Mangimi
Community Member
Hi
I thought I would post my tank here and my experiences with it. I bought a used Waterbox 25G. In retrospect, I wish I had just bought one without a filter chamber and build a DIY drain and sump.
AF rock and "live" sand was used. To be honest, all that stuff with live and bacteria on it is just crab. I don't think there's any significant benefit from using that stuff. I used AF reef salt and RO water with a resin filter.
It's standing on a DIY plywood stand. I wish I had glued it together as it is a little wobbly
I'm using an AI prime 16 HD which I hate. It seems to selectively grill some corals (especially mushrooms) and starve others (SPS). Anyway that's what I'm having for now.
I filled it up with water on the 25th of February and bought the first corals on the 26th. Mostly mushrooms, the ricordeas were glued up high in the reef and are still doing fine. The blue discomas just let go of their rocks and dissappeared into nothingness. The forest fire mushrooms nearly went extinct, only one is left. I also rescued a single clove polyp that now, 8 month later is 5.
Because there were basically no nutrients in the tank at that point and the water was sterile (yeah I dosedsnake oil bacteria), I added a pair of clowns shortly after. About 12th of March.
Over the next months I added some more corals and a six line wrasse and everything works fine
Except for the tragic loss of my discoma mushrooms, probably due to me playing with the lights too much, or due to starvation, the tank is doing quite fine. I do struggle with SPS coloration and growth but my LPS (the few ones I got) grow really good. I tried to shorten the large Euphyllia colony and broke a polyp into three. All fragments recovered and are still alive. Where I live, in Norway, I don't have a reef shop anywhere near me, so I'm relying on frags from other hobbyists. I'd love to get more LPS, duncans, acans, gonios and lobos etc. but they are hard to get. About a 15hrs drive... Shipping live animals is not allowed here.
What do I do for water treatment?
I have a Jebao MWL-10 stream pump,the waterbox return pump, a heater, a ATO and a single channel dosing pump dosing all for reef. That's it. I do a 10% water change every 10-20 days.
Ca: 430
kH: 8-9
NO3 < 2
PO4 < 0.02
No skimmer, no filtration, no carbon. For a 25G it's as little work as possible. All I do is feed the fish.
My latest FTS is here (about three days after removal of filter wool):
I thought I would post my tank here and my experiences with it. I bought a used Waterbox 25G. In retrospect, I wish I had just bought one without a filter chamber and build a DIY drain and sump.
AF rock and "live" sand was used. To be honest, all that stuff with live and bacteria on it is just crab. I don't think there's any significant benefit from using that stuff. I used AF reef salt and RO water with a resin filter.
It's standing on a DIY plywood stand. I wish I had glued it together as it is a little wobbly
I'm using an AI prime 16 HD which I hate. It seems to selectively grill some corals (especially mushrooms) and starve others (SPS). Anyway that's what I'm having for now.
I filled it up with water on the 25th of February and bought the first corals on the 26th. Mostly mushrooms, the ricordeas were glued up high in the reef and are still doing fine. The blue discomas just let go of their rocks and dissappeared into nothingness. The forest fire mushrooms nearly went extinct, only one is left. I also rescued a single clove polyp that now, 8 month later is 5.
Because there were basically no nutrients in the tank at that point and the water was sterile (yeah I dosed
Over the next months I added some more corals and a six line wrasse and everything works fine
Except for the tragic loss of my discoma mushrooms, probably due to me playing with the lights too much, or due to starvation, the tank is doing quite fine. I do struggle with SPS coloration and growth but my LPS (the few ones I got) grow really good. I tried to shorten the large Euphyllia colony and broke a polyp into three. All fragments recovered and are still alive. Where I live, in Norway, I don't have a reef shop anywhere near me, so I'm relying on frags from other hobbyists. I'd love to get more LPS, duncans, acans, gonios and lobos etc. but they are hard to get. About a 15hrs drive... Shipping live animals is not allowed here.
What do I do for water treatment?
I have a Jebao MWL-10 stream pump,the waterbox return pump, a heater, a ATO and a single channel dosing pump dosing all for reef. That's it. I do a 10% water change every 10-20 days.
Ca: 430
kH: 8-9
NO3 < 2
PO4 < 0.02
No skimmer, no filtration, no carbon. For a 25G it's as little work as possible. All I do is feed the fish.
My latest FTS is here (about three days after removal of filter wool):
