Ace25
Active Member
Little back story... been in this hobby a couple decades now (saltwater), corals for a dozen years. I have had multiple tanks running for nearly as long. When I got into corals I fell off the deep end, and was spending $ like crazy, on corals, and all the other items I thought were "required" to run a reef tank (skimmers, reactors, controllers, etc). A couple years ago it was finally taking its toll on me, both financially and time consuming (always testing/cleaning/water changes) and I was about to throw in the towel. I decided to make one last attempt at the hobby, this time, doing the opposite of what I have always done and try and run a reef tank as cheaply as possible. I feel I succeeded but only with the years of knowledge gained previously. This is not a method I would suggest for beginners.
Back story to this tank, I had a 29G in my bedroom (I have a 75G and 2 more 29G and a 10G running in my living room now) and I had outgrown it but didn't have a bigger tank. As luck would have it, someone a few blocks away from me that I have known for years was finally upgrading his tank. He posted on the local forum that the tank/stand/sump were free to first person to take it... no takers after a week and he posted he was going to bring it to the dump the next day. Since no one else wanted it I contacted him and picked it up. This is how it looked before and after I cleaned it up.
This is the only filtration I use on the tank, a cheap ATS.
This is how it looked after I transferred everything out of my 29G (which used to be my "Free" tank because everything inside the tank was given to me) to my new Free tank.
Left side / Right Side pics
And this is how it looks today after cleaning it up and making it more of a "minimalistic" tank.
The lighting I used a DIY 24 LED light I had my for my 29G, just added optics to the LEDs and hung the fixture. Works great for a 60G tank and can even grow SPS corals.
In total, I have spent less than $300 on this tank since I set it up a year ago and $180 was on the LED light (that I made for a different tank previously). So far it has been setup for almost a year and I have not done anything to it except clean the algae screen twice a month and dump in some top off water every couple of days. By far the cheapest and easiest reef tank I have setup.
Back story to this tank, I had a 29G in my bedroom (I have a 75G and 2 more 29G and a 10G running in my living room now) and I had outgrown it but didn't have a bigger tank. As luck would have it, someone a few blocks away from me that I have known for years was finally upgrading his tank. He posted on the local forum that the tank/stand/sump were free to first person to take it... no takers after a week and he posted he was going to bring it to the dump the next day. Since no one else wanted it I contacted him and picked it up. This is how it looked before and after I cleaned it up.
This is the only filtration I use on the tank, a cheap ATS.
This is how it looked after I transferred everything out of my 29G (which used to be my "Free" tank because everything inside the tank was given to me) to my new Free tank.
Left side / Right Side pics
And this is how it looks today after cleaning it up and making it more of a "minimalistic" tank.
The lighting I used a DIY 24 LED light I had my for my 29G, just added optics to the LEDs and hung the fixture. Works great for a 60G tank and can even grow SPS corals.
In total, I have spent less than $300 on this tank since I set it up a year ago and $180 was on the LED light (that I made for a different tank previously). So far it has been setup for almost a year and I have not done anything to it except clean the algae screen twice a month and dump in some top off water every couple of days. By far the cheapest and easiest reef tank I have setup.
