First things first, I'm pretty proud of the alliteration on the title of this thread, don't want it to go unnoticed. I'm brand new to the hobby, starting accumulating stuff almost over a year ago, and then got married, bought a house, began fixing up said house, and I'm now finally at the point that tank setup is coming up in the next few weeks, and I decided it's probably a good idea to write all this down somewhere. I went super unconventional and got a 40b from the petco dollar per gallon sale, and a 20L for a DIY sump, which I'm sure no one has ever done and this site isn't riddled with the exact same setup.
I didn't take many pictures, but at this point I have:
-Return Pump- Lifeguard 317 gph (may upgrade to the next size up & use as waterchange pump)
-One Hydor Koralia nano 240 gph (adding at least one 425 gph hydor once coral is added)
-Eheim Jager heater
-25lbs BRS pukani rock
-CPR Overflow box (I drilled the tank, two 1" drains for herbie, one 3/4" return)
-Bunch of misc. plumbing stuff
-Silicone & 1/4" acrylic for diy sump
-Refugium light
-A DIY stand which is mostly complete
- 10 gallon tank, hob filter & stand for QT (currently occupied by 2 clowns)
-Probably other things I've forgotten
Plan is to plumb the tank early next week, get it running by that next weekend. I cured all of the rock for over 4 months and I'm monkeying around with the aquascape now. This is attempt #1, so feel free to give any advice or pointers as I've never done coral, so I'm concerned about placement.
I have two clowns in (a cycled) QT which I got this past weekend, just gave their first dose of prazi yesterday, plan on roughly following the protocols in some of the articles on R2R. If all works out well, they should be ready to go into the tank once it's up, running and cycled.
Stand is almost complete, the framing was 2x lumber, skinned the sides with some 1/4" crappy plywood I had already, so the sides and top got painted black, the entire inside got multiple coats of white mold resistant primer, and the bottom 'tray' I sprayed with white flexseal, which if you're wondering smells like cancer in a can. I have two 2'x4' sheets of pretty nice looking 1/4" birch plywood, and some 1x2 that I'm making some doors out of once I'm done with some of the other stuff, they'll just be finished with poly. I've built some furniture before, really prefer simple design which is why there's no trim, and not staining the wood, just letting it do it's thing, looking natural. In this case I got cheap and didn't want nice plywood for the sides, but the tank is tucked into a nook, so the sides are both going to be 6" away from the wall, so who cares if it's just black.
So yeah, plan is to start this thing as a FOWLER for a while. My goal is to keep it as simple as possible. Filtration is primarily rock, refugium and water changes. I'd like to not have a skimmer just because of cost, and it's one less thing to break down and clean every few months, but the sump will be designed to accept one if I decide later to add. The stand has room for the sump, and a 5 gal. bucket that can be for an ATO, which I'm waiting to get until black friday sales most likely. Same goes for lighting, I'm leaning towards two AI Primes, I've thought about SB Reef as well, so I'll wait on lights until I find some deals.
Overall, I want this to be a decent setup, while also being cheap as possible. I don't plan on buying anything that I need to upgrade a year down the line, so I'd rather leave equipment out (skimmer for example) entirely but have the system able to add one easily. Cheap isn't going to be crappy equipment, just not dumping a ton of money on top of the line equipment when something more economical will do.
This is probably way longer of a post than it had any business being. Again, this is my first reef so by all means, let me know opinions, ideas, anything at all. Thanks.
I didn't take many pictures, but at this point I have:
-Return Pump- Lifeguard 317 gph (may upgrade to the next size up & use as waterchange pump)
-One Hydor Koralia nano 240 gph (adding at least one 425 gph hydor once coral is added)
-Eheim Jager heater
-25lbs BRS pukani rock
-CPR Overflow box (I drilled the tank, two 1" drains for herbie, one 3/4" return)
-Bunch of misc. plumbing stuff
-Silicone & 1/4" acrylic for diy sump
-Refugium light
-A DIY stand which is mostly complete
- 10 gallon tank, hob filter & stand for QT (currently occupied by 2 clowns)
-Probably other things I've forgotten
Plan is to plumb the tank early next week, get it running by that next weekend. I cured all of the rock for over 4 months and I'm monkeying around with the aquascape now. This is attempt #1, so feel free to give any advice or pointers as I've never done coral, so I'm concerned about placement.
I have two clowns in (a cycled) QT which I got this past weekend, just gave their first dose of prazi yesterday, plan on roughly following the protocols in some of the articles on R2R. If all works out well, they should be ready to go into the tank once it's up, running and cycled.
Stand is almost complete, the framing was 2x lumber, skinned the sides with some 1/4" crappy plywood I had already, so the sides and top got painted black, the entire inside got multiple coats of white mold resistant primer, and the bottom 'tray' I sprayed with white flexseal, which if you're wondering smells like cancer in a can. I have two 2'x4' sheets of pretty nice looking 1/4" birch plywood, and some 1x2 that I'm making some doors out of once I'm done with some of the other stuff, they'll just be finished with poly. I've built some furniture before, really prefer simple design which is why there's no trim, and not staining the wood, just letting it do it's thing, looking natural. In this case I got cheap and didn't want nice plywood for the sides, but the tank is tucked into a nook, so the sides are both going to be 6" away from the wall, so who cares if it's just black.
So yeah, plan is to start this thing as a FOWLER for a while. My goal is to keep it as simple as possible. Filtration is primarily rock, refugium and water changes. I'd like to not have a skimmer just because of cost, and it's one less thing to break down and clean every few months, but the sump will be designed to accept one if I decide later to add. The stand has room for the sump, and a 5 gal. bucket that can be for an ATO, which I'm waiting to get until black friday sales most likely. Same goes for lighting, I'm leaning towards two AI Primes, I've thought about SB Reef as well, so I'll wait on lights until I find some deals.
Overall, I want this to be a decent setup, while also being cheap as possible. I don't plan on buying anything that I need to upgrade a year down the line, so I'd rather leave equipment out (skimmer for example) entirely but have the system able to add one easily. Cheap isn't going to be crappy equipment, just not dumping a ton of money on top of the line equipment when something more economical will do.
This is probably way longer of a post than it had any business being. Again, this is my first reef so by all means, let me know opinions, ideas, anything at all. Thanks.
