon reef aquarium for being selected for our November Reef Profile! This all natural nano reef aqua...

www.nano-reef.com

East1's 17 gallon mangrove sculpture nano reef - March 2016 Featured Reef Aquarium

Congratulations to community member East1 and his 17 gallon reef aquarium for being selected for our March Reef Profile! Hailing from the UK, East1's nano re...

www.nano-reef.com

Wawawang's 40 gallon shallow coral reef with open air plants - June 2015 Featured Reef Aquarium

Congratulations to community member Wawawang and his 40 gallon nano reef aquarium for being selected for our June Reef Profile! Below is the aquarium profile...

www.nano-reef.com

REEF OF THE MONTH - May 2022: Inland Reef's Amazing Coastal Lagoon

R2R Username: @inland_reef Build Thread: Inland Reef's Coastal Lagoon Introduction: Hello all! First off, I want to thank Reef2Reef for picking my reef tank as May’s Reef of the Month! I have been following along the Reef of the Month...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[reef lover]

#WelcometoR2R !
Look forward to the build!

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Welcome, sounds cool. Love the smell of new in the box equipment. Keeps posting

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to R2R!!! I have always been fascinated by Mangrove tanks - good luck!

 

[flyline]

Welcome

 

[saan1wu4]

I LOVE planted marine tanks and brad908's mangrove lagoon is one of my all time favourites! I can't wait to see yours come together!

 

[Eric R.]

Thanks for all of the kind welcomes! Can't wait to get going on this build and post some more updates. This week is the last week of classes in my graduate program, so I've been busy finishing assignments. Next week is finals and finishing grading, then visiting family out of the state for a week. So the tank will probably get fully rolling after that. There's a LFS that specialized in reef tanks about 30 minutes from here that I haven't been to yet either (opposite direction of travel from where I normally go, so I don't make it out there often!), and I plan to go visit after the holidays.

This week, I purchased some used equipment, so the plan has been (slightly) upgraded.

I'll be adding an Apex Jr., Aquaclear 70 HOB refugium (with Intank Media basket!), and a Mame skimmer.

I'm also look at getting an ATO, currently my top choices are either a Tunze 3155, or the SpectraPure UPLC-II, especially if I can get it used. Any thoughts on ATO choice? I know that these both seem to be commonly for larger tanks, but I didn't like that the Tunze 3152 seemed to have less favorable reviews, and the other nano tank ATOs seemed to be lower quality. Hopefully running one of these on such a small tank without a sump won't be an issue.

Question: if you were doing this build, what would you use the Apex Jr. for (other than temp control)? Trying to figure out what modules to look into, it only comes with a temp probe and no display (I'll do all the programming from my computer, so not worried about that, it was a good deal). Also figuring I'll add a ph probe to help as a back-up for the ATO.

Will post some photos once the new gear arrives!

 

[Eric R.]

I'm out of town visiting family for the holidays, heading back home Tuesday! I wanted to post an update before I left town because I had a bunch of new items for the tank arrive, but I didn't have time unfortunately. So I'll just have to list the new things I have, and then post pictures when I get home in a few days!

So I purchased some more items (mostly used through R2R, a few new things from sponsors), and the tank has gotten a further upgrade! I decided on most of the upgrades since they seemed like a good idea considering that I plan to hopefully upgrade to a larger tank in the not-too-distant future.

In addition to the Aquaclear 70, Mame Skimmer, and the Coral Compulsion lights, I picked up an MP10wQD, SpectraPure UPLC-II for an ATO setup, and I decided to get an Apex Classic instead of an Apex Jr. I also picked up a BRS 7-stage RODI setup.

I ordered 5 lbs of Marcorocks reef saver dry rock from BRS, as well as a bucket of IO salt. Time to start curing some rock when I get home!

 

[esther]

Awesome! Can't wait to follow along!

 

[Eric R.]

So I've gotten a lot of boxes in with supplies to setup the tank, including an RODI system that I need to setup in the basement and 5 lbs of rock from BRS. I'll take some pictures of everything as I unbox and setup, but that probably won't start till next week at the earliest, since I'm out of town this weekend.

 

[Devaji]

nice! I am also a fan of macro tanks I have a 20L a few years ago and playing around with the idea on another.
I am curious to see how the par38s work for you.

 

[John Bolden]

any updates

 

[Eric R.]

any updates

Yes, but not terribly exciting (yet!).

