Joe G
Active Member
Hello,
My name is Joe.
I’ve been out of the hobby for two years now.
Prior to that I had a couple successful reef tanks. Since January I’ve been getting real itchy after being bit by the reef bug again. It got me at a sea food restaurant that had a 50 gal reef with some leather corals and anemones. I remember looking at it feeling disappointed at how terribly unmaintained it was. Then that thought got me looking at old pics of my past tanks which lead to me stalking tanks on reef2reef. I enjoy reading people’s builds and seeing all the amazing reefs out there. Hats off to all u super creative masters at reef keeping . I blame u for getting me back to this beautiful and stressful hobby.
Then the debate in my head began to go back and forth like a tennis match.
On one hand, I was getting burnt out,which at the end, got me out of the hobby. I had to much invested and it became more stressful then enjoyable. On the other hand, I missed watching a tank grow out, and the challenges that come with it.
Then there is the expense factor to consider, I’m sure everyone here knows the upfront money in investing in a tank is a smack in the face, not to mention the monthly cost of food, test kits, salt, chemicals, live stock ect ... It quickly adds up.
So after weeks of deliberating, I managed to convinced myself that I wanted a tank again.
I still had to get over the hurdle of convincing my wife lol.
She immediately reminded me of all the complaints I used to have and tried to talk me out of it, even so she reluctantly agreed “if it makes you happy, to go for it”.
That’s one of the reasons she’s the best!
Now, I was at the point where I really had to do some math and figure out what I wanted, and how much I was gonna have to save up.
My wife’s only request was no junky looking mess in her living room, so I had to choose something modern and clean looking.
I know I had to have a controller because it makes things much easer in the long run.
It also had to be a smaller tank, something easy to manage with a busy schedule.
I live in a condo, on the top floor, and I once had an 80 gal but, I used to get anxious worrying about a leak that would dump 80 gal of saltwater on all my neighbors.
So after carefully considering my options, I would eventually purchase a redsea reefer 43 gal tank.
The up front cost of the tank and all the equipment was too expensive to purchase all at once. So I slowly started purchasing all the gear. Thanks to reef2reef, most of the gear purchased was pre owned. I needed to save money where I could. I’m going to try to buy the redsea on a Black Friday sale, if possible.
For now, I purchased a water box aquarium 10 gal tank.
So after all that said here is my first nano build.
I got some BRS dry rock cycling in the tank as of May 1, 2018
I added bio digest bacteria from the LFS. I would have preferred Dr Tim’s, but that’s what the LFS had, and I did not feel like paying for priority-shipping for drTim’s . I did use dr Tim’s ammonia to feed the bacteria.
I’ve never tried the bio digest, so hopefully it works . I have also never tried starting a tank with all dry rock.
I’ve had much success with live rock in the past, but it also comes with the burden of all types of hitchhikers. I hope to avoid battling these types of pests, this time around.
Gear list
Waterbox 10 gal cube
Radion xr15 gen 4
Mp10
Tunze 3155 Ato
Apex classic
Heater
10 pounds of brs dry rock
Black sand at wife’s request not sure if it’s staying
It’s been almost three weeks since I started the cycling process.
My ammonia is at 0 and my nitrite and nitrate are both sky high.
I will be patiently waiting over the next few weeks to months for them to level out and pass all the algae phases .
I will keep you guys posted when the cycle is complete, and I’m ready to add live stock.
Thanks for checking out my build !!
My name is Joe.
I’ve been out of the hobby for two years now.
Prior to that I had a couple successful reef tanks. Since January I’ve been getting real itchy after being bit by the reef bug again. It got me at a sea food restaurant that had a 50 gal reef with some leather corals and anemones. I remember looking at it feeling disappointed at how terribly unmaintained it was. Then that thought got me looking at old pics of my past tanks which lead to me stalking tanks on reef2reef. I enjoy reading people’s builds and seeing all the amazing reefs out there. Hats off to all u super creative masters at reef keeping . I blame u for getting me back to this beautiful and stressful hobby.
Then the debate in my head began to go back and forth like a tennis match.
On one hand, I was getting burnt out,which at the end, got me out of the hobby. I had to much invested and it became more stressful then enjoyable. On the other hand, I missed watching a tank grow out, and the challenges that come with it.
Then there is the expense factor to consider, I’m sure everyone here knows the upfront money in investing in a tank is a smack in the face, not to mention the monthly cost of food, test kits, salt, chemicals, live stock ect ... It quickly adds up.
So after weeks of deliberating, I managed to convinced myself that I wanted a tank again.
I still had to get over the hurdle of convincing my wife lol.
She immediately reminded me of all the complaints I used to have and tried to talk me out of it, even so she reluctantly agreed “if it makes you happy, to go for it”.
That’s one of the reasons she’s the best!
Now, I was at the point where I really had to do some math and figure out what I wanted, and how much I was gonna have to save up.
My wife’s only request was no junky looking mess in her living room, so I had to choose something modern and clean looking.
I know I had to have a controller because it makes things much easer in the long run.
It also had to be a smaller tank, something easy to manage with a busy schedule.
I live in a condo, on the top floor, and I once had an 80 gal but, I used to get anxious worrying about a leak that would dump 80 gal of saltwater on all my neighbors.
So after carefully considering my options, I would eventually purchase a redsea reefer 43 gal tank.
The up front cost of the tank and all the equipment was too expensive to purchase all at once. So I slowly started purchasing all the gear. Thanks to reef2reef, most of the gear purchased was pre owned. I needed to save money where I could. I’m going to try to buy the redsea on a Black Friday sale, if possible.
For now, I purchased a water box aquarium 10 gal tank.
So after all that said here is my first nano build.
I got some BRS dry rock cycling in the tank as of May 1, 2018
I added bio digest bacteria from the LFS. I would have preferred Dr Tim’s, but that’s what the LFS had, and I did not feel like paying for priority-shipping for drTim’s . I did use dr Tim’s ammonia to feed the bacteria.
I’ve never tried the bio digest, so hopefully it works . I have also never tried starting a tank with all dry rock.
I’ve had much success with live rock in the past, but it also comes with the burden of all types of hitchhikers. I hope to avoid battling these types of pests, this time around.
Gear list
Waterbox 10 gal cube
Radion xr15 gen 4
Mp10
Tunze 3155 Ato
Apex classic
Heater
10 pounds of brs dry rock
Black sand at wife’s request not sure if it’s staying
It’s been almost three weeks since I started the cycling process.
My ammonia is at 0 and my nitrite and nitrate are both sky high.
I will be patiently waiting over the next few weeks to months for them to level out and pass all the algae phases .
I will keep you guys posted when the cycle is complete, and I’m ready to add live stock.
Thanks for checking out my build !!
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