Budget UK 1200 litre reef.

[Gweeds1980]

I've done my welcome bit and got involved in a few threads but haven't done a build thread until now... sadly I don't have a decent camera so am stuck with the one in my mobile... apologies for the poor shots! Also, my mobile got eaten by our dog (she makes a brief appearance in a photo) so I lost a load of the 'setting up' shots [emoji20]

I'm gonna miss the usual system bit at this juncture as I'm just gonna copy and paste in the next post from my hello...

Since then I've battled (And won!) The cyano and bryopsis war... still a little cyano persisting but mostly gone now [emoji2]

I've added a few more corals and a whole load of rock so the scape is about how I want it... next up is to fill the top with SPS... but gotta upgrade lights first.

As you'll see from the next post, this was all about budget reefing... we moved house 14 months ago and spent about £35k on renovations. We're getting married in a month too, which is another £25k... my better half wanted me to wait to get the tank up and running, but I convinced her I could get it looking good for under £2k...

She agreed and then I realised what a challenge I'd set myself!!

After lights, I'm on the scrounge for a bigger sump to bring total volume up to about 1600 litres... trying to find a second hand tank 7' x 24" x 18" is proving difficult... I may have to do a diy job with acrylic.

Having to source everything second hand, which is time consuming. The best bit that I hadn't envisaged tho is meeting so many other reefers when I go to pick stuff up, it's been awesome!

Anyhoo, thanks for reading, I'll update every now and then... particularly when I've found a bargain [emoji6]

Pics roughly in chronological order from oldest to newest... my attempts at a few 'arty' shots are last... sorry!

 

[Gweeds1980]

To add to my brief intro I'm running a 1200l reef, mixed softie and lps with a green digi and red plating monti frags as the only SPS as a bit of an experiment.

Set up is as follows:

Around 200kg of live rock in the DT, other filtration consists of a TMC V2 1500 skimmer. A large (120l) fuge with caulerpa and a DSB. Turnover is low through the sump, to allow the caulerpa and skimmer to do their jobs... return is a red devil dc4000. Flow is from 3 reef octopus 6000 wave makers and one Chinese thing allegedly rated at 20000 lph. I reckon it does half that at best.

Lighting is 2 old school reefbeam 120 led units and one mars aqua 165w full spectrum unit. As mentioned, lighting is the next project

I dose no ca or mag etc at present as levels haven't dropped since adding lps/ sps. Although last week I did notice the first small drop so will likely start dosing red sea ab&c next week. I also dose vodka to control nitrates.

Other livestock is:
Cuc including blue leg hermits, nass snails, turbos, 2 Orange lip conches, 2 tuxedo urchins and a sand sifting star.

Fish:
Pair of maroon clowns
3 x humbug damsels
yellow coris wrasse
Copperband bf
Heniochus bf
Regal tang
Orange shoulder tang
Caribbean blue bass
Coral hawkfish

The whole tank is a bit of an experiment... it was set up on a shoestring, I already had the tank, cabinet and sump and everything else all in has cost me a total of £568.87 (I keep a spreadsheet... sad I know), with the exception of livestock. All equipment has been sourced 2nd hand or at very least on sale.

My goal was to prove you could run a SPS tank on a budget. I want to keep my total spend (including the tank and cabinet) at under £2000. The tank was £900 4 years ago and the cabinet was £350. So absolute total as of today, including everything (this time with livestock) is... £1988.87! Obviously as time goes by this will creep up with water changes, dosing and continual buying of corals and livestock. But I will keep bargain basement wherever possible.

Anyhow, for anyone not yet asleep, feel free to make any comments or ask any questions.

Cheers.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Since then I've added a yellow tang and another tuxedo urchin, another 50kg or so of rock. I've replaced the dodgy wave maker with two all pond solutions 20,000 lph and the mother of all UVs, a TMC pond unit which is good for up to 45000 litres!

 

[Gweeds1980]

Exciting news... 3 stage reactor and 2200lph pump sourced... £50! Happy days...

Oh and I've gone and committed to another 25kgs of rock, a cleaner wrasse and a desjardini (sp?) Tang for the mighty sum of £60...

 

[Gweeds1980]

A few pics of the fish just before lights out...

 

[Gweeds1980]

Another quick update... bought a tiger cowrie and a green wrasse... although it's blue! Not 100% on the Id so have p
Posted in the wrasse id sticky... pic to come, he's tucked up in bed in QT for the time being.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Another quick update... bought a tiger cowrie and a green wrasse... although it's blue! Not 100% on the Id so have p
Posted in the wrasse id sticky... pic to come, he's tucked up in bed in QT for the time being.

