A_Poythress
Active Member
Okay, so here’s the deal.. I’ve been in the hobby for about 4-5 years now and have yet to successfully maintain a beautiful tank for over 2 years. Let me explain:
Tank 1:
I had very little money, but seriously wanted a saltwater tank. Facebook came to the rescue with a JBJ 28G AIO. In the first two months I had fish in the tank with very little cycle time. The fish survived though, and all was well. After a year, I began to hate the AIO system. This began my search for tank 2.
Tank 2:
I did it again... I purchased a brand new AIO tank (it was on sale) and loved it! I took the cycle slow this time, added fish (from previous tank) and had a year long plan to migrate into coral. It was going really well, but once again I began to hate the AIO system. Skimmers were impossible to find, equipment was rigged to the system to get very minimal functionality. Needless to say I hated the tank, which was evident by the massive hair algae outbreak that I have yet to clear.
And we are here today
Tank 3:
I do not own this tank yet, but man do I have some knowledge from my past two. This tank will NOT be an AIO system. It will be a minimum 50G system with a sump of 20G or higher.
So why have a build thread?!
I’m struggling to figure out the best way to handle a lot of decisions that are needing to be made here. My hope is to have a thread where I can talk through this process with other reefers. The end goal being, I have a beautiful tank that I love, and others learn from this along with me.
So let’s start off with a very important question!
What would be the best tank to fit the following criteria:
Tank 1:
I had very little money, but seriously wanted a saltwater tank. Facebook came to the rescue with a JBJ 28G AIO. In the first two months I had fish in the tank with very little cycle time. The fish survived though, and all was well. After a year, I began to hate the AIO system. This began my search for tank 2.
Tank 2:
I did it again... I purchased a brand new AIO tank (it was on sale) and loved it! I took the cycle slow this time, added fish (from previous tank) and had a year long plan to migrate into coral. It was going really well, but once again I began to hate the AIO system. Skimmers were impossible to find, equipment was rigged to the system to get very minimal functionality. Needless to say I hated the tank, which was evident by the massive hair algae outbreak that I have yet to clear.
And we are here today
Tank 3:
I do not own this tank yet, but man do I have some knowledge from my past two. This tank will NOT be an AIO system. It will be a minimum 50G system with a sump of 20G or higher.
So why have a build thread?!
I’m struggling to figure out the best way to handle a lot of decisions that are needing to be made here. My hope is to have a thread where I can talk through this process with other reefers. The end goal being, I have a beautiful tank that I love, and others learn from this along with me.
So let’s start off with a very important question!
What would be the best tank to fit the following criteria:
- Under $1,000 (tank and stand)
- Minimum 50G
- I do NOT want a cube
