Budget/diy build 29gallon

[pirate9182]

I kept larger reefs in the past but shut everything down about 8 years ago. I kept freshwater for the last 2 years and recently decided to shut the freshwater down and convert it to a reef. At the moment I'm using old stuff from previous tanks or hand me downs from the local vape shop ( the owner is a reefer and keeps all his tanks at the shop).

Never done a build thread before but figured it would be a cool idea to track my progress.

45lbs dry rock from my last build, let soak in bleach for 2 weeks

20lbs live sand

10 year old cheap rodi unit with new membrane and new DI and inline tds meter

10 year old refractometer calibrated with refracto juice

Jebao rw15 wave maker (had it for at least 8 years)

Basic heater from my freshwater tank

I took apart 3 Chinese black boxes and made one working unit

Light stand made from scrap wood, 3/4in emt conduit and unistrut brackets

I might add a skimmer in the future and have a canister if I ever need to run carbon or anything

Tank is currently cycling should be ready for fish in a few days.

Livestock will be 2 clownfish some type of goby and soft and LPS corals

Will add anemone once tank matures

 

[19Mateo83]

Good looking setup! Welcome back to the addiction.

 

[pirate9182]

 

[pirate9182]

Good looking setup! Welcome back to the addiction.

Thank you I've had this stuff sitting around for years only money I've spent so far is bottle bac, salt, rodi stuff and the conduit for lights. I'm maybe in it for $150 or $200.

 

[19Mateo83]

Thank you I've had this stuff sitting around for years only money I've spent so far is bottle bac, salt, rodi stuff and the conduit for lights. I'm maybe in it for $150 or $200.

Sounds like me when I came back to the hobby. I had a lot of stuff in storage. Including about 60lbs of rock. It’s nice not having to buy EVERYTHING all over again.

 

[pirate9182]

Added a pair of clowns yesterday and a zoa frag everything doing great, had to put the zoas in the shade because they did not like the white lighting even at 10%. The smaller clown is having a little trouble getting used to the flow in the tank. Gonna do a 50% water change today and then start on .5 to 1 gallon a day water changes.

 

[pirate9182]

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[pirate9182]

The larger mocha clown is loving the flow tho spends most of the day launching himself across the tank lol

 

[pirate9182]

Started 3% daily water changes yesterday, excited to try this out. With the tank being so small it's way easier scooping out a gallon a day as opposed to hauling buckets up from the basement.

Still doing manual top offs, I bought a 6 outlet smart power strip to set a light schedule for my black boxes. I went with 12 hours blue (10am to 10pm) and 8 hours white (noon to 8pm). With the new power strip I'm contemplating using it to do timed top offs as opposed to a float switch. The jebao rw 15 keeps the surface pretty turbulent and I'm afraid this will not be good for a float switch.

 

[pirate9182]

Diatoms starting blooming the other day and now are all over the place so its moving right along. Some of gha on the zoa frag seems to have survived my initial peroxide treatment.

 

[pirate9182]

Diatoms finally chilled out and some gha has started growing slowly. Added some hermits, snails and a peppermint shrimp to deal with left over food and algea. The Astra snails did a great job cleaning my zoa frag plug and the zoa has started a new head. The new polyp hasn't opened yet but I can see color shining thru under the new flesh.

Ran a canister filter for a day or two with poly fil and cleared the water up really quick had to shut the canister down as it started leaking pretty bad luckily I had it in a 5 gallon bucket. Going to add a tidal 110 to it soon to help keep the water column clear.

I had to put a hold on daily water changes because my nitrates were bottoming out, in a week or 2 I'm gonna add a royal gramma and a duncan coral and increased feedings to hopefully start daily water changes again.

 

[pirate9182]

Getting some growth on the clementine zoas already. I came home from work today and the new polyp had opened up can't really get a pic because of the angle tho. Since that frag was growing I picked up a good sized "goblins fire" frag for $35. Most of them opened right up and look great.

 

[pirate9182]

Added some duncan, hammer, and chyphstrea (sp?) Coral and a royal gramma about 2 weeks ago. Everything doing awsome except the chyphstrea. Duncan's and clemtine zoas are both growing. The zoas are popping out new polyps left and right. Same with the Duncan's the chyphstrea is bleaching out I've moved them from medium light to low light and it got worse so yesterday I moved them to higher light. Coralline has also started exploding I've got small patches of it growing all over the tank. In the short time I've had the tank I've managed to aptasia, bryopsis, and now I might have vermitid snails lol lucky me

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Added some duncan, hammer, and chyphstrea (sp?) Coral and a royal gramma about 2 weeks ago. Everything doing awsome except the chyphstrea. Duncan's and clemtine zoas are both growing. The zoas are popping out new polyps left and right. Same with the Duncan's the chyphstrea is bleaching out I've moved them from medium light to low light and it got worse so yesterday I moved them to higher light. Coralline has also started exploding I've got small patches of it growing all over the tank. In the short time I've had the tank I've managed to aptasia, bryopsis, and now I might have vermitid snails lol lucky me

Have pictures of all the new coral?