French newcomer 50g tank

[Joseph_Joe]

Hi all,

I don't like to show my work as I am a newcomer to this lovely world of reefing, and my posts are not "Instagrammable" since my first tank ever is not that nice looking, but let me start my own tank build.
Since I am based in France, I noticed we have some differences in terms of suppliers, best practices, and livestocks in Europe so we may exchanges wide points of views about reefing.
Moreover, I use a quite nice app to keep track of my parameters, maintenance events, and any interesting event that could happen but I think keeping records on R2R will be more detailed.

Component	Supplier	Reference	Qty	Parameter
Tank	Blau Aquaristic	Gran Cubic 9250	1	200L (50g)
Sump	Blau Aquaristic	N/A	1	Roughly 80L (20g)
Lifting pump	Jebao	DCP-3500	1	3500 L/hr
Mixing pump	Sunsun	JVP-132	2	8000 L/hr
Skimmer	Maxspect	MJ-SK 400	1	600 L/hr air flow
Heater	Prime Aquatic	Digital Titanium Heater 300	1	300 W with thermostat
Light	Aquamedic	Aquarius 90 plus Wifi	1	118 W
Osmolator	Aquamedic	Refill System Easy	1	N/A
Filter	Not installed yet	N/A	N/A	N/A
Lower sand	JBL	Sansibar White	10 kg	Silica based
Mid Sand	Aquamedic	Bali Sand 1-2 mm	10 kg	Carbonate based
Upper sand	Aquamedic	Bali Sand 2-3 mm	10 kg	Carbonate based
Rocks	Arka	Reef Rock Mix	20 kg	Dry rocks

I will go backward then and list what I did to set up that new tank

 

[TX_REEF]

welcome.. very unique rockscape!

 

[Joseph_Joe]

welcome.. very unique rockscape!

Thanks but I am the least artistic guy here. I love Octopus, but since it's difficult to raise one, I set up my rocks to look like one ^^
There is a lot of space in the upper part of the tank. I wanna see if I am not so bad in keeping alive my next first corals. If so, I will add more flat rocks close to the light source.
I would like also to see if the mangle pods could make it down to the sand bed before adding any extra rock.

 

[Joseph_Joe]

20-Dec-23: Baptism

I received my first ever tank, bought during a black Friday for a small discount from a local shop in Paris suburbs.
It costed around 680 € (€ and $ exchange rate is very close to 1). This includes the DT, sump, in and out hoses and the furniture. It is a new tank.
Furniture is not full. The lower and back part are "empty". Anticipating further noise, I added a wooden panel in the back, an inner shelf, and a multiswitch for a straightforward equipment shutdown during maintenance.
Total modifications probably 100 €. It is even a little more as I was stubborn. I wanted to transform the outlet hose into a rigid piping, but I failed some interfaces and O.D so such topic was aborted after weeks and I found the solution for noise attenuation that will be explained later.
I started filling my tank, no RO/DI system at home. LFS supply it. With my 20 L tanker (5g) it took me MANY trips to finally overflowing the DT down to the sump. But first issue happened: sump was leaking due to a badly glued corner. Fortunately as the tank was new and under guarantee, the supplier sent me a technician for free to fix it.
For RO/DI supply, of course I think of a domestic supply system. But as a rookie who knows that he will spend a lot on other failures in order to learn reefing, I set that scope to a very low priority. Its time will come.
Tank is now set up and full of water! Time to steer that most precious fluid on earth.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Joseph_Joe]

10-Feb-24: Rocky

Now that tank was full of water, I started assembling rocks.
For ecological, hitchiking risk, and mostly financial reasons, I chose to go 100% dry rocks. I assembled some of them the way I could. I didn't bought yet pillars or flat ones, just big rocks with enough pores. I am not a good artist, we can notice that I am splattering them with cements.

Rocks were finally installed. As a rookie, as soon as I try to shift up my lifting pump, sump level was getting very low. I didn't know what happened. Internet & some contacts were the solution. I find out that due to my DT not having an overflow system, the levels of DT & sump quickly change whenever the lifting pump is ON. My sump level was going low until air started getting inside the lifting pump. All I had to do was simple: add more water to the system until down flow & up flow reached an equilibrium. Indeed, I didn't expect the water to evaporate so frequently after filling DT & sump for the first time

Rocks are now in place, fully wet and my water system is finally understood, it is time to make those rocks alive like a Frankenstein. It is alive (not yet), alive ! Bacteria stocking process is starting, using French products from Daphbio company that is made of 3 bottles: microfauna, plankton, and denitrifying bacteria.

I am also a huge mangrove lover. Such plants are not found here in France. My first contact with them was 2 years ago during a trip to French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. I believe in their filtration capacity and I am impressed by how such a plant can live in harsh salty environment when humans spend big money to filter seawater in huge facilities. I bought 10 pods of red mangle and placed them inside a foam layer, waiting for the first roots to start growing. Don't pay too much attention to the couldy white water, Frankenstein process was started and the rocks were just set up, releasing some dust.

 

[TX_REEF]

So far so good! If you can get even one piece of true live rock, you’ll likely avoid months of stability issues, for what it’s worth. A small but if ocean rock can seed your dry rock with diverse beneficial bacteria.

I like your mangrove holders too

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Looks good and welcome. There is people from everywhere on here. May even find some people close to you.

 

[Joseph_Joe]

So far so good! If you can get even one piece of true live rock, you’ll likely avoid months of stability issues, for what it’s worth. A small but if ocean rock can seed your dry rock with diverse beneficial bacteria.

I like your mangrove holders too

Thanks. Indeed, It took me time to cycle. Nitrite peak lasted 2 months
Next time, I will use at least 1 medium-size live rock, but since there are few reefers in France, I couldn't manage to get a good one.
For the mangrove support, I got inspired from a video I saw on Youtube where a dude literally made buoy-look-like pieces of foam

 

[Joseph_Joe]

Looks good and welcome. There is people from everywhere on here. May even find some people close to you.

Thanks! But reefing industry in the USA is crazy. I am learning a lot from you all!