Home Office 24g Mixed Reef

[ostamand]

Hey!

I have been away from the hobby many years.

Background
The last time I had a tank, it ended badly with a crash.

I am an Engineer and back when I had my first tank(s), I was a lot into DIY automation. My goal was to automate everything including building salinity probes, etc. I was designing PCB boards, buying and soldering all the components by hand, writing the software and web app used to control the system, etc.

Everything was going well, until it was not.

I don't know what happened (possibly a shortcut in a PCB board or a bug in the software) but one of dosing pump started to dump X litters of Soda Ash during the night. When I woke up, everything was dead.

The tank
This time, there won't be any DIY PCB boards. I am building a tank for my home office. I work a lot from here now and I feel privileged to do it to what, one day, I trust will be a beautiful reef.

Equipment
- Tank: Lifeguard 24g crystal aquarium
- Lighting: AI Prime 16HD
- Powerhead: Ecotech MP10mQD
- Return pump: Switched original to SICCER Syncra Silent 0.5
- ATO: Prism Auto Top Off - Reefbreeders
- Filtration: Read Sea Spec Carbon, Filter floss
- Protein Skimmer: None at the moment (since it's my office, I fear the noise it will make and for now I don't need one)

 

[glb]

That’s a nice setup! Fwiw my skimmer is one of the quieter pieces of equipment in my setup. Also, if you can spring for an aquarium controller it would make your life a lot easier.

 

[ostamand]

It's been over a year now (13 months to be exact). Looking back, other than the corals and the rocks, not much stayed the same.

Started with a Lifeguard aquarium which ended up leaking. Less than a month ago, I moved everything to a new Waterbox Cube 25 Peninsula without any issues (other than some cyano on the new sand)

Growth has been slow in the last year, but I feel things are finally picking up.

I want to start documenting more actively the changes I see. So, here I am.

 

[ostamand]

Papaya clove

 

[ostamand]

This is a Bali Green Slimer frag I just added to the tank. Overall, I had limited success with SPS. I believe my mistake was blasting them with too much light too soon & possibly not having a matured enough tank. Let's see how this one does.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank is looking good!

 

[Lebowski_]

Beautiful, coming along well OP.