Pic... excuse the dodgy decor, I won't allow the horrendous ornaments in the DT but to keep the kids happy I chuck them in the QT!

Oh and now it's green

 

[Gweeds1980]

So... tiger cowrie turns out to be a bad purchase!! Day 1 it has dismembered a sand sifting star in QT and now I've just woken up to it having mown down a GSP colony overnight!!... sump time!

 

[Gweeds1980]

Weekend update... tiger cowrie sumped and back off to the LFS tomorrow...

3 stage reactor installed... bio pellets in the first, rowa in the second and carbon in the third.

The intention is to double up on the nutrient export, I don't want to have to rely on the refuge for everything

On the downside... huge aip found in the refuge

Picture time... please excuse the state of my sump... I don't try to keep it clean... bad reefer!!

 

[Gweeds1980]

So... significant update... I posted another thread about this so look it up if anyone wants more info (not sure I can post thread links via tapatalk?).

I've decided to go down the natural / immune tank route with this now... more of an homage to Paul B rather than a straight copy...

Worms, fish guts and broken blenders aplenty!

In other news I've picked up some more sps bargains... small but established frags of purple, green and red plating monti... fiver a pop from a local reefer [emoji2]

Will post pics, but lights are off atm. The green monti needs rescuing... was knocked off by the female maroon clown and is in an inaccessible place. Grrrrrr.

I've also added (may have posted this update already... not sure and can't be bothered to check lol) a coral beauty... will be a good first test of the immune tank. I've QT'd but without any treatment, got him onto my skin, bone, guts and all homemade food and onto the blackworms. He's now in DT... which definitely has ich present and so far not a single spot [emoji4]

The yellow tang had a proper go at him for the first 24hrs, but has chilled out now and he's getting on fine... that was 2 weeks ago.

The cowrie has been given a last minute reprieve... he's back in the QT with the gsp and hasn't touched anything for a fortnight or so... am thinking it could just have been starving at the LFS and went on an eating rampage! Is keeping the glass nice and clean in QT, have decided to pop him back in the DT if he behaves for another week or so.

Exciting news... in my disease infested DT [emoji6] my humbug damsels spawned... pic below... sadly the eggs didn't make it through the second night, parents seemed to just give up on them [emoji20] . Hoping for another spawning soon as all the breeding behaviour is back again [emoji2]

Onwards and upwards...

 

[Gweeds1980]

New corals... popped into LFS today to talk about light upgrade... they just about have me hooked on the radion copy ReefLed Corona fixtures (which they don't actually sell... I'm thinking this was honest advice as they do sell hydra 52HDs which is what I'd gone in to talk about).

Anyhoo, couldn't leave without a couple of frags [emoji1]

 

[Gweeds1980]

Wedding gift from my wife

Not on the shopping list but hey, what can I do?

 

[Gweeds1980]

And joining the PBT in QT...

 

[Vincent100]

Looking good mate , thats a big tank u got there , makes my 350 look like shoe box lol
Gonna pop in from time to time to see how your going and I'm uk aswell

 

[Gweeds1980]

Looking good mate , thats a big tank u got there , makes my 350 look like shoe box lol
Gonna pop in from time to time to see how your going and I'm uk aswell

Thanks [emoji3] where abouts are you? Im in south Norfolk.

 

[Vincent100]

I'm the garden of England .....Kent lol
Here's a pic of my tank

 

[Gweeds1980]

I'm the garden of England .....Kent lol
Here's a pic of my tank

Beautiful tank! That's what I want mine to look like eventually, a real mix. Just so much space to fill up with corals!! Love the clam btw... I really want a tridacna for mine. What lighting do you use? I need to upgrade soon... I just got married so focus has been on that, not to mention the money! I am thinking evergrow black boxes and double up on the amount to get good coverage... maybe 4 it2012 units, they're pretty easy to mod which I like.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I'm the garden of England .....Kent lol
Here's a pic of my tank

If you ever fancy sending a frag or two...

 

[Vincent100]

Just might you know , iv been throwing away frags of birds nest as I so much of it , grows like a weed in my tank
Might have a few other bits for u aswell as a friend is shutting down he's tank and iv got my eye on a few bits so I've gotta make space in my tank some how lol

I'll get back to u on that one

 

[Gweeds1980]

Another update... picked up my first acro frag today, along with a porites and a alveopora frag. Got home to find an acro crab hidden away in the porites frag... happy days [emoji3] .

Pics to follow as I'm out walking the dog at the moment with the most amazing sunset...