Copying from my thread on R2R. Posted June 7th 2018.
This is my first tank build. It started because I was wandering petco and saw some cool inverts that I wanted, so I thought 'maybe I'll look into a small SW tank, maybe 10 gallons to go on the table in my room'. I started my research online, and stopped in LFS where they had a 10 gal reef fully set up and ready to take home... for $800. I laughed and said that was crazy, who would pay that much for such a little set up? I'm not laughing now that I'm many hundreds deep in this hobby before stocking. I then learned that even a 10 gallon could weigh over 100 pounds and that wouldn't work for the furniture I wanted to put it on but got some second hand online anyway and quickly noticed how small it was. I thought well that's going to fill up real fast and what do you mean I can only have about two fish in there? I then moved on to think maybe I'll do a 20 long with a 10 gal sump because I read that the more water you had the easier it was to keep your numbers in check, and I figured if it was long that was more surface area for coral. Went to a local $1/gallon sale and noticed the 29 was the same footprint as 20l so I came home with that and a 10 for the sump. Less than a week later I exchanged the 10 for a 20h as my sump and started my build.
I wanted an open bottom stand so that I could put macro algae in the sump, and all of the stands on the market that are closed are not exactly my style, so I got a metal frame stand at petco for $40. Cut a piece of scrap wood to fit across the bottom to hold the sump and stuck everything on there.
I've done different PVC work before so I decided I'd be able to make my own overflow for way cheaper than buying an overflow box.
I had gotten in touch with someone on here who was selling the rock and sand from their 29 gallon setup. I got 24 pounds of live rock, and probably 50+ pounds of sand. This was on top of the 6 dry and 2 live I had gotten from LFS, and a 20 pound bag of Caribsea sand. I filled up DT with water to keep it all live and kept it like this for a couple days while I made the sump and waited for it to dry.
I have experience cutting glass from another project I just finished, and this was a breeze. First chamber is about 8in wide, I looked at the different skimmers in my price range and they all seemed to max out at a 7in footprint but I also figured worst thing could happen would be to just stick it in the middle chamber if needed. Last chamber is about 5in for my return pump.
After my sump was dry and ready to get filled with water I stuck it in there and was able to start on my rock work. Visually it was too much rock for DT, so some of it got moved to the sump.
I'm still running 2 hob filters on it since I'm having some trouble with the plumbing. My siphon isn't quite keeping up with my pump so after a couple hours the return chamber gets too low and I need to unplug the pump to let the water level rise again. Sump also has a light coming in the mail shortly which is why it's so dark down there right now.
I'm getting a proper CUC in there soon that's in QT right now until I can figure out which native things are allowed to stay long term, there's some mud snails in there now retrieved from the bait bucket down the shore (New Jersey coast). There's also a couple small crabs also found hanging out in the bait bucket who are now down in the sump where they have been exiled until the next trip to the ocean since one is FULL of eggs. Other native CUC includes a hermit crab, and a couple grass/feeder shrimp, and a clam rescued from my dad's purchase at the seafood counter that's been hanging out in the bait bucket all year and has a new home nestled in the sand and seems very pleased to not be in somebody's dinner.
That's all for now, I'll update with the next steps. I'm going to be ordering an aqua lift pump for the siphon to find out if that's why the PVC is barely at a trickle most times, I'm going to get a skimmer as well and keep moving forward.
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Update posted June 17th 2018
So my plumbing issues have been pretty much figured out. I added two ball valves to the siphon and return, I need to restrict the return, and with the aqua lift on the siphon it keeps up quite well. It's a got an occasional gurgle so I might tweak a bit here and there as my aquascaping, and filtration gets finalized.
I've got a diatom bloom going on right now which I'm happy about since it means I'm just one step closer.
I've now got a Curve 5 running in the sump, I just got it two days ago and it's already starting to pull out what I'm assuming is diatoms since there's not much other waste in the system with only a CUC, still playing with the water levels in that and I'm prepared to make an egg crate stand once I find a good height. I'm also going to be making an egg crate filter basket to stick in the sump where the siphon lets out so that I could put media in there since I really don't want to invest money in a reactor when I don't know if there's going a big need for it.
