Bars
Well-Known Member
Time to start a diary as well 
I started 2019 with my first ever reef tank, which was a 30 gal cube. Since I was just starting out, I decided to take things easy. No sump, a couple of cheap (and not that great) powerheads and a cheap protein skimmer to hang in the display tank. At the time I still lived with my parents and with me graduating soon I knew I'd probably had to move the tank in a year or so. I figured it wouldn't hurt going the cheaper route for now. Everything went okay. Most corals looked good, fish did great and even saw some growth in a couple of corals.
About 3 months ago, I unexpectedly got my own apartment. Already heavily addicted to the reefing hobby (the thought of converting my current freshwater tank to something like a xenia/gsp/anemone only has crossed my mind already), I thought about getting a slightly bigger tank with sump. I'm still in college, so I still don't have the money to go all out on hardware, but I managed to grab a nice 45 gallon DT with 15 gallon sump and a Bubble Magnus NAC3 skimmer. Got a bit more space to work with and I'm absolutely loving having a sump.
My awesome dad made me a neat cabinet to store the powerboards in last week. It also has room for an ATO reservoir, which is great. Extra space underneath the tank is pretty much non-existent because of the sump. As of yesterday I finally have my dosing unit and ATO set up. Had some concerns with the ATO not shutting on/off automatically, but I caught it a couple of times in the act today. I feel as happy as a kid with everything up and running now
Next upgrade is going to be a RODI unit so I don't have to get my water from the LFS anymore.
I started 2019 with my first ever reef tank, which was a 30 gal cube. Since I was just starting out, I decided to take things easy. No sump, a couple of cheap (and not that great) powerheads and a cheap protein skimmer to hang in the display tank. At the time I still lived with my parents and with me graduating soon I knew I'd probably had to move the tank in a year or so. I figured it wouldn't hurt going the cheaper route for now. Everything went okay. Most corals looked good, fish did great and even saw some growth in a couple of corals.
About 3 months ago, I unexpectedly got my own apartment. Already heavily addicted to the reefing hobby (the thought of converting my current freshwater tank to something like a xenia/gsp/anemone only has crossed my mind already), I thought about getting a slightly bigger tank with sump. I'm still in college, so I still don't have the money to go all out on hardware, but I managed to grab a nice 45 gallon DT with 15 gallon sump and a Bubble Magnus NAC3 skimmer. Got a bit more space to work with and I'm absolutely loving having a sump.
My awesome dad made me a neat cabinet to store the powerboards in last week. It also has room for an ATO reservoir, which is great. Extra space underneath the tank is pretty much non-existent because of the sump. As of yesterday I finally have my dosing unit and ATO set up. Had some concerns with the ATO not shutting on/off automatically, but I caught it a couple of times in the act today. I feel as happy as a kid with everything up and running now
Next upgrade is going to be a RODI unit so I don't have to get my water from the LFS anymore.
