1st reef tank, needs to be done cheap (I keep freshwater planted ecosystem aquariums)

[NashobaTek]

Put the mud down first then the plates and the sand and crushed coral on top of the plates.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

My plan is to make it as little maintenance as possible because I am starting high school next school year so I need to focus on that but I want to start a reef in my fish room

 

[NoahLikesFish]

What plates?

 

[NashobaTek]

Check out the tank paulB has. His

What plates?

The under gravel filtration plates. And that is a very simple, system.
Check out the videos and look at paulB tank. It's been running for around 50 years.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

also would weathered beach wood be a bad idea? I want to have lots of organic matter like there is in a tidal zone where things wash up and lots of soft corals live b/c the high nutrients ans also the organic stuff will make areas for like microfauna such as sand fleas and coquina shells to hide

 

[NoahLikesFish]

THAT IS SO COOL IT HAS ALL THE FISH I LOVE IN IT

 

[NoahLikesFish]

Does he Have setup guides or anything? I might revise my stocking to 2 clarkii a hawk fish a blenny or goby a scooter dragonet and a couple schoolers or something

 

[NoahLikesFish]

Hawk fish or a scorp both are awesome fish. Also I wanna get lettuce nudibranch and inverts

 

[NoahLikesFish]

What is this? this has lots of fish I want in it. If I could have lots of like micro predator hunters and inverts I’d be so happy. I don’t want like fish that hide 99.99% of the time so micropredstors that look like jawfish and other things like barnacle blenny would be very cool

 

[RipVanWinkle]

Doesn’t seem like you’re asking for any advice in this thread, instead you’re just telling all the experienced people they’re wrong and skimmers are snake oil, and you seem to know what you’re doing already.

Father fish doesn’t know **** about reefing so I don’t know why you reference him over and over.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I might actually do a pipefish a hawk fish 2 clowns a mated pair of mandarins captive bred maybe and a small blenny

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I think he approaches reefing better than most people, you aren’t supposed to do things artificaly. This person has no Advanced stuff and a 50 year old thriving tank

 

[NoahLikesFish]

Father fish has a very healthy naturalistic reef which isn’t like filled to the brim with coral but that isn’t how it is always in nature.

 

[NashobaTek]

Does he Have setup guides or anything? I might revise my stocking to 2 clarkii a hawk fish a blenny or goby a scooter dragonet and a couple schoolers or something

Tank birthday, 47+ years @Paul B .Check out this thread. He talks about it, and I think he might have a video, but he will answer questions.
I know it works because I've done it before and I'm getting ready to redo my 125 with the under gravel filtration system.

 

[Acros]

If it’s 1” per 5 gallons 1 pair of clowns needs 50 gallons

That is all you can really have in a 20g tank. Honestly, your filtration is very basic. It is definitely not an advanced or heavy-duty filtration.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I have a 75 minimum size hob I can use and it’s going to have reverse UG and powerheads. I’m going to try to stagger the hob so it makes waves. I don’t care about corals as much as I care about things like copeopods and microfauna and macroalgae so my fish that eat inverts can eat the microfauna. My plan now after reading some articles is to do a Paul b structure with the mortar and pvc then I’m going to add live rock for even more area for microfauna and bacteria and coralline. so it’s going to be like a drop off. I will try making a diagram for it.

 

[NashobaTek]

What is this? this has lots of fish I want in it. If I could have lots of like micro predator hunters and inverts I’d be so happy. I don’t want like fish that hide 99.99% of the time so micropredstors that look like jawfish and other things like barnacle blenny would be very cool

That is a target feeder for mandrins. It is for feeding brine shrimp babies to the mandrins and other slow feeders.

 

[NoahLikesFish]

Ok so the back will be a wall of LR then here’s the diagram

blue =flow green red = plant yellow = substrate yellow on rock = coral

 

[NoahLikesFish]

That is a target feeder for mandrins. It is for feeding brine shrimp babies to the mandrins and other slow feeders.

Is this hard to build? I might try making one so I can keep micropredstors

 

[NoahLikesFish]

The flow will be about 1400 gph if I do 2 400 gph powerheads and my 600 gph filter