It’s taken me a little over 1 year to get the spirit on writing up my build thread. So, I am going to take a stab at it.
About March of 2018, my son and I started talking about saltwater tanks, and how much he wanted one. I had a saltwater tank when I lived in Big Pine Key about 20 years ago, and as I had the resources right in my back yard, it was not an easy hobby to say the least. He talked so much about reef tanks, saltwater fish, blah blah blah… Well… he lit the fire in me to start my own tank. So off I was looking at the cost of building a new tank and what equipment I would need. I lived in a small apartment with my fiancé and her kids, so space was an issue, and size on tank was an issue as well since we lived on the 2nd floor. So, I spent countless days on Facebook Market Place looking for an ideal tank.
Initial Build
I found the tank that would fit our space constraints, and also was in pretty good shape. It was a 36g Bow Front with stand, and came with a bunch of freshwater filtration. The price was right, and I purchased the tank. Got rid of all the freshwater filtration since I knew I wasn’t going fresh water (underwater filtration, bio wheel filtration) and went on the hunt for the other items I needed. BTW… I had a 15-20 year old RENA XP2 (known as API now) canister filter laying around and used it for filtration. Went to the LFS, and bought some caribsea oolite sand, and a couple pounds of live rock. Bought 3 5 gallon buckets and made several trips to the LFS to get saltwater. I didn’t want to mix my own at the time, and it was cheap per gallon. And the below pic was the start of my reefing journey.
Initial purchase was a light as I knew the light that same with the tank wasn’t going to work. So my first major purchase was an Orbit Marine LED light. I didn’t want to spend the money on a high end light as I didn’t know how far I was going to take this hobby. I was in awe with that light. It came with a remote control….The blues where super nice blue, and the white was… well white. I said to myself, I have a BA light. I can sit on the couch and switch the lights around when I wanted. Cool huh…
I wanted to cycle the tank as fast as possible (first mistake) so I went ahead and purchased my first set of fishes, 3 green chromis, and 2 clowns. After the first day, I was down to 1 Chromis, and the 2 Clowns (Still have them till this day). We named the Chromis Sneaky Pete, and the clowns were named Pee Wee, and Herman.
Next major purchase had to be a skimmer, and since the tank was so small and I had no sump, I was on the hunt for a HOB skimmer. After doing research, I settled on buying an Aquamaxx HOB skimmer. Heard great things about them, with very little negative feedback. I was able to find one on eBay for dirt cheap. Its not the 1.5, but an older model that works great (still using it). Skimmer went online about 3 weeks after I got the tank full of water. Took some time for me to figure out the HOB since it wasn’t creating a siphon and wasn’t getting any bubbles. After several YouTube videos, and drinking about half a cup of saltwater, I was able to get the skimmer to skim. LOL.
So, between the time I purchased the skimmer and the picture shown below, I got rid of the Current Orbit Light, and purchased a Hydra 26HD. Overkill for such a small tank, I know. But I already knew that this tank was going to evolve, just didn’t know how much. I purchased some more rock since the tank was lacking rock. I really don’t like the look of a tank for of rock to start off, so this was good enough for the time being.
Took water to LFS for testing as I had no test kits, just a cheap hydrometer to check salinity. LFS said that my water was in good shape. Salinity was good, Alk, and Cal was good. Nitrates were undetectable, and phosphates were undetectable as well. So I thought the tank is ready for corals.
First Corals
Here are the first corals I put in my tank. And after about 1 month I lost them. I was so mad that I said no more corals. Yeah Right!
After my initial losses, I wanted to know why they died since the LFS said my water was good. After this massacre is when I found R2R. And what a blessing it was. I read and read and read, and saw that it was just a new tank, and even though I had live rock and live sand in there, my tank was not ready for any type of hard corals yet. So I waited a bit, and went the Zoa route. Bough several frags between my son and I and they took off in both of our tanks. I was like “YAY” I have coral in my tank, but in the back of my mind it wasn’t hard corals.
Zoa’s in my tank were doing great, and was happy to see that some of them had little babies popping up. After a couple of months, I had another go at some hard corals (Acans, Duncan, Montis) and the only thing that survived that time was the a couple of Acans. In June of 2018, I was having a conversation with my fiance, and told her I would like to have a bigger tank, and I heard the worst thing come out of her mouth.
I don’t blame you, this tank is way too small!
So on the hunt I was for a bigger tank.
We were planning on moving to a house after the lease ended where we were currently at, so a bigger tank was going to be doable.
I found a deal on a 90g tank with a custom made stand. Came with eshopp r100 sump, Reef Octopus skimmer, 2 Mars Aqua lights, canopy, return pump, TLF kalkstirrer, 5 gallon ATO, all the live stock and rocks, and some other stuff for $650. Tank had been running for a while from what the guy told me, but it didn’t matter to me since I was taking the tank down and storing it till we moved. Live stock was a Sailfin Tang, 2 green Chromis, a toadstool coral, and a leather cabbage coral. Some rocks had some button polyps and he had some zoas on them as well. What ever rocks had something attached to it, I threw it in the 36g.
Here is the new to me tank emptied out and ready to be moved into our apartment on the 2nd floor. My baby making parts stopped working after this move.
Since I knew it was going to be a while before we found a place to move, I started to acquire other pieces for the new tank. I contemplated buying a Apex controller as I read that it made keeping up with the tank much easier. I bit the bullet and purchased the Apex 2016. I also knew that the current wave makers in the current tank were not going to be enough, so scoured the internet and found an IceCap 3k for cheap and bought it. Bought Instant Oceans Reef Crystals 200 gallon mix on special from Amazon.com, a 300w heater, and some other stuff. and through out all this time reading as much info as I can on the forums.
