The "Broke Boy" 36g Bowfront Sumpless Reef

[Shanasman450]

My wife decided the time was ripe to start up an aquarium after years of me whispering it in her ear but don't tell her I said that! , so we went to PetSmart to go tank shopping.

We're a bit limited on space and she wants to go with a 20L. After some convincing we settled on a 36g bowfront ( wanted the 46g bf, but she didn't like the price). Got it home and realized the top didn't come with it. I called back up to PetSmart to ask about a replacement and they informed me that our specific tank was set aside in the "do not sell" area BECAUSE it was missing the top. They told us "bring your receipt back up here and we'll refund you the cost of the tank, you can keep it". Of course I couldn't refuse that offer, so we got us a free rimless 36g bf, hell yeah. Here it is in it new home.

Equipment so far:
Ehiem Jager 100w heater
AQQA 530gph wavemaker
Nicrew 32w "reef" light (this was just to get a light on the tank, upgrades will happen)
Fluval 207 canister filter
40lbs of Caribsea Life Rock
40lbs of Caribsea Super Naturals sand (yeah, one would've done the job, I realized that too late)

Of course I couldn't wait to fill it with water, so we did. We played with the scaping a bit and settled on this for now. Now featuring a custom glass lid we had made to replace the absent stock hood.

Here it is with the light on and the scape changed to it's final rendition as of now.

Three weeks later:
One of the guys at our LFS was kind enough to give us a frag of clove polyps (unsure what kind) to see if the tanks is ready for softies.

A week or so goes by and the cloves have been doing fine, I saw some red people eaters and incredible hulks on a single plug for $25 and figured why not. Also upgraded the light to a Maxspect MJ-L165 in the meantime. Pictures will come later.

This is all I have photo documented currently, but I will post and update and bring this thread up to present date when I get more pictures.

 

[blaxsun]

Can't beat free!

 

[subaru watxher]

nice build!

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Looking good so far, the 36 bow front is a nice tank.

 

[Devaji]

nothing wrong with a budget build!
and it's looking great too.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

The price is Definitely Right!

With a glass lid, no skimmer/exposed sump, ensure you have a plan to keep the water well oxygenated. The easiest way having one of your return nozzles pointed towards the surface. With a fully glass enclosed tank, you'll need Good air exchange under the lid.

 

[Shanasman450]

The price is Definitely Right!

With a glass lid, no skimmer/exposed sump, ensure you have a plan to keep the water well oxygenated. The easiest way having one of your return nozzles pointed towards the surface. With a fully glass enclosed tank, you'll need Good air exchange under the lid.

So, the original stocking plan was:
1x firefish
1x royal gramma
2xclowns

We had the lid made with the assumption we would stick to that stocking plan. However, we decided to skip the firefish and rg and go with a kupang damsel and 2x clowns. So now the lid lives back here until we decide to keep known jumpers. Even then we may go with a mesh diy rather than the glass pane. I appreciate the info though.

 

[Shanasman450]

Thanks to everyone so far for the kind words. Here's the update:

About a week ago we went to a LFS a little further away that's known for a larger coral selection (large for NE MS anyways). We came home with another frag of zoas (we think utter chaos and VDM) and an unnamed acan

That brings us to three days ago when we picked up a kupang damsel

This was a completely accidental shot as I was trying to take pictures of the zoas to document growth. He/She just zipped into the shot and stood perfectly still at just the right moment lol.

Here's the full tank shot from just a few minutes ago.

Editing was really bad but I caught the light when it was mostly blues and my Galaxy S22 Ultra hates blues with a passion I've never seen before.

 

[Shanasman450]

Ah, nearly forgot. Here's the clove polyps after they colored up.

 

[Shanasman450]

UPDATE:

We decided we wanted to trade the people eater/hulk zoa frag for something else, and that it was time to add the clowns. My wife and I went to the LFS and dropped the zoas off. They didn't have anything interesting so we agreed to finish the trade at a later date and they can hold on to the frag we brought. We also picked up what I believe to be a black ice (cause I wanted a designer clown) and an OG nemo (for the wife).

The damsel was extremely offended by this and filed a formal complaint. While it was waiting for that to be processed it decided to give a demonstration of it's outrage by chasing the two clowns around the entire tank and harassing them. Needless to say, the complaint was disregarded and the decision to rehome the damsel was reached.

Now, I didn't take pictures of the process, but we ended up having to remove all the rockwork just to chase it down. We eventually got it out and back to the LFS. My wife and I decided it was a good time to redo the aquascaping since the first scape was rushed and the regret was real. We settled on this:

PS: The acans will not be staying there, I just haven't figured out the placement yet.

We also picked up a mystery petco BTA that immediately hid. You can barely see it in the picture above in the little cove on the left. Here's a better picture (objectively better, quality sucks but better view) from before the aquascape change of the BTA.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll report back with any updates/new fish/new corals/or anything interesting.

 

[Shanasman450]

So it's been a couple of weeks. In that time the GBT has mostly acclimated itself to our lighting and comes out the back of our rockwork (still no good pictures of this as I've been pretty busy) and is looking much happier and healthier. The two clowns have paired nicely with no issue, though they still ignore the GBT. I guess that was too much to ask. We've had a hermit death, not sure what that was about. Maybe hermit on hermit aggression .

Besides that, I've picked up an fzone ato. So far it's worked great, let's hope it stays that way. Just a little tricky to figure out though as the instructions aren't the best

I also decided to get a fluval uv sterilizer (there may be better options than fluval, but I opted for ease of installation since the fittings and tubing are the same). I'm waiting until tomorrow to pick up a second surge protector and for this fresh batch of water to mix before installing.

Now for the more exciting part. We've introduced a new member to the family. He ("he" because I'm unsure of the sex currently and it simplifies things) doesn't have a name as of yet (neither do our clowns for that matter, we're working on that). Here is our new yellow watchman goby.

Oddly enough, I can't find anything stating they'll eat any kind of algae, yet the little fella has taken care of the longer patches of whatever algae it is almost eliminating it. If anyone has any more info on the YWG's feeding habbits I'd love to discuss it further.

Anyway, my wife and I plan to get some sort of shrimp for him to pair with (I'm aware they only pair with certain types of shrimp). We're open to suggestions, so feel free to let us know what your favorite goby pairing shrimp is, I'm hoping it'll help us decide on one.

That's all for now. I'm not particularly good at photo documentation, so if there are any sort of pictures you're interested in seeing, just holler and I'll throw it in this thread. Same goes for general info about the tank I may have left out.