tanstrobels
Community Member
Updated 12/15/21
After a very long hiatus due to going to college and living abroad for work I am finally back in the hobby. Almost reluctantly at first but got sucked in pretty easily! My last tank was a 55 gallon mixed reef all HOB filtration, skimmer, etc. with metal halides. That was a little over ten years ago and in hindsight, I didn't really know what I was doing half the time. That tank was up for two years but parted it out and sold it all when I went to school. I always dreamed of a fancy SPS tank but never had the money or the patience at the time to make it happen.
Now I'm giving it a second attempt on a much smaller scale but the right equipment (and patience) should help a lot this time around. The reason I mentioned reluctance at first with this second tank is because I was gifted a 7 gallon biocube from a friends mother who didn't have time to take care of it anymore. I agreed to taking it from her without seeing the state of the tank or the equipment she was using. I was told it was a 15 gallon, set, ready to go, and all it needed was a little tlc. A bit different of a story once I saw it in person. I wish I had taken a picture of what I had picked up! The tank had an oscelaris clown, a over abundance of mega hermit crabs, aiptasia, hair algae, a neon tip toadstool leather and a ton of pulsing xenia.
Unfortunately in the move, the tank developed a few minor leaks in the bottom seam and forced me to purchase a new tank. I ended up picking out the JBJ RL-15, it's JBJ's newest all in one aquarium. I wish I had purchased the 20 gallon now but after realizing that the biocube was a 7 gallon a 15 sounded like a good size at the time.
Current hardware is as follows:
Currently dealing with really low nutrients. Phosphate and Nitrate are both undetectable. I'm reducing the 2 gallon water changes to every other week rather than weekly. Also changing out my filter floss every week now instead of twice a week.
Future plans for the tank are more corals (mainly all SPS plus some zoas),a goby shrimp pair, a few diy projects and a Kamoer wifi dosing pump so I can start dosing kalkwasser.
Upcoming DIY projects
I'll post some photos soon once I can find the USB cord for my camera.
After a very long hiatus due to going to college and living abroad for work I am finally back in the hobby. Almost reluctantly at first but got sucked in pretty easily! My last tank was a 55 gallon mixed reef all HOB filtration, skimmer, etc. with metal halides. That was a little over ten years ago and in hindsight, I didn't really know what I was doing half the time. That tank was up for two years but parted it out and sold it all when I went to school. I always dreamed of a fancy SPS tank but never had the money or the patience at the time to make it happen.
Now I'm giving it a second attempt on a much smaller scale but the right equipment (and patience) should help a lot this time around. The reason I mentioned reluctance at first with this second tank is because I was gifted a 7 gallon biocube from a friends mother who didn't have time to take care of it anymore. I agreed to taking it from her without seeing the state of the tank or the equipment she was using. I was told it was a 15 gallon, set, ready to go, and all it needed was a little tlc. A bit different of a story once I saw it in person. I wish I had taken a picture of what I had picked up! The tank had an oscelaris clown, a over abundance of mega hermit crabs, aiptasia, hair algae, a neon tip toadstool leather and a ton of pulsing xenia.
Unfortunately in the move, the tank developed a few minor leaks in the bottom seam and forced me to purchase a new tank. I ended up picking out the JBJ RL-15, it's JBJ's newest all in one aquarium. I wish I had purchased the 20 gallon now but after realizing that the biocube was a 7 gallon a 15 sounded like a good size at the time.
Current hardware is as follows:
- JBJ rimless nano 15 gallon
- RedSea 50 led
- Tunze Nano ATO
- Hygger mini wavemaker
- Inkbird WIFI temperature controller
- Wifi-enabled powerstrip
- Innovative Marine mesh lid
- Kamoer wifi doser for kalk
- Back of the tank
- Chamber 1
- Filter floss
- Carbon
- MarinePure ceramic biomedia
- Chamber 2
- 50W heater
- Chamber 3
- Stock return pump
- Temp probe
- Tunze Nano ATO sensor
- Chamber 1
- Aragonite sand
- Fiji live rock
- Fish
- Jorge - Oscellaris clownfish
- Tulio - Yellow banded possum wrasse
- Cusco - White spotted file fish
- Miguel - Court Jester Goby
- Pacha - Neon sharknose goby
- Regis - Bicolor blenny
- Inverts
- Margarita snail
- 2 Trochus snails
- 2 Cerith snails
- 2 baby Nassarius snails
- Corals
- Space invader pectinia
- neon polyp toadstool leather
- AOI zoas
- CC My Chemical Romance zoas
- Spongebob zoas
- Purple/Green acro frag
Currently dealing with really low nutrients. Phosphate and Nitrate are both undetectable. I'm reducing the 2 gallon water changes to every other week rather than weekly. Also changing out my filter floss every week now instead of twice a week.
Future plans for the tank are more corals (mainly all SPS plus some zoas),
Upcoming DIY projects
Acrylic media rack that goes into the first chamber so that all the filter bags aren't just stacked on top of each other in there (nobody makes one for this aquarium).- Decided to scrap this idea because the only thing in chamber one is the filter floss and then about once a month, I will put in a bag of carbon for a few days then pull it back out.
- Controller/equipment rack that slides out from the inside wall of the stand. That way I can mount my wavemaker controller, temp controller, all the plugs, ATO, doser, etc to the rack and slide it all the way out to get to the controls and such. Currently, all of that minus the doser is just sitting on the top shelf in a complete mess. I got this idea from RedSea which just released a similar product.
I'll post some photos soon once I can find the USB cord for my camera.
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Don't want to pull too many levers at the same time and not know which one actually worked lol
