JBJ 30g Rimless Build Thread

[UM Aquarium Club]

This tank is not one belonging to our club (UMAC), but rather a member tank that belongs to me (poster) that I've scrapped together. As the title states, this tank is a JBJ 30g and has been put together with entirely used equipment that I've purchased through the R2R marketplace as well as from members of the FMAS club. The tank has been running since early May 2018 but did not have any additions of coral / fish until mid September. During this period the tank was moved between houses and I swapped from a coarse substrate to a medium grain sand that the club had lying around. I'm planning to maintain and grow out this tank until May at which point I'll be likely selling the tank either whole or in parts. A fair bit of the coral was traded or purchased without knowing exactly what the name is other than the type of coral it was.

Equipment:

Tank: 30g JBJ Rimless
Stand: DIY 2x4 build based on designs I found on R2R threads
Powerhead: EcoTech Mp10wQD
Return pump(s): unknown but soon to be replaced with KEDSUM 330 GPH which I'll split
Lights: 24" Reefbreeders Photon V2
Filtration:
*1x media ladder with chemipure blue, ceramic media, and a filter sponge
*CPR hang on back refugium with Algaebarn chaeto and ceramic media balls
*Also have a sponge in the outflow of the CPR refugium to quiet the water sound and add a bit more filtration
ATO: Tunze 3152
Magnet cleaner: Two Little Fishies Nanomag
Frag rack: PFCS Pureflow magnetic frag rack

Livestock:

Fish

*2x picasso clownfish
*1x sixline wrasse

Inverts (CUC)

*2x nassarius snails
*~3x trochus snails
*~5 margarita snails]
*~7 blue leg hermits
*1x emerald crab (to deal with a bubble algae breakout)

Coral + anemone

*"Rainbow" bubbletip anemone
*Mystsic sunset monti
*Frogspawn coral
*Wall hammer
*Zoa rock (unknown but have a few guesses)
*Blood eye chalice
*Red cap monti
*Unknown stylo
*Hollywood stunner chalice
*ORA spongeodes
*Neon green candy cane
*War coral
*3x assorted mushrooms
*Pavona cactus (potato chip)
*Ricordea yuma
*~6-7 different types of zoas (if you recognize any please feel free to drop a comment so I can keep track of what types they are)

Since the tank has been up for about 8 months so far I'm gonna toss in a bunch of photos from that time period to show the progression. I'll try to keep it updated frequently for the next few months until I have to break it down and part it out.

 

[UM Aquarium Club]

I started up the system several months after I purchased the tank from a fellow reef hobbyist in the South Florida area. For the next couples months I acquired the lights, stand and hob refugium before setting it up. There were still several pieces of equipment I ended up adding that I spent longer searching for a good deal on before purchasing. I built the stand with the help of a friend and sized it to approximately the footprint of the tank with a few inches spare for wiggle room. I ended up using a drawer liner attached to the top of the stand with a staple gun to reduce the amount of sliding the tank could do and just add a little bit more leveling to it. Definitely a fairly crude stand but I was shooting more for purpose rather than style with the build.

This picture was taken in early May shortly after filling the aquarium. I used a coarse substrate that was lying around to start as I planned to do very high flow and thought it might be the way to go. Rock came from an aquarist who was breaking down their tank and getting rid of it. To clean the rock I did two separate soaks in vinegar in a brute trashcan along with washing it thoroughly with water and then leaving it out to dry in the sun for a week or so. At the end of this I was pretty satisfied with how clean they appeared. If I were to repeat the process I'd probably cure them in the brute and make sure they weren't leaching any phosphates but luckily they appear to be doing fine so far.



I added on an Mp10 shortly after as my main method of flow in the tank. To start my cycle I added a piece of dead fish as an ammonia source and left it in for a few days. About two weeks in I started developing the first algal growth in the tank which lasted on and off for several weeks. I wasn't planning on adding any fish or coral so at this stage so I wasn't too aggressive removing it. I did keep the lights off at this stage after algae appeared to slowly reduce it. In early July I moved the tank to a new house and at this point I decided to swap out the substrate. I wasn't happy with how the flow interacted with the substrate and felt it was trapping too much detritus and providing surfaces for algae that weren't desirable.



Before moving, I had started to plan out the arrangement of corals for the tank. As you'll see in later pictures, the plans were modified due to the corals I ended up trading or buying.



This somewhat poor quality photo was taken fairly soon after the move. I had begun to add some members of a cleanup crew at this point, some of which have been replaced or added to since. I also ended up adding more substrate to the tank after making sure it was evenly distributed into all the nooks and crannies.



I had always planned to run chaeto in the hang on back refugium but hadn't started any until after MACNA 2018. While at the conference I purchased some from Algae Barn as well as some ceramic media balls from a different vendor to test out in the "return" chamber of the refugium. It was also around this point that I purchased a "used" but never in water Tunze 3152 from a fellow South Florida reefer. While searching for an ATO, I found one of the downsides of the stock pump/tube length on the refugium meant that it took very little water loss in the return chamber to make the pump start sucking up air. There were a few different ways to mitigate this including replacing the tube connecting the refugium pump. Knowing I was going to want an ATO eventually, I decided to wait to utilize the refugium until I located one. Around this time I also tested the water parameters for the first time to make sure any livestock additions would fare well. After getting the all clear from the tests I started scoping out livestock I was interested in adding.



