ReefBottoms
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2026
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 16
- Location
- Palm Beach Gardens
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
Long time lurker, first time poster.
St.Pattys day of 24’ I finally put water into my first tank. The seed was planted as a young boy watching my father tote brute trash cans into our home and care for his 200+ gallon tank. This was around the time of the 08’ recession and he was only guided by the advice of his LFS. The tank ended in ich disaster and I wanted to redeem him.
I purchased a 75 gallon marineland tank that was owned by a retired cop. It was a FOWLR tank that he had kept meticulous and when I purchased it, it looked brand new. As most first tanks start, his move into a new home, was my opportunity for a tank.
I’ll spare the details of the next 30 months, but to my great accomplishment, I kept a disease free mixed reef. The tank thrived underneath a 32” reef breeder photon v2. Equipped with 3 tidal HOB filters, one of them outfitted with a Tunze Refugium light and a great ball of chaeto to help keep my nutrients in check. The hardest part of this build was keeping PO4 in check. Nitrates were dead set at 10ppm. Phosphates however required constant GFO media.
As far as my parameters went, a typical test looked something like
8.0dkh
410-430 calc
1350-1400 mag
10 nitrate
.15 - .25 phosphate (this was my cryptonite, and I so desperately tried to keep it under 0.10)
2 Clowns, 2 Tangs, Ruby headed wrasse, mandarin goby, yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair, and a flameback angel called this tank home.
LPS thrived, Zoas I purposely isolated to one rock, covered every square inch, and the sand was kept spotless by my hard working blue legs, nassarius, Mexican turbos, urchins, and other clean up crew.
I began adding SPS about 14 months ago.
Simple digitata. I was nervous to take the step towards keeping any sticks. Reading through comments on these threads and Facebook, it felt like a sin to be keeping anything in a sumpless tank, let alone trying to dabble in the moderate to “expert” side of growing corals. I heard these were the “weeds” of SPS. Not as desirable and grow in a quick hurry. After a few months and my first couple frags began to transform, I dipped my toe into acro and anacropora frags. The growth was slow at first, but as a learned the daily dose my tank needed to maintain a stable alkalinity, the sluggish growth began picking up speed. The dull color they had when I purchased them, began to color up nicely.
As poly extension improved and encrusting and upwards growth went day by day, my wife and I had to make a hard decision. The house needed to be rearranged. Life changes, babies join the family, and new needs stump old choices. Words I simply didn’t want to hear. But as time went on, the inevitable was to happen. I had to move this tank, which in my mind I had “mastered”. Not because if you put it side by side to another tank of that size that the coral colonies would shadow others. Not by 10 miles. It was how much I learned, and how well oiled I had this sumpless machine. I went from not knowing the nitrogen cycle, to maintaining a pest free, disease free, mixed reef. Full of fat fish, fluffy polyped corals, and enough DIY to make your head spin.
I made my own lids to replace the stock glass lids. Using aluminum screen netting and bird netting from Lowe’s. The DIY hang on back refugium made out of a tidal filter, which I have not specifically seen done anywhere else online. The lack of space underneath the tank, only two cabinets, led me to use a 10 gallon tall glass aquarium from petsmart as an RO reservoir. A cheap alternative to purchasing acrylic reservoirs, that cost 3x as much, and were ily half as big. And not forgetting all the wifi outlets I had arranged to be able to manage pumps and power heads from my phone to assist with maintenance and monitor them as my job has me on the road for up to a week at a time.
The tank has been moved, to a waterbox 110. I spent a good amount of thought into that build, and as I’m in my second week in, it’s great to report I had almost zero loses to any of my coral or livestock. One stick got lost in the process of rock rearrangement, and I take that as a sacrifice for the future of this build. I’d like to make a separate thread of my new build, and let this be a tribute to my first 30 months of reef keeping in that wonderful, sumpless, 75 gallon lesson.
St.Pattys day of 24’ I finally put water into my first tank. The seed was planted as a young boy watching my father tote brute trash cans into our home and care for his 200+ gallon tank. This was around the time of the 08’ recession and he was only guided by the advice of his LFS. The tank ended in ich disaster and I wanted to redeem him.
I purchased a 75 gallon marineland tank that was owned by a retired cop. It was a FOWLR tank that he had kept meticulous and when I purchased it, it looked brand new. As most first tanks start, his move into a new home, was my opportunity for a tank.
I’ll spare the details of the next 30 months, but to my great accomplishment, I kept a disease free mixed reef. The tank thrived underneath a 32” reef breeder photon v2. Equipped with 3 tidal HOB filters, one of them outfitted with a Tunze Refugium light and a great ball of chaeto to help keep my nutrients in check. The hardest part of this build was keeping PO4 in check. Nitrates were dead set at 10ppm. Phosphates however required constant GFO media.
As far as my parameters went, a typical test looked something like
8.0dkh
410-430 calc
1350-1400 mag
10 nitrate
.15 - .25 phosphate (this was my cryptonite, and I so desperately tried to keep it under 0.10)
2 Clowns, 2 Tangs, Ruby headed wrasse, mandarin goby, yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair, and a flameback angel called this tank home.
LPS thrived, Zoas I purposely isolated to one rock, covered every square inch, and the sand was kept spotless by my hard working blue legs, nassarius, Mexican turbos, urchins, and other clean up crew.
I began adding SPS about 14 months ago.
Simple digitata. I was nervous to take the step towards keeping any sticks. Reading through comments on these threads and Facebook, it felt like a sin to be keeping anything in a sumpless tank, let alone trying to dabble in the moderate to “expert” side of growing corals. I heard these were the “weeds” of SPS. Not as desirable and grow in a quick hurry. After a few months and my first couple frags began to transform, I dipped my toe into acro and anacropora frags. The growth was slow at first, but as a learned the daily dose my tank needed to maintain a stable alkalinity, the sluggish growth began picking up speed. The dull color they had when I purchased them, began to color up nicely.
As poly extension improved and encrusting and upwards growth went day by day, my wife and I had to make a hard decision. The house needed to be rearranged. Life changes, babies join the family, and new needs stump old choices. Words I simply didn’t want to hear. But as time went on, the inevitable was to happen. I had to move this tank, which in my mind I had “mastered”. Not because if you put it side by side to another tank of that size that the coral colonies would shadow others. Not by 10 miles. It was how much I learned, and how well oiled I had this sumpless machine. I went from not knowing the nitrogen cycle, to maintaining a pest free, disease free, mixed reef. Full of fat fish, fluffy polyped corals, and enough DIY to make your head spin.
I made my own lids to replace the stock glass lids. Using aluminum screen netting and bird netting from Lowe’s. The DIY hang on back refugium made out of a tidal filter, which I have not specifically seen done anywhere else online. The lack of space underneath the tank, only two cabinets, led me to use a 10 gallon tall glass aquarium from petsmart as an RO reservoir. A cheap alternative to purchasing acrylic reservoirs, that cost 3x as much, and were ily half as big. And not forgetting all the wifi outlets I had arranged to be able to manage pumps and power heads from my phone to assist with maintenance and monitor them as my job has me on the road for up to a week at a time.
The tank has been moved, to a waterbox 110. I spent a good amount of thought into that build, and as I’m in my second week in, it’s great to report I had almost zero loses to any of my coral or livestock. One stick got lost in the process of rock rearrangement, and I take that as a sacrifice for the future of this build. I’d like to make a separate thread of my new build, and let this be a tribute to my first 30 months of reef keeping in that wonderful, sumpless, 75 gallon lesson.
