60 Gallon Sumpless Tank - Aquarium Evolution in progress.

[Jobsafish]

I’m ready to start getting this reef put together!

Since my initial post in the Meet & Greet Forum, my rock has continued to cook in the garage, I have received my RODI unit (it will be getting it’s first use this weekend) and painted to rear glass of the tank black. I made a horrible job of this; thus confirming my suspicion that I am not destined for a career in a body shop or as a graffiti artist. It’s against a wall though, so who cares.

Some details:

Tank: Juwel Rio 240 – with filter tower removed.

Filtration: Tunze Comline Reefpack 250.

Includes Filter 3162 (250 -850 LPH) (70 – 250 GPH) and DOC Skimmer 9004. I’ll run floss and carbon in the filter.

Flow: 2x Hydor Koralia 1600 Nano (1600 LPH) (425 GPH)

ATO: Tunze Osmolator Nano (a touch undersized for this tank, but it will do until I get the full version)

Lighting: Juwel T5s 1x Marine White and 1x Marine Blue. I have just found a unused (still in it’s box) Arcadia Twin T8 ballast, that was in my garage (bought years ago for another project). I’m planning to squeeze this in somehow to provide additional lighting, probably with 1x Arcadia Marine White and 1x Arcadia Actinic tubes.

This is going to predominantly be a Softy tank, but my wife really likes the look of Frogspawn, so we may stray into LPS.

The Fish Wish List looks like this:

Pair of Clowns (My 2 year old son loves Nemo)

Firefish x1

Royal Gramma x1 (We had both this and the Firefish in our last tank and my daughter really wants them again)

Starry Blenny x1

Mandarin Goby x1 (I know a refugium would usually be required, but my LFS only sells ones that will eat prepared food and I plan on adding live pods to the tank a regular basis)

Pair of Bengali Cardinals

Any comments or alternatives are welcome, I’m here to take advice.

Clean Up Crew and Inverts:

I have to have a Pink and Black Sea Cucumber. We had one last time, his name Coolio (Because he was as ‘Cool as a Cucumber’ – Credit: The Wife) I loved watching him magically appear in a new spot when you looked away for a second or two, despite the fact he hadn’t moved for the last 15 minutes of staring and waiting.

Emerald Crab x2 One per pile of rocks

Nassarius Snails x 5 I love the ‘Zombie rising from the grave’ action every time the tank is fed.

Hermits, probably Red Legged x5

Trochus Snails x2 One per rock pile. If my LFS can get them – I’ve never seen them in stock.

I reckon that’s it, again comments welcomed.

I’ll post a couple of pics soon; a reward for all that reading.

Cheers,

Matt.

 

[mta_morrow]

I’m ready to start getting this reef put together!

Since my initial post in the Meet & Greet Forum, my rock has continued to cook in the garage, I have received my RODI unit (it will be getting it’s first use this weekend) and painted to rear glass of the tank black. I made a horrible job of this; thus confirming my suspicion that I am not destined for a career in a body shop or as a graffiti artist. It’s against a wall though, so who cares.

Some details:

Tank: Juwel Rio 240 – with filter tower removed.

Filtration: Tunze Comline Reefpack 250.

Includes Filter 3162 (250 -850 LPH) (70 – 250 GPH) and DOC Skimmer 9004. I’ll run floss and carbon in the filter.

Flow: 2x Hydor Koralia 1600 Nano (1600 LPH) (425 GPH)

ATO: Tunze Osmolator Nano (a touch undersized for this tank, but it will do until I get the full version)

Lighting: Juwel T5s 1x Marine White and 1x Marine Blue. I have just found a unused (still in it’s box) Arcadia Twin T8 ballast, that was in my garage (bought years ago for another project). I’m planning to squeeze this in somehow to provide additional lighting, probably with 1x Arcadia Marine White and 1x Arcadia Actinic tubes.

This is going to predominantly be a Softy tank, but my wife really likes the look of Frogspawn, so we may stray into LPS.

The Fish Wish List looks like this:

Pair of Clowns (My 2 year old son loves Nemo)

Firefish x1

Royal Gramma x1 (We had both this and the Firefish in our last tank and my daughter really wants them again)

Starry Blenny x1

Mandarin Goby x1 (I know a refugium would usually be required, but my LFS only sells ones that will eat prepared food and I plan on adding live pods to the tank a regular basis)

Pair of Bengali Cardinals

Any comments or alternatives are welcome, I’m here to take advice.