About March of 2018, my son and I started talking about saltwater tanks, and how much he wanted one. I had a saltwater tank when I lived in Big Pine Key about 20 years ago, and as I had the resources right in my back yard, it was not an easy hobby to say the least. He talked so much about reef tanks, saltwater fish, blah blah blah… Well… he lit the fire in me to start my own tank. So off I was looking at the cost of building a new tank and what equipment I would need. I lived in a small apartment with my fiancé and her kids, so space was an issue, and size on tank was an issue as well since we lived on the 2nd floor. So, I spent countless days on Facebook Market Place looking for an ideal tank.
Initial Build
I found the tank that would fit our space constraints, and also was in pretty good shape. It was a 36g Bow Front with stand, and came with a bunch of freshwater filtration. The price was right, and I purchased the tank. Got rid of all the freshwater filtration since I knew I wasn’t going fresh water (underwater filtration, bio wheel filtration) and went on the hunt for the other items I needed. BTW… I had a 15-20 year old RENA XP2 (known as API now) canister filter laying around and used it for filtration. Went to the LFS, and bought some caribsea oolite sand, and a couple pounds of live rock. Bought 3 5 gallon buckets and made several trips to the LFS to get saltwater. I didn’t want to mix my own at the time, and it was cheap per gallon. And the below pic was the start of my reefing journey.
Initial purchase was a light as I knew the light that same with the tank wasn’t going to work. So my first major purchase was an Orbit Marine LED light. I didn’t want to spend the money on a high end light as I didn’t know how far I was going to take this hobby. I was in awe with that light. It came with a remote control….The blues where super nice blue, and the white was… well white. I said to myself, I have a BA light. I can sit on the couch and switch the lights around when I wanted. Cool huh…
I wanted to cycle the tank as fast as possible (first mistake) so I went ahead and purchased my first set of fishes, 3 green chromis, and 2 clowns. After the first day, I was down to 1 Chromis, and the 2 Clowns (Still have them till this day). We named the Chromis Sneaky Pete, and the clowns were named Pee Wee, and Herman.
Next major purchase had to be a skimmer, and since the tank was so small and I had no sump, I was on the hunt for a HOB skimmer. After doing research, I settled on buying an Aquamaxx HOB skimmer. Heard great things about them, with very little negative feedback. I was able to find one on eBay for dirt cheap. Its not the 1.5, but an older model that works great (still using it). Skimmer went online about 3 weeks after I got the tank full of water. Took some time for me to figure out the HOB since it wasn’t creating a siphon and wasn’t getting any bubbles. After several YouTube videos, and drinking about half a cup of saltwater, I was able to get the skimmer to skim. LOL.
So, between the time I purchased the skimmer and the picture shown below, I got rid of the Current Orbit Light, and purchased a Hydra 26HD. Overkill for such a small tank, I know. But I already knew that this tank was going to evolve, just didn’t know how much. I purchased some more rock since the tank was lacking rock. I really don’t like the look of a tank for of rock to start off, so this was good enough for the time being.
Took water to LFS for testing as I had no test kits, just a cheap hydrometer to check salinity. LFS said that my water was in good shape. Salinity was good, Alk, and Cal was good. Nitrates were undetectable, and phosphates were undetectable as well. So I thought the tank is ready for corals.
First Corals
Here are the first corals I put in my tank. And after about 1 month I lost them. I was so mad that I said no more corals. Yeah Right!
After my initial losses, I wanted to know why they died since the LFS said my water was good. After this massacre is when I found R2R. And what a blessing it was. I read and read and read, and saw that it was just a new tank, and even though I had live rock and live sand in there, my tank was not ready for any type of hard corals yet. So I waited a bit, and went the Zoa route. Bough several frags between my son and I and they took off in both of our tanks. I was like “YAY” I have coral in my tank, but in the back of my mind it wasn’t hard corals.
Zoa’s in my tank were doing great, and was happy to see that some of them had little babies popping up. After a couple of months, I had another go at some hard corals (Acans, Duncan, Montis) and the only thing that survived that time was the a couple of Acans. In June of 2018, I was having a conversation with my fiance, and told her I would like to have a bigger tank, and I heard the worst thing come out of her mouth.
I don’t blame you, this tank is way too small!
So on the hunt I was for a bigger tank.
We were planning on moving to a house after the lease ended where we were currently at, so a bigger tank was going to be doable.
I found a deal on a 90g tank with a custom made stand. Came with eshopp r100 sump, Reef Octopus skimmer, 2 Mars Aqua lights, canopy, return pump, TLF kalkstirrer, 5 gallon ATO, all the live stock and rocks, and some other stuff for $650. Tank had been running for a while from what the guy told me, but it didn’t matter to me since I was taking the tank down and storing it till we moved. Live stock was a Sailfin Tang, 2 green Chromis, a toadstool coral, and a leather cabbage coral. Some rocks had some button polyps and he had some zoas on them as well. What ever rocks had something attached to it, I threw it in the 36g.
Here is the new to me tank emptied out and ready to be moved into our apartment on the 2nd floor. My baby making parts stopped working after this move.
Since I knew it was going to be a while before we found a place to move, I started to acquire other pieces for the new tank. I contemplated buying a Apex controller as I read that it made keeping up with the tank much easier. I bit the bullet and purchased the Apex 2016. I also knew that the current wave makers in the current tank were not going to be enough, so scoured the internet and found an IceCap 3k for cheap and bought it. Bought Instant Oceans Reef Crystals 200 gallon mix on special from Amazon.com, a 300w heater, and some other stuff. and through out all this time reading as much info as I can on the forums.