I received 5 mangrove propagules in the mail from Florida about 10 days ago. I'm experimenting with growing them out in a planted freshwater tank with dwarf cichlids (kribs), using the substrate I use for all my planted tanks + osmocote pellets + liquid trace fertilizer for iron, Mn, Mg, etc. I have them under a 36w Sansi full spectrum grow bulb.

The 10 gallon tanks I had in mind for the original build currently have a small breeding colony of dwarf African shell dwelling cichlids in one, and native North American nano fish in the other. In the meantime, I picked up a 20L, a 20H, and a 29, all standard Aqueon rimmed aquariums, for free from some local hobbyists. So I'm upgrading the build already before it's even wet. The 20L currently has the kribs and mangroves in it, the 20H is empty.

The 20L is going to be the macro/mangrove tank (with some coral), whereas the 20H will be a mixed reef (with hopefully some of the easier gorgs and NPS, like dendros/sun corals).

I just ordered some e-marco-400 from BRS yesterday and have had all of the dry rock (marco rock) for a whilte, so will hopefully begin scaping in a week or so. I also picked up 2 reefbrite LED strips from BRS, one 50/50, one actinic,to go with one of the PAR bulbs over the 20H. The 20L will have the full spectrum grow bulb on the mangrove/macro side, and the CC PAR bulb on the other. We'll see how this lighting plan works out, I may have to upgrade... A local reefer has already offered to let me borrow his Seneye PAR meter, so I'm planning to test the lighting setups in the tanks soon to get an idea of whether it should work or not. I don't plan on keeping much in the way of SPS, so I'm hoping it should be enough.

Here are some pics of the mangroves. They took a few days longer in the mail than I was expecting, and unfortunately the growing tip broke off one in shipping. Not sure if that one will recover, we'll see. At least 2 or 3 look like they are doing okay now.

 

[Eric R.]

Life has happened, haven't finished converting any of my FW tanks to SW yet. I need to bring some plants/fish to the LFS for credit to empty some tanks as soon as I have some time. I think I may start with my 4g pico first, then the 20L with the mangroves. I think I may try my hand at drilling some tanks and making DIY sumps/overflows. Also got approval from the SO to relocate the 55g tank from upstairs to the living room, as soon as I fix the sag in the floor under where the tank will go, and I'm thinking that will also be a mixed reef. Winter projects!

The mangroves in the 20L are doing well, here's a pic snapped 3 weeks ago, right before I snipped the apical stem of the two tallest single branch plants so far. One of the original five I received died due to damage received during shipping (it's the one farthest from/top in the original picture above). It had lost it's apical stem as well as one of the two leaves in the original pair of leaves.

One of the mangroves that completely lost it's apical stem (on the farthest left), grew two new stems and is doing well. I've been supplementing with a dry mixed trace nutrient supplement I use on my planted tanks fairly regularly, it provides iron, magnesium, and potassium.

 

[taulgrl]

Your mangroves look fantastic! Sounds like lots of projects. I’m looking forward to seeing them come together

 

[Eric R.]

Your mangroves look fantastic! Sounds like lots of projects. I’m looking forward to seeing them come together

Thanks! Yeah, I've spent about 2 years now planning and collecting equipment, so hopefully I'll actually get something wet with saltwater soon! I've learned a lot recently listening to the Reef Beef podcast by Rich Ross and Ben Johnson. I'd love to have a tank 1/4th as nice as Rich's tank (with all the NPS) one of these days.

I've been taking regular pictures of the mangrove growth and development, especially since I started trying to "bonsai" them. I'll share another post so that I can keep that documented and share it.

 

[Eric R.]

I created a thread just to document the mangrove growth in the 20L tank, and added additional pictures to it that aren't in this thread. Check it out here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/mangrove-growth-thread.894050

Hoping to start slowly converting this tank from currently freshwater to full salinity/35 ppt in the next week or so. Just gotta get the 3 remaining FW fish and plants out and to the LFS!

 

[Eric R.]

Teaching has kept me very busy these last few months. I have a bunch of live rock from kp aquatics in another tank along with some macro that I'll used to start this tank once I get some time. This is still FW for now! Hoping to get the fish out during April break in 2 weeks. I got covid over Feb break so it wasn't a very productive week off.

 

[Eric R.]

Some pictures of the classroom tanks:

13.5g mixed reef:

And the 10g macro/seaslug & invert QT tank:

 

[Eric R.]

Picked up a 3-year old Red Sea 250 with a bunch of goodies last weekend. Girlfriend wants to paint the stand white, then we're going to try doing a seahorse tank, with some soft coral, macros, and gorgs, few other peaceful fish.