Clean Up Crew and Inverts:

I have to have a Pink and Black Sea Cucumber. We had one last time, his name Coolio (Because he was as ‘Cool as a Cucumber’ – Credit: The Wife) I loved watching him magically appear in a new spot when you looked away for a second or two, despite the fact he hadn’t moved for the last 15 minutes of staring and waiting.

Emerald Crab x2 One per pile of rocks

Nassarius Snails x 5 I love the ‘Zombie rising from the grave’ action every time the tank is fed.

Hermits, probably Red Legged x5

Trochus Snails x2 One per rock pile. If my LFS can get them – I’ve never seen them in stock.

I reckon that’s it, again comments welcomed.

I’ll post a couple of pics soon; a reward for all that reading.

Cheers,

Matt.

Sounds like a great plan and you are well on your way.

Looking forward to your progression pics!

 

[SPR1968]

Great plan Matt, and welcome to R2R!

We need pictures and lots of them as well!

 

[Jobsafish]

Ok, it’s clear I don’t have a career as a blogger ahead of me, I’ve been terrible at updates.

Here is the tank with it’s back pane painted black.

The nice clean Skimmer and Filter.

RO System temporarily connected in the kitchen.

The sloooooowest tank fill eveeeer!

A full tank with rock and sand (excuse the tide mark on the glass I had yet to dig out my magnetic cleaner)

The rock that my 2 year old son says ‘looks like King Pappy’ from the Trolls movie #Notrollleftbehind!

And finally, our first fishy friend.

We are also caring for two Red-legged hermits and one Trochus Snail.

Every one is happy, eating and active and my water parameters are as expected. Alkalinity and PH are down a bit compared to last Monday’s test, but it’s water change time tonight, so that should fix that.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Chrisfish]

Tank looks great Matt and I really like the Aqua scape!!

 

[BedrockIOMC]

mixing salt in the tank?

 

[showmebutterfly]

Having the tank close to the sink with the counter space in between will make a handy work area for tank maintenance. The tank looks great. How are you liking the Tunze skimmer and filter so far?

 

[Jobsafish]

mixing salt in the tank?

I did for the initial fill. Got it about half way to aid in getting the rock and sand in how I wanted. Then I topped it off with saltwater I had waiting in the garage.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Good job Matt, tank looks great.

 

[Jobsafish]

Tank looks great Matt and I really like the Aqua scape!!

Thanks, it’s not quite what I first envisaged; but even with acrylic rods and reefers putty, gravity was still determined to make me compromise.

 

[Jobsafish]

Having the tank close to the sink with the counter space in between will make a handy work area for tank maintenance. The tank looks great. How are you liking the Tunze skimmer and filter so far?

It has been really helpful, saves me doing tests and equipment cleaning on the dining table.
The skimmer is great; really quiet and seems to producing good skimate. The filter is doing the job, I’m running carbon and floss in it.

I have a few dead spots in the tank, so I may have to rethink my choice of powerheads. Tunze may be getting some more of my hard earned cash.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Jobsafish]

It’s been some time since my last update; we’ve had some new additions in the tank, one death and a major bacterial bloom. The bloom was caused by me rushing tank maintenance and overdosing the live bacteria I’ve been using.

Anyway, all that’s dealt with (time sorted it) and here is today’s FTS.

We’ve got Coral and Marlin, the Occelaris Clowns.

It’s not a great pic, but at least they weren’t as camera shy as Benny our Flymo Blenny.

We also have our first corals:

This mushroom.

A nice bit of GSP.

Finally this Gorgonian, which doesn’t look quite as good as I’d hoped.

I mounted it into a hole in the rock with some putty, but it now seems to have anchored itself to the rock too. I guess we’ll just have to see how it develops.

The death was an emerald crab. It lived for about two weeks, then just turned up dead one morning.

That’s about it for now, I’ll try to be a bit better with my updates from now on. [emoji51]

Cheers,

Matt.

 

[Captain Quint]

Great plan Matt, and welcome to R2R!

We need pictures and lots of them as well!

Lots and lots of pics, please.

