Jbj 45

[Saberfal]

Hello welcome to my build!

I've been in the hobby for about 10 years now and just started a new tank.

Started with dry rock and dry sand. Don't think I'll be doing that again in any future builds.

Tank is a jbj 45

Equipment:
Lighting - ai prime 16hd (may add a 2nd down the road)
Ato - tunze osmolator
Powerheads - mp40 and ai nero 3
Refugium by cpr with 600 watt black box horticulture light
Return pumps - stock for right now

Stock list:
Pair of clowns
Coral beauty

Corals:
Some gsp for backwall
Recordia
Acans


Plans:
Keep things simple.
Going without a skimmer. Have quite a bit of flow and cleaning out the aio chambers is really easy.
Looking to do more of a mixed reef.
A couple of zoa/play rocks. Some LPS where I can put them, and as much sps as I can manage to fit!

I do want to get an apex for some monitoring and quality of life features.
I also want to use the controller to automate 2 part dosing when water changes can't take care of the uptake.

 

[Zach B]

Nice equipment list & setup! Following along

 

[Saberfal]

Nice equipment list & setup! Following along

Thanks should turn out pretty good in a few months!

 

[Saberfal]

So I work as an otr truck driver and setting this tank up has had some unique challenges.

I was hoping to keep the setup on the simple side, but that just isn't working right now.

I'm away about 4-5 days at a time and needed to use an automatic feeder.

Problem is that my nutrient import is greater than my export. So nitrates and phosphates are higher than I'd like.
Typically around 7ppm nitrate and up to .25 ppm phosphate.

I tried adding some additional fish hoping that the fish waste would break down slower than the food. This hasn't shown to be effective.

My refugium was just recently added and that will take more time to mature.

In the meantime my water has constantly been cloudy.

Diatoms have been rampant.

This is with doing 50% water changes every week without exception.


So I picked up a good uv sterilizer, new rodi system, skimmer, dosing pump, and media reactor.

The new plan involves using the skimmer for extra nutrient removal and the uv to clarify the water.

If need be I can run the reactor with whatever media I need to further control nutrients.

I also can use the dosing pump which I would use with nopox from red sea. Also future proofs the tank for when I need to start running 2 part.

I haven't had any issues with fish, inverts, or corals. However I do want to keep it that way. I know slowly increasing nutrients is a problem even if it's not causing one today.

Fish added:
Melanarus wrasse (had a possible introduction of red planarian worms on my chaeto)
A small orange finned tang

I did wash the chaeto very well when I got it and hadn't even heard of red flat worms. Chaeto had a couple small red blobs. Have not seen any in the fuge or tank.

Equipment:
Us advantage uv
Icecap k1-50 skimmer (about the only skimmer I could find that I use in the aio chamber)
Jebao dp-4 newer version 2.4? I think

Once I get everything put in I'll take some pictures to show the placement of everything.

The tank is becoming a bit of monster with all the equipment and wish I had just gotten a 120g or something! Definitely miss having a sump.

 

[Saberfal]

Got home this week, excited to hook up all the new equipment. However found out a tradegy had struck while I was away.

All my fish except for my clowns were dead.

Next morning one of the clowns had a little issue with swimming. Like getting tossed by the current from what looked like fatigue.

Parameters, temp, everything normal. Though I noticed this second clown seemed to be losing its slime coat.

Moved both clowns to the med tank and within a couple hours it passed too.

I didn't notice any tell tale signs of disease other than the slime coat sloughing issue.
All fish looked fine before I left for work.

All the deaths occurred within a 4-5 day period which led me to think that velvet may have been the culprit here.

Ended up moving some rock and bam melanarus wrasse pops out of the sand and I about hit the floor with a heart attack.

Also said screw and got me a 120g!

So once that's up and running I'll be using this tank as a fancy qt for a while and then part it out.