29 Gallons of Questionable Decisions

[Arkardios]

The story of my first reef tank. It started as a 10g cube, moved to a different 10g, then a 20g, and then a couple months ago, the biggest I can probably do in this apartment, a 29g.

From the beginning I tried to do this as easy as possible. No skimmer, no sump, low budget lighting.

This is how it started July 2022:

After a month:

And the tank as of today:

(Yes, that's lava rock)

There's been lots of ups and downs so far. Most recently I finally beat a long battle against dinos, after installing a dosing pump to finally stop having to dose AFR and nutrients manually every single day. Before the pump I often forgot to dose, dosed wildly inconsistently, and bottomed out my nutrients incredibly quickly, mainly because of the macroalgae I'm sure. The dinos loved that. Now, with proper nutrient levels other microalgae outcompeted them, I'd guess.

My current lighting is 2x PopBloom Shannon16, and a single Nicrew SlimLED W+B. Probably could have bought a "proper" light for a similar price, but eh. It works for now.

 

[Arkardios]

First move was into a different 10 gallon tank.

And in the spur of the moment, I moved everything into a 20g.

That's when the dinos appeared. At that point I was able to get rid of them by adjusting the lighting period though.
The light for this tank was true budget, just a 30€ 18W(?) LED bar. Great for macroalgae, and the softies were fine with it as well. A few too many red LEDs for my liking, though.

This was probably the best the tank's ever looked. But I think it's slowly getting there again.

 

[themcnertney]

Looks good. Easier said then done, but a common mistake new reefers make is constantly moving or switching tanks. Stick with a size that suites you (sounds like you found it), go slow and let it grow. Patience's will be the best thing for that tank. In a few months, you'll look at it and remember how good of a move this was.

 

[Arkardios]

Thanks. Yeah, the temptation to go bigger a few months into a tank is strong. This most recent move was something I thought about for a good while, wasn't sure if I really wanted to, but I'm happy I did. No more moving for now though lol.