 

[Jobsafish]

Benny decided he was ready for his photo-call.

 

[Captain Quint]

Beautiful tank and great job Jobsafish! I love it...

~cheers mate~

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I’m ready to start getting this reef put together!

Since my initial post in the Meet & Greet Forum, my rock has continued to cook in the garage, I have received my RODI unit (it will be getting it’s first use this weekend) and painted to rear glass of the tank black. I made a horrible job of this; thus confirming my suspicion that I am not destined for a career in a body shop or as a graffiti artist. It’s against a wall though, so who cares.

Some details:

Tank: Juwel Rio 240 – with filter tower removed.

Filtration: Tunze Comline Reefpack 250.

Includes Filter 3162 (250 -850 LPH) (70 – 250 GPH) and DOC Skimmer 9004. I’ll run floss and carbon in the filter.

Flow: 2x Hydor Koralia 1600 Nano (1600 LPH) (425 GPH)

ATO: Tunze Osmolator Nano (a touch undersized for this tank, but it will do until I get the full version)

Lighting: Juwel T5s 1x Marine White and 1x Marine Blue. I have just found a unused (still in it’s box) Arcadia Twin T8 ballast, that was in my garage (bought years ago for another project). I’m planning to squeeze this in somehow to provide additional lighting, probably with 1x Arcadia Marine White and 1x Arcadia Actinic tubes.

This is going to predominantly be a Softy tank, but my wife really likes the look of Frogspawn, so we may stray into LPS.

The Fish Wish List looks like this:

Pair of Clowns (My 2 year old son loves Nemo)

Firefish x1

Royal Gramma x1 (We had both this and the Firefish in our last tank and my daughter really wants them again)

Starry Blenny x1

Mandarin Goby x1 (I know a refugium would usually be required, but my LFS only sells ones that will eat prepared food and I plan on adding live pods to the tank a regular basis)

Pair of Bengali Cardinals

Any comments or alternatives are welcome, I’m here to take advice.

Clean Up Crew and Inverts:

I have to have a Pink and Black Sea Cucumber. We had one last time, his name Coolio (Because he was as ‘Cool as a Cucumber’ – Credit: The Wife) I loved watching him magically appear in a new spot when you looked away for a second or two, despite the fact he hadn’t moved for the last 15 minutes of staring and waiting.

Emerald Crab x2 One per pile of rocks

Nassarius Snails x 5 I love the ‘Zombie rising from the grave’ action every time the tank is fed.

Hermits, probably Red Legged x5

Trochus Snails x2 One per rock pile. If my LFS can get them – I’ve never seen them in stock.

I reckon that’s it, again comments welcomed.

I’ll post a couple of pics soon; a reward for all that reading.

Cheers,

Matt.

Haven't ordered from here but Aquacorals.com has large selection of softies

 

[Jobsafish]

Beautiful tank and great job Jobsafish! I love it...

~cheers mate~

Thanks Captain.

 

[Jobsafish]

Haven't ordered from here but Aquacorals.com has large selection of softies

Yet another reason for me to move across the pond! [emoji23]

My two nearest fish shops have both got good selections of softies though. I’ve got my eye on a nice Xenia, a toadstool and some Zoa frags.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Jobsafish]

A lot has changed since my last post, most notably the 60 Gallon tank has gone!

First it turned out that my tank placement left a lot to be desired; I didn’t realise that my kitchen window gets about 10 hours of direct sunlight a day! I had GHA issues that I just couldn’t defeat. Then I had an outbreak of Velvet which wiped out 6 of my 10 fish. After transferring the remaining 4 fish to a hospital tank for treatment my wife and I decided that tank had to move.

Unfortunately there was no room anywhere else in the house to put a 4 foot tank, so it was decided to resurrect my old 94L AIO tank condensing the corals onto as few rocks as possible and setting this up in the living room. I will post a pic later as I’m writing this during my coffee break at work.

My wife realised quite quickly that I wasn’t completely happy with the downsizing and has been looking at ways to get me the kind of tank I really want and last night she hit the jackpot. So this evening I’m off to look at a used 70 Gallon reef tank with loads of kit included. It hasn’t quite got all the options I would have chosen myself, but it definitely do for now.

Wish me luck.

Matt.

 

[Jobsafish]

The 94L AIO as it is today.