Reef Casa Studio 12 Build

[shimps1]

After being out of the hobby for about 10 years, I finally have time and two small kids interested in tanks, so I'm getting back in.

I've previously had a BioCube, Innovative Marine Nuvo 16, and a couple pico tanks. Generally successful, I've been able to keep SPS, clams, all sorts of LPS and softies. Only crash I ever experienced was a heater failure.

My tank this go around is in a brightly lit dining room area. Planning a mixed reef with inverts and a pair of clowns.

Equipment:

• Reef Casa Studio 12 and stand
• AI Prime 16HD
• Reef Casa Nova refugium light and refugium box for second chamber of AIO sump
• Jecod ELW-3M wavemaker

Pics to be added soon once I get everything in, but I wanted to get a build thread going now before I get too far along to start one.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Congrats!... anxiously awaiting the photos.

 

[shimps1]

Congrats!... anxiously awaiting the photos.

Working on the aquascape now.... Take a look here.

 

[shimps1]

We're up and running.

Decided on an aquascape, and used the baking soda and super glue method to build it. Solid as a rock.

Test ran the light to pick a schedule. Running the Saxby settings, we'll see how I like it. Starts ramping up around 10am, fully dark at 11PM. Moonlight at 2% for nighttime. Refugium light will be running 9PM until 9AM.

Still working on stand organization. Waiting on my ATO system to come before I worry about under there.

Used about 10ish lbs of Arag-Alive Reef sand this morning, and got it up and running.

Pretty happy with the rock. I wish the top rock wasn't quite so big, but I think it adds a good balance. There is quite a bit of unusable surface area on it, though.

I have the wavemaker (Jebao ELW-3M) running at 100% power, 40 frequency pulse, making a small wave back and forth. Took me a while to dial in the right frequency.

Live rock rubble from a local tank will be going into the back refugium this afternoon, and Fritz Turbo Start 900 shows up tomorrow to get everything rolling. Bottled coralline also showing up tomorrow, to hopefully help get some color on this dry rock quicker than usual.

Hoping for CUC around Christmas, fish and coral early Jan.

Going to need to find some artwork to hang on that bare corner of the wall. Our dining room chairs are also filthy, two young kids will do that.

 

[shimps1]

CUC added, along with pods, chaeto, and a mangrove, from ReefCleaners.

Pretty happy with the start I have. Not sure the mangrove will make it, but I like the aesthetics and wanted to give it a shot.

Still dialing in the lighting color and schedule. I prefer it a lot whiter than the available schedules AI gives on their website, so working on my own. Also struggling to get accurate photos. I got an orange filter, but my phone seems to compensate for it when I use it

CUC is diverse. Two cerith species, trochus, astrea, periwinkles, and a few hermits.

Ammonia sticking at 0, and nitrates are dropping after the chaeto and mangrove additions. I am planning on feeding pellets every couple days for the hermits, and to make sure algae is growing for the snails. Fish planned early next year.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! Curious to see what you end up doing with your tank!

 

[shimps1]

Decided to switch to Aquaforest Reef Salt+. The Hybrid Pro salt I have been using is mixing up to like a 7.4 pH, with Alk of about 7.7. I would prefer those higher, and with such a small tank, I am planning on water changes instead of dosing to keep parameters in check. Running a boosted salt like Reef Salt+ will help keep that in line.

 

[dellinwood]

Aquaforest reef salt is definitely the way to go! Assuming you know this, but the part of the rock will always be bright white, and you won’t be able to add a lid for jumpers. You could always turn the tank off, break that rock off and then break it up into a smaller piece. I foresee you wanting that part corrected 6 months from now, and there’s no better time than the present. Love the reef casa tanks

 

[MushroomMan101]

This looks great! you may want to add a small light bar in the future to help with some of the shadowing and maximum coral placement. Can't wait to see where this goes!

 

[shimps1]

Tank has been up and running for a month now. Got a small piece of live rock from a local reefer, came with tons of life.

I also have been dosing PNS Deep Cycle, added a number of copepod species, and a CUC from ReefCleaners. I added ARCReef Coralline Pink and Purple seed bottles, as well.

Everything was going smoothly, with a slated fish, shrimp, and coral delivery for tomorrow, 1/8, until I noticed a flatworm infestation last Friday. See here.

They were everywhere. My only guess is they were from the live rock I got locally, although they could have come from ReefCleaners. I doubt that, though.

I purposely chose to do a dry rock cycle with a tiny bit of live rock rubble from a local tank, to try to prevent pests. I've spent the past month building up a good bacteria base in the tank and letting it cycle. Then these guys show up. I wanted to avoid chemical treatment, which might have unknown side effects on the tank's bacteria (turns out Flatworm eXit is very tough on cerith snails), but I decided I needed to treat since now was my best chance of getting rid of them, without killing corals/livestock.

I dosed with Flatworm eXit on Sunday morning, again on Monday morning with a 2x dose (after removing my cerith snails, having noticed the issues the medication caused with them), and again Tuesday with a 3x dose. I have since performed three 40% water changes and added carbon, and the tank is ready for livestock tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there will be flatworms waiting for them in there. Even a 3x dose, left in the tank for 3 hours, didn't kill them all, but it did knock them back. My only hope at this point is that they will self regulate their population based on nutrients, and don't choke out any corals. I am thinking they may be copepod predators, because my tank was filled with copepods, to the point that the water was cloudy with them.

Two captive bred occelaris clowns, a skunk cleaner shrimp, 8 different zoathid strains, a plate coral, and a small monti cap frag all show up tomorrow morning. Hoping everything goes smoothly after this flatworm scare.

 

[tsharpe291]

nice little tank, ive had my eye on one of those reef casa tanks. what do you think about the quality of it?

 

[shimps1]

nice little tank, ive had my eye on one of those reef casa tanks. what do you think about the quality of it?

Build quality of the tank itself is great. I personally think the second baffle of the sump area is too tall in this version (they apparently make small improvements regularly), leading to the water level in the display being quite close to the top of the glass. See here, and more discussion here, about surface skimming.

I turned the return pump down to a 4 out of 10, and the water level came down to what you see in the pictures above. It is better, but it makes me feel like I am not maximizing the filtration from the sump.

With that said, I reached out to Reef Casa about it, and they got back to me quickly, offering to even make me a new tank with a shorter second baffle, free of charge. We discussed a bit more, and I decided I will just run with the one I have currently (surface film does seem to have improved, it may have just been part of the cycle), rather than take them up on that offer. They mentioned part of the reasoning behind the design of that baffle was to make sure there is enough water height back there to fully submerge a heater. They are looking into shortening the baffle a bit in the next versions, but not by much, to make sure a heater is safely underwater.

I think there is room to improve on the stand quality. It looks nice, and has a good finish on it but it uses those Ikea style cam and lock screws to build it. There is some "slack" in it, if that makes sense. The tank can easily sway side to side if you're wiping the glass, due to the stand having some wiggle. Not exactly confidence building. I reinforced it with some corner brackets that helped a bit, but it is still not something I would trust to allow a kid to lean against. At the same time, this is about 90 lbs of water and rock on top of a 15"x16"x36" tall stand, so it will inherently be a little tippy, since it's top heavy.

If I was to do it over, I would get one of their Tide 10 gallon tanks, I really like the look of the short lagoon tank. I originally wanted to place this tank on my kitchen counter, which limited my size dimensions. Once I decided to get a stand, I should have pivoted to the Tide 10, but I already had these dimensions in my mind, so I didn't even really look for something a bit wider/deeper.

I would recommend the tank, or any tank from Reef Casa, for sure. I might look elsewhere or build my own stand, though.