It's been about 15 years since I kept a reef tank. In the late 90s and early 2000s I had a few nano and mid-sized tanks. I called it quits after a few years because those smaller tanks grew boring and always left me wanting something bigger. I was moving around a lot and renting, so it wasn't really a feasible option. Fast forward to today and I'm pretty well settled, so I decided to come back to reefing and build the kind of tank I had always wanted. I've got a deposit down with Reef Savvy for an ~200g beauty and I actually got called up the other day. Unfortunately, I had to ask to be moved back to the end of the line though. I was expecting to have a house remodel done by the time my spot in line was called, but Covid messed that up real good. Now I've got to wait some more because I don't want to risk drywall dust and the like getting in my tank In the meantime, I decided to stand up a small 20G office tank to scratch the itch and at least get some established rock for the big tank going. I expect I'll eventually turn this into a quarantine or frag tank.
So far I've built a simple little stand out of walnut plywood:
I also set up a RO/Mixing station. Super overkill for this little 20G, but will use this for an AWC set-up for the eventual big tank. The tubing coming out of the wall is for that eventual purpose. I figured I'd just put it in while I had the wall opened up to install the laundry box. I used to lug 5g buckets of RO water from the LFS, so I'm super happy with how this turned out and think it will save me a lot of time.
This week I'll be putting in the water, sand, and live rock. I ordered 25lbs from KP Aquatics air freighted in water. Hoping to get lots of life and a pretty minimal cycle! I used to love the real fiji rock, bummed you can't get that anymore.
Thanks for reading!
So far I've built a simple little stand out of walnut plywood:
I also set up a RO/Mixing station. Super overkill for this little 20G, but will use this for an AWC set-up for the eventual big tank. The tubing coming out of the wall is for that eventual purpose. I figured I'd just put it in while I had the wall opened up to install the laundry box. I used to lug 5g buckets of RO water from the LFS, so I'm super happy with how this turned out and think it will save me a lot of time.
This week I'll be putting in the water, sand, and live rock. I ordered 25lbs from KP Aquatics air freighted in water. Hoping to get lots of life and a pretty minimal cycle! I used to love the real fiji rock, bummed you can't get that anymore.
Thanks for reading!