Rubble reef 46g bowfront build thread

[Rubblereefer]

Hi guys, my reef is coming up on a year old, I started it in November of 18. . A bit late but thought I’d make a build thread.
I was a fw guy forever. I set up my very first reef tank about 6 months before hurricane sandy, at work. Needless to say that didn’t go well, and I got out of the salt life for a while.
For 3 years this oceanic 46 gallon bowfront was a discus tank. After I lost both discuss to disease, I decided to clean it up and sell it on Craigslist. Well a few hours later it was sparkling clean, and something clicked... I should make this a Fowlr tank! I went ahead and bought some live sand and rock, filled her up with some instant ocean, and immediately realized I was going to need to make this a full on reef tank! Things then spiraled out of control as reefer madness set in. The first pic is the tank a couple weeks in when I first got my lights. At this point I was still running it with just the old canister filter and an old HOB filter! Now I know much better

Gear:
Reef octo 110int
Dsuny LEDs
2 t5s, coral blue
Eshopps overflow
Bashsea sump
No filter sock, instead I have Tumbling bio balls and a teaspoon of bio pellets in a filter cup
Kessil h80 fuge light and cheato in the fuge, marine pure spheres and ceramic rings in the bottom of the fuge
Icecap 1k gyre, an mp10, a Chinese sun sun powerhead, and a koralia 240 behind the rocks
Brs mini reactor for carbon gfo
Hob for quick media additions if needed ad a little extra flow
2x jaebo fa 1000 fountain pumps as return pumps. Soft tubing plumbing
Neptune apex jr with atk
Built the hood to hide the lights out of plywood and lumber
Painted the wall behind the tank black to complete the look

Here is the progress over the course of about a year. Still always improving it of course! Thanks for looking guys, hope you like it. Happy reefing!

 

[reef lover]

Looking awesome! Love the canopy!

 

[Rubblereefer]

Things are going pretty well, and I’ve added a bunch of upgrades.

I built the worlds smallest “fish room“ in part of an adjacent closet.added a DOS for auto water changes and I’m doing 1 gal per day so about 2% daily. I used the cable management channels shown to run RO to my brute can, then out of the closet around the corner to the tank. I also picked up a 10 gallon tank and a brs pump to draw ato through the cable hiders too. Learned my lesson and got some simple float shut offs for the ato and brute can.

Things had been growing well with Just kalkwasser in the ATO but I finally reached the point where dkh was slipping down, so I also added a BRS doser and some TM all for reef. kalkwasser is still my primary dosing method but I’m currently using 11ml per day of A4R throughout the day to keep dkh right about 8.

I finally added a light under my super cramped sump, just some cheap eBay led strips but it looks cool, and now I m not changing aaa batteries constantly like I was with the little dollar store leds.

Also picked up the new noopsyche T5 hybrid fixture which is an awesome unit, and way less sketchy than my diy specials! I’m running 2 ati blue plus, 1 coral plus and one actinic, and still using the DSunny leds with it for now. They seem to be working fine so I’d rather just keep it stable. I might upgrade to some kessils, hydras,or noopsyche leds down the road. I run the t5s 6 hrs per day, and the leds ramp up 40% blue 10% white. I need to remeasure PAR with the 2 extra t5s and see if changes are necessary.

 

[Rubblereefer]

 

[Rubblereefer]

Happy corals

 

[Rubblereefer]

Been a while, the tank is doing awesome!

 

[Rubblereefer]

Update, just going slow and steady. Dosing only kalkwasser at maximum saturation through my ATO, which is keeping my dkh right around 7-8. Eventually I’ll likely need to supplement a bit, so I set up a kamoer dosing pump to dose all for reef once alkalinity starts slipping below NSW levels. I’m feeding the crap out of the tank, but nitrate and phosphate levels always test near zero or undetectable. Heavy in heavy out I guess, I’m growing about a soccer ball sized clump of cheato every month, and have the skimmer running 24/7