Within a week or two the chaeto was expanding out a bit and appeared to be growing (though it could just been spreading out).



About two weeks later I purchased the first additions to the tank which included two clownfish, various CUC members, and the first pieces of coral. I initially placed everything in the sand to acclimate and turned the light lower than my usual schedule for a few days before gluing pieces down.



A couple weeks later I added a few more pieces of coral. Around the same time the tank started to develop another algae outbreak. I attributed this new outbreak to the nutrient input from having added the first fish.



Some time after I added a sixline wrasse to the tank. The clowns began to display common pairing behavior which included some different submissive / dominant acts. Not long after adding the wrasse it became clear that the tank mates would get along. At the time, and continuing presently, the wrasse occasionally seems to think it's a clown and hangs out with the pair as if trying to school.



Not long after, one of our UMAC anemones split which led to a few "babies" being up for grabs. I hadn't put a ton of consideration into adding an anemone at this point but had always like the idea. I think having a pair of clowns hosted by an anemone is definitely a shared interest in the hobby and I decided to give it a shot. Just as is frequently the case with anemones, it didn't want to stay where I had first placed it.



Within a few days the anemone had decided to migrate toward the middle of the tank which made me worry. I started monitoring more closely to make sure it didn't start moving within reach of my corals. Sometime during this process I removed the anemone from the rock and tried to resettle it in a more convenient location. I adjusted the light and flow at the same time, hoping it would choose a different spot, but it walked itself right back. A few more coral pieces may have been added during this timeframe as I occasionally bid on raffles, or swapped frags with fellow hobbyists.



At this point it was early November and I was surprised with the amount of growth I was getting from my mystic sunset and started documenting the progress. I also began to add kalk to my ATO to help keep up my nutrients. I had been adding more and more coral that I expected to decrease calcium and alkalinity and tried to combat that.



At this point I started adding more zoa frags to the right side of the rock work, one of the original placement plans I followed through on. The nuisance algae was also dying down due to a number of factors. I manually removed some, scrubbed the rock work that had tough patches, heavily disturbed the sandbed to stir up any loose algae, and began frequently removing the mp10 guard. The sponge guard would collected a lot of algae which made it fairly easy to remove. Around this time, the amount of chaeto I had grown was reaching near peak mass. The growth of the macro algae could also have helped to stop the algae from growing back as quick.



At this point I started disturbing the refugium to stir up the detritus building up. I have a sponge on the "exit" of the refugium which helps to filter out the detrital matter. I still need to do a thorough clean and trim of the refugium as the chaeto has taken off so well that the lower areas are shaded. The ceramic media balls also appeared to be thoroughly seeded and working as intended.



This photo was taken around mid November, right before I had to leave the tank for a week to travel over Thanksgiving break. I was somewhat worried about everything but luckily a roommate was able to toss in food for the fish while I was gone. Combined with an ATO, everything did great. While a week is a short period of time I noticed growth from a few frags when I got back. One of the unfortunate parts of continually checking on a tank is that you often don't realize how significant growth is until you look back on past pictures.



Heres another shot of the monti growth. It had started growing around the rock and plating off the back. I hadn't expected nearly this much growth, otherwise I might have mounted it a bit differently. I also hadn't seen many that had started to plate out similar to the growth patterns montiporas and expected it to start to grow down slightly and stop there.



A few changes were made towards the end of November. The most exciting of which was one of the clowns beginning to be hosted by the anemone. By this point the anemone had been well established as a literal centerpiece of the tank for more than a month. I also decided that I wanted to clear up the sandbed a bit and be able to frag some zoas that were getting overgrown. This lead to the addition of a small magnetic frag rack that I use for acclimation and grow out space. Along with these changes I also added a few frags of corals that we needed to trim down from our club's 150g reef tank.

 

[UM Aquarium Club]

Most recently I've been away from the tank for ~3 weeks which is tough but I'm looking forward to seeing how it's done when I get back. A few pictures I took before I left include the most recent progress for the mystic sunset, and even knowing they were supposed to be a speedy grower I've been very impressed with just how quick it is. I also made sure to glue down any zoas that still needed placing. When I return I'm hoping to have both new polyps and for the section to look more natural with some of the glue and frag plugs covered.




I have quite a few more photos but am gonna leave it there for now. Hopefully I'll be able to post a good update in a week and will continue regularly after that. Not sure how many more additions I'll make as I'm starting to run out of space to add new stuff and want to leave some room for growth. I've found some issues with photography while using the Reefbreeders light which I think might be due to how far apart the LEDs are in the fixture. This has led to the striping you see in some of the pictures. It seems to be helped by shooting at a high angle, blocking the front view of the fixture, and using a polarizing lens. If anyone has any advice for how to better deal with this I'd love to hear some tips. Other than that I've been super happy with the fixture and the growth I've been getting has been exceptional.

I've sourced this build from fellow hobbyists, so theres a chance that if you're browsing this and see familiar equipment, it could be something you've passed down.