When I went to petco yesterday and they didn't have any of the background that I wanted, just plain blue/black and at that it was $2 a foot and I'd need 5 feet just for the DT and Sump, not including something to put up for the fish in QT so I broke out the paint at around midnight last night and experimented a bit. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it just like that or tweak it a bit. I'm going to wait a bit and see how I like it since it's a pain to get behind that tank. I like how the rock work really pops now, but I'm not sure I'm going to stick with the exact design. The more research I'm doing about the fish species that I like the more I'm seeing things about some preferring a lot of rock work and I'm wondering if I have enough in there. I might consider getting some more but I don't want it to look too cluttered either.
My GSPs are doing really well, at least in my eyes. And the paly/zoa(?) I got with my live rock seems to be perking up a bit more
.
My dad brought home some empty shells, two hermit crabs, and some snails today along with some seaweed (ulva that's going to go in the fuge and DT) and right after I added some of the snails and seaweed I noticed a bunch of copepods on the walls of the tank. Broke out the handy Toys R Us microscope to confirm. Took a look at the sea water he brought it all home with and that's got some fun critters in there too so I'll be adding that to my tank, I'm going for as complete of a full eco system as possible so nothing's better than real sea water to get all that good stuff in there.
I also noticed some bubbles in my sand the other day and would love to encourage a DSP to help complete the nitrogen cycle so I picked up some more sand I'm going to make a DSB probably in the DT since the sump fuge area is shallow to begin with. Or maybe since the return pump needs to be several inches above the bottom of the tank due to the length of my PVC I'll put a DSB in there too and put the return pump on something since it's just hanging around right now.
That's all for now, this week I plan to finish up my CUC so I can restart my 76 days for a final time, with all this ocean stuff I just want to be extra careful before I go sticking any fish I'm paying money for in there.
This is my first tank build. It started because I was wandering petco and saw some cool inverts that I wanted, so I thought 'maybe I'll look into a small SW tank, maybe 10 gallons to go on the table in my room'. I started my research online, and stopped in LFS where they had a 10 gal reef fully set up and ready to take home... for $800. I laughed and said that was crazy, who would pay that much for such a little set up? I'm not laughing now that I'm many hundreds deep in this hobby before stocking. I then learned that even a 10 gallon could weigh over 100 pounds and that wouldn't work for the furniture I wanted to put it on but got some second hand online anyway and quickly noticed how small it was. I thought well that's going to fill up real fast and what do you mean I can only have about two fish in there? I then moved on to think maybe I'll do a 20 long with a 10 gal sump because I read that the more water you had the easier it was to keep your numbers in check, and I figured if it was long that was more surface area for coral. Went to a local $1/gallon sale and noticed the 29 was the same footprint as 20l so I came home with that and a 10 for the sump. Less than a week later I exchanged the 10 for a 20h as my sump and started my build.
I wanted an open bottom stand so that I could put macro algae in the sump, and all of the stands on the market that are closed are not exactly my style, so I got a metal frame stand at petco for $40. Cut a piece of scrap wood to fit across the bottom to hold the sump and stuck everything on there.
I've done different PVC work before so I decided I'd be able to make my own overflow for way cheaper than buying an overflow box.
I had gotten in touch with someone on here who was selling the rock and sand from their 29 gallon setup. I got 24 pounds of live rock, and probably 50+ pounds of sand. This was on top of the 6 dry and 2 live I had gotten from LFS, and a 20 pound bag of Caribsea sand. I filled up DT with water to keep it all live and kept it like this for a couple days while I made the sump and waited for it to dry.
I have experience cutting glass from another project I just finished, and this was a breeze. First chamber is about 8in wide, I looked at the different skimmers in my price range and they all seemed to max out at a 7in footprint but I also figured worst thing could happen would be to just stick it in the middle chamber if needed. Last chamber is about 5in for my return pump.
