My 28g JBJ pratice tank

[WillKatt]

So as my story goes about 4 years ago I saw my first well established reef and thought "WOW I want to do that". So I started planning my own and along the way started over several times while never actually getting a tank wet until I got to the point where I was undergoing a pretty serious 350 gallon in wall build complete with every toy anyone could ever want. I poured through the books reading each one cover to cover until one day a good friend on mine who I had met along the way said "All the reading in the world is not going to prepare you for what your trying to do" and suggested I at least set up a small all in one tank to get a feel for and make sure I even liked it.

Made good sense to me so a little over a year ago I bought and set up a 28g JBJ nano cube. Lets just say my friend was right. I really didnt know much despite all my reading. This little tank has suffered through every atrocity from massive algae and cyano outbreakes to zoa eating nudis and AEFW to most recently and HORRIFYING, my house sitter dumping a full bottle of hand lotion YES hand lotion into my tank on Thanksgiving day.

So here are a few picks of what my practice tank is today 3 months post lotion apocalypse. Please bear in mind when I set this up I had no experience with keeping any kind of marine life, freshwater or otherwise so if my aqua scaping and coral placement skillz seem non existent that's because they were. I have learned so much from this experience it has been a good one.

Yes some of the pics especially the FTS is a bit saturated. I just have a crappy point and shoot. Maybe one day Ill get a real camera.

 

[Betroc2]

Wish I had your colorful thumb.:jaw: This is what I want.

 

[WillKatt]

Thanks!

Well hopefully you can do it without the lotion incident let me just say that was no fun. I was a 1000 miles away with my inlaws that hate me, my wife got the flew on the way out and was really sick then to top it all off the house sitter calls and says "I was supposed to poor the white stuff in the tank right?"

Many of the corals bleached badly and came back brown like the red planet on the sand bed. Some came back slightly different then before and some just completly RTNed.

 

[Betroc2]

Sounds like you had a real bad day. I will have a basic set up. Can I have good results with that? Or did you add something to keep the corals alive and healthy.

 

[Rikerbear]

GORGEOUS!!
Did you upgrade the lighting in the nano or did you get those amazing results with the lighting that came with the tank?

 

[WillKatt]

I did originally buy the JBJ with the full LED hood but about 2 months after setting it up I won an AI nano sol at a local reef club raffle. I assumed that the AI would be better but I cant say for one way or another that this was actually the case. I ran the AI for about 5 to 7 months im not sure then upgraded to a gen1 Radion and have had that ever since.

I'm not sure that the AI nano was putting off quit enough light, at least for the sps but others have reported good success with it. So far the Radion has been my favorite of the three and I plan on going with the Radion Pros at some point over the new tank im still building. I have 2 MP10s running at just past half power. I think two mp10s is definitly over kill but it allows me to get the flow I want without blowing the sand all around the tank with just one.

Aside from the light. I also use a DIY Algae Turf Scrubber in the main back chamber and an external media reactor for carbon and GFO. I have an elos osomocontroller hooked up to a 2.5 gallon reservoir under the stand that I used for my ATO and to run kalk. Later I started dosing 2 part with the BRS pumps on an RKE controller. About a month ago I stopped using kalk all together and am currently dosing 18 ml a day of the BRS 2 part and performing 5 gallon water changes every week to keep up with the demands. I think I need to bump the dosage again because I have noticed my alk is start to fall off again. I try to keep it as close to 9dkh as possible.

I have tried many of the mini skimmers but none of the hang off the back ones. The ones I have tried didn't really do much for me in fact the Tunze skimmer I used created more problems than it really solved. I struggled with nutrient issue for awhile until I started using the ATS. I personally have had the most success with that.

Heres just some more pics of what I'm running.

Turf Scrubber

 

[Rikerbear]

Impressive set up!

 

[Betroc2]

Oh, my I guess what your saying is If I want my tank to pop like yours I have a lot of work to do.:tongue: Thanks for all the ideas. It might be a while before I can have a setup like yours.

 

[Dixie_reefer]

Very nice setup! I probably would have strangled the house sitter! Very nice comeback! What is the sps in the first picture?

 

[WillKatt]

Its a garf bonsai

 

[rockinzebra457]

Your tank looks great!!


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[WillKatt]

Thanks for all the nice comments. The trick will be keeping it on this path. It seems for every three months of success I have there are 3 months in between where I'm fighting something. There is no reason you cant be even more successful than me. You just have to be really patient and know that your going to run into issues. Id say the biggest thing I didn't understand and I didn't read anywhere and no one bothered to tell me was that it takes about 6 months for the tank to become established enough for things to really start thriving at least this was the case for me. In the beginning every sps I dropped in even easy one like monti caps and digi would just die or barely hang by a thread even though all my parameters where in line.

This was a big problem for me because I though it was my light, my flow, what I was feeding, what i wasn't feeding, the alignment of the stars, anything except the fact that it was just a new tank. Im no expert and more than likely in another month or two my tank will look like crap again. The best advise I can offer not really feeling like im in much of a place to give advice is just go slow. It so easy to just want to start dropping in new corals after the tank has cycled. By all means start with some easier very hardy corals but leave the sps out for a good long while and you should be fine. This tank is only about 1.5 years old and honestly if i had know what i know know it could have looked like this after 10-12 months.

Oh, my I guess what your saying is If I want my tank to pop like yours I have a lot of work to do.:tongue: Thanks for all the ideas. It might be a while before I can have a setup like yours.

 

[revsgirl]

Looks great!


Chasing the Dream Giver, not the dream! Tonya