It's been a long wait, but finally, I'm making the move for tank upgrade
Hello everyone, this is ranjib, the author of reef-pi, and a happy owner of a biocube 29. My nano is almost 5.5 years old, same as my son Ryan. We built it together and learned reefing together. It was always a dream to have a little bigger tank. I am very happy with the nano, except probably the curved front. At the same time, I feel very limited in fish choices. And as corals have grown, I feel I could use a bit more space. At the same time, I don't want to go very big, for cost, maintenance reasons. Hence settling for something in the middle. My specific equipment choices also influenced the tank size. I already have two pico tanks, other than the existing nano. This tank will replace the nano. Hopefully the biocube will find a new owner. Livestock will all be moved over to the new tank.
Goal: Maintain a healthy mixed reef with nominal configuration for easy maintenance. I'll move over my existing livestock for few sps, lps, softies and add some more in the course of time.
The tank: I have been waiting and thinking about this for more than a year now. Because I didn't wanted any large tanks, I was always thinking of something less than 120G/4ft. Red sea reefer and waterbox were then initial considerations. Later after researching more about lights and other equipment, I felt its safer to stick to 3ft shallow form factor. I was very close to settle on one of the IM tanks. But after investigating availability, stand options (wify wanted the stand to be white) it was narrowed down to red sea reefer. I still feel the height might be a little more than my desire, but I guess the higher depth/width of the XL compensates to some extent. We'll see
Equipment:
- Vectra S2 as the main return pump.
- Two MP40 for flow: Was thinking of gyre, but at the last moment switch to MP40QD, LFS (aquatic collection at hayward) told me the gyres are a bit higher on maintenance. MPs are proven..so I was ok with that.
- Kessil AP9x for light: I love kessil, I don't know why , since I feel there are better option in that price point, specially for spread. But I just love the shimmer, form factor.
- One 300W main finnex titanium heater, another 100W cobalt neotherm heater
Got most of my equipment today. Some are still inbound.
Similar to the biocube, this tank will be bare bottom. There will be moderate rock work, not a big wall, but also not whole lot of negative space. I like the asian style arching reef scape. Not sure if I can pull it off, but that's one inspiration. Want the bottom to be as open as possible for flow and cleaning.
Things I need to figure out:
- Saltwater mixing station including new RO/DI setup. I've been using RO buddy till now.
- Is it safe to keep the rockwork straight on the glass bottom? or should i use a egg crate or some other padding?
- Have to decide on the lid, get the red sea kit od get full DIY
- Have to decide Vectra S2 speed
- Have to decide on what controller features i want. Light and pump are all having their own controller. So probably more monitoring and redundancy.
- Live stock choices. Corals I can think over next few months, since settling chemistry will take time.. but fish i have to decide in next couple of months .. couple of clowns and a wrasse is already in the list. I have to decide the rest. Overall want to keep it low on bioload. so probably 7 more fish. More on this later.
The tank will arrive next Wednesday, super-duper excited, wish me luck, and thank you for reading through my build thread
ranjib
Hello everyone, this is ranjib, the author of reef-pi, and a happy owner of a biocube 29. My nano is almost 5.5 years old, same as my son Ryan. We built it together and learned reefing together. It was always a dream to have a little bigger tank. I am very happy with the nano, except probably the curved front. At the same time, I feel very limited in fish choices. And as corals have grown, I feel I could use a bit more space. At the same time, I don't want to go very big, for cost, maintenance reasons. Hence settling for something in the middle. My specific equipment choices also influenced the tank size. I already have two pico tanks, other than the existing nano. This tank will replace the nano. Hopefully the biocube will find a new owner. Livestock will all be moved over to the new tank.
Goal: Maintain a healthy mixed reef with nominal configuration for easy maintenance. I'll move over my existing livestock for few sps, lps, softies and add some more in the course of time.
The tank: I have been waiting and thinking about this for more than a year now. Because I didn't wanted any large tanks, I was always thinking of something less than 120G/4ft. Red sea reefer and waterbox were then initial considerations. Later after researching more about lights and other equipment, I felt its safer to stick to 3ft shallow form factor. I was very close to settle on one of the IM tanks. But after investigating availability, stand options (wify wanted the stand to be white) it was narrowed down to red sea reefer. I still feel the height might be a little more than my desire, but I guess the higher depth/width of the XL compensates to some extent. We'll see
Equipment:
- Vectra S2 as the main return pump.
- Two MP40 for flow: Was thinking of gyre, but at the last moment switch to MP40QD, LFS (aquatic collection at hayward) told me the gyres are a bit higher on maintenance. MPs are proven..so I was ok with that.
- Kessil AP9x for light: I love kessil, I don't know why , since I feel there are better option in that price point, specially for spread. But I just love the shimmer, form factor.
- One 300W main finnex titanium heater, another 100W cobalt neotherm heater
Got most of my equipment today. Some are still inbound.
Similar to the biocube, this tank will be bare bottom. There will be moderate rock work, not a big wall, but also not whole lot of negative space. I like the asian style arching reef scape. Not sure if I can pull it off, but that's one inspiration. Want the bottom to be as open as possible for flow and cleaning.
Things I need to figure out:
- Saltwater mixing station including new RO/DI setup. I've been using RO buddy till now.
- Is it safe to keep the rockwork straight on the glass bottom? or should i use a egg crate or some other padding?
- Have to decide on the lid, get the red sea kit od get full DIY
- Have to decide Vectra S2 speed
- Have to decide on what controller features i want. Light and pump are all having their own controller. So probably more monitoring and redundancy.
- Live stock choices. Corals I can think over next few months, since settling chemistry will take time.. but fish i have to decide in next couple of months .. couple of clowns and a wrasse is already in the list. I have to decide the rest. Overall want to keep it low on bioload. so probably 7 more fish. More on this later.
The tank will arrive next Wednesday, super-duper excited, wish me luck, and thank you for reading through my build thread
ranjib