After my sump was dry and ready to get filled with water I stuck it in there and was able to start on my rock work. Visually it was too much rock for DT, so some of it got moved to the sump.
I'm still running 2 hob filters on it since I'm having some trouble with the plumbing. My siphon isn't quite keeping up with my pump so after a couple hours the return chamber gets too low and I need to unplug the pump to let the water level rise again. Sump also has a light coming in the mail shortly which is why it's so dark down there right now.
I'm getting a proper CUC in there soon that's in QT right now until I can figure out which native things are allowed to stay long term, there's some mud snails in there now retrieved from the bait bucket down the shore (New Jersey coast). There's also a couple small crabs also found hanging out in the bait bucket who are now down in the sump where they have been exiled until the next trip to the ocean since one is FULL of eggs. Other native CUC includes a hermit crab, and a couple grass/feeder shrimp, and a clam rescued from my dad's purchase at the seafood counter that's been hanging out in the bait bucket all year and has a new home nestled in the sand and seems very pleased to not be in somebody's dinner.
That's all for now, I'll update with the next steps. I'm going to be ordering an aqua lift pump for the siphon to find out if that's why the PVC is barely at a trickle most times, I'm going to get a skimmer as well and keep moving forward.
-----------------------------------------
Update posted June 17th 2018
So my plumbing issues have been pretty much figured out. I added two ball valves to the siphon and return, I need to restrict the return, and with the aqua lift on the siphon it keeps up quite well. It's a got an occasional gurgle so I might tweak a bit here and there as my aquascaping, and filtration gets finalized.
I've got a diatom bloom going on right now which I'm happy about since it means I'm just one step closer.
I've now got a Curve 5 running in the sump, I just got it two days ago and it's already starting to pull out what I'm assuming is diatoms since there's not much other waste in the system with only a CUC, still playing with the water levels in that and I'm prepared to make an egg crate stand once I find a good height. I'm also going to be making an egg crate filter basket to stick in the sump where the siphon lets out so that I could put media in there since I really don't want to invest money in a reactor when I don't know if there's going a big need for it.
When I went to petco yesterday and they didn't have any of the background that I wanted, just plain blue/black and at that it was $2 a foot and I'd need 5 feet just for the DT and Sump, not including something to put up for the fish in QT so I broke out the paint at around midnight last night and experimented a bit. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it just like that or tweak it a bit. I'm going to wait a bit and see how I like it since it's a pain to get behind that tank. I like how the rock work really pops now, but I'm not sure I'm going to stick with the exact design. The more research I'm doing about the fish species that I like the more I'm seeing things about some preferring a lot of rock work and I'm wondering if I have enough in there. I might consider getting some more but I don't want it to look too cluttered either.
My GSPs are doing really well, at least in my eyes. And the paly/zoa(?) I got with my live rock seems to be perking up a bit more
.
My dad brought home some empty shells, two hermit crabs, and some snails today along with some seaweed (ulva that's going to go in the fuge and DT) and right after I added some of the snails and seaweed I noticed a bunch of copepods on the walls of the tank. Broke out the handy Toys R Us microscope to confirm. Took a look at the sea water he brought it all home with and that's got some fun critters in there too so I'll be adding that to my tank, I'm going for as complete of a full eco system as possible so nothing's better than real sea water to get all that good stuff in there.
I also noticed some bubbles in my sand the other day and would love to encourage a DSP to help complete the nitrogen cycle so I picked up some more sand I'm going to make a DSB probably in the DT since the sump fuge area is shallow to begin with. Or maybe since the return pump needs to be several inches above the bottom of the tank due to the length of my PVC I'll put a DSB in there too and put the return pump on something since it's just hanging around right now.
That's all for now, this week I plan to finish up my CUC so I can restart my 76 days for a final time, with all this ocean stuff I just want to be extra careful before I go sticking any fish I'm paying money for in there.
