ChuzUThisDay
Active Member
We are Richard and Regina and live in Monroe County, Tennessee. We have been keeping aquariums off and on for 16 years for him and all of her life. We've kept a wide variety of freshwater tanks and ran a 75 gallon mixed reef for several years. Time, children, and the business of life pulled us away from from keeping livestock for a couple years, but 2016 has seen our aquarium passion return.
This intro will be about a 30 gallon long that we've setup and are in the process of watching it grow. This aquarium has been many things over the years. It has seen many fish, many styles of setups, it's been a sump, it's housed hedgehogs, it housed a Guinea pig, and now it's becoming a "nano" reef.
My brother from another mother, James, setup his bio cube and it sparked us to get another saltwater tank up and going. Regina loves corals and growing colonies from frags. Collide those ideas and you have the rebirth of this tank. It is in our living room and we did not want to chance having water everywhere. We like the bio cube idea of an all in one, but not the price (especially when this tank and stand were unoccupied). I had the bright idea to see if there were any people out there in DIY land that had turned a regular tank into a "bio cube" (For some reason, I had never heard the term AIO until this year). Our tank came from this concept.
Always having to be different somehow, our AIO false wall is built from coroplast. It's waterproof, it won't leech anything into the water, easy to work with, and it's inexpensive. We like inexpensive! Once the idea was drawn out for the tank, the cutting and trimming took place. The AIO false wall was siliconed into place and equipment added in the "sump" area. Base rock was placed, washed sand added, saltwater mixed and added, then live rock added from another tank, then topped off with more water.
It's been a couple months into the journey, but it came to life July 8, 2016.
The filtration currently is BASIC!!! There's an overflow in the false wall that utilizes polyester material for mechanical filtration, some small pieces of live rock, and a RIO 1100 maxi jet that returns water back into the display (BTW, this thing really pushes the water in this tank). The live rock in the sump and display portion provides biological filtration and currently there's no need for chemical. The idea is floating around for a diy algae scrubber in the "sump" area down the road if need be. We'll have to see how the feedings go (it's fun watching stuff eat!).
We started off with just an old fluorescent light on the tank that provided light. We knew that LEDs were going on the tank, but could not decide if we wanted to DIY a light or purchase one. After many discussions and recommendations, we purchased a SB Reef Lights basic sBox. So far we love it and haven't dialed it up a ton. It's sitting on 45% for the Blue channel and 20% for the White channel. Other than not being able to take pictures that look decent, we have no complaints with the light. so far everything is growing right along.
The live rock pieces we placed in the tank had some halimeda growing on it. We're not too sure about this as we've kept it in a sump before, but not crazy about the looks in the display. This may get picked off and placed elsewhere. Also, a rose coral was on a piece of the live rock. At first we thought it was a small zoa polyp, but after a couple of weeks of light we noticed there were no eyelashes and small sweepers coming from the middle. It's coming right along and looks great under the LEDs. Also, there is an encrusting sponge and what we believe to be tunicate of some sort.
We've added some zoas, ricordea, and a mummy eye chalice. We're taking it slow and watching it grow!
There's a handful of hermits eating diatoms currently and stirring the sand ever so slightly. Since this is "Regina's tank", I've really stepped back on livestock selection and only offered my opinions on tank mates that will work together or not. We were give an azure damsel in the beginning, but it has went back to the lfs. She now has a mated pair of Banggai Cardinalfish (that spit eggs out on the ride home from the lfs - SCORE on them mating) and this weekend she added a yellow watchman goby and tiger pistol shrimp pair. I'm trying to stand back and let her do her thing with this tank, but I'm curious about adding some cerith and/or nassarius snails too.
Everyone has been great on the board so far. I've asked several questions, made some comments, and can honestly say this seems like a great site!
Look for more to follow...
This intro will be about a 30 gallon long that we've setup and are in the process of watching it grow. This aquarium has been many things over the years. It has seen many fish, many styles of setups, it's been a sump, it's housed hedgehogs, it housed a Guinea pig, and now it's becoming a "nano" reef.
My brother from another mother, James, setup his bio cube and it sparked us to get another saltwater tank up and going. Regina loves corals and growing colonies from frags. Collide those ideas and you have the rebirth of this tank. It is in our living room and we did not want to chance having water everywhere. We like the bio cube idea of an all in one, but not the price (especially when this tank and stand were unoccupied). I had the bright idea to see if there were any people out there in DIY land that had turned a regular tank into a "bio cube" (For some reason, I had never heard the term AIO until this year). Our tank came from this concept.
Always having to be different somehow, our AIO false wall is built from coroplast. It's waterproof, it won't leech anything into the water, easy to work with, and it's inexpensive. We like inexpensive! Once the idea was drawn out for the tank, the cutting and trimming took place. The AIO false wall was siliconed into place and equipment added in the "sump" area. Base rock was placed, washed sand added, saltwater mixed and added, then live rock added from another tank, then topped off with more water.
It's been a couple months into the journey, but it came to life July 8, 2016.
The filtration currently is BASIC!!! There's an overflow in the false wall that utilizes polyester material for mechanical filtration, some small pieces of live rock, and a RIO 1100 maxi jet that returns water back into the display (BTW, this thing really pushes the water in this tank). The live rock in the sump and display portion provides biological filtration and currently there's no need for chemical. The idea is floating around for a diy algae scrubber in the "sump" area down the road if need be. We'll have to see how the feedings go (it's fun watching stuff eat!).
We started off with just an old fluorescent light on the tank that provided light. We knew that LEDs were going on the tank, but could not decide if we wanted to DIY a light or purchase one. After many discussions and recommendations, we purchased a SB Reef Lights basic sBox. So far we love it and haven't dialed it up a ton. It's sitting on 45% for the Blue channel and 20% for the White channel. Other than not being able to take pictures that look decent, we have no complaints with the light. so far everything is growing right along.
The live rock pieces we placed in the tank had some halimeda growing on it. We're not too sure about this as we've kept it in a sump before, but not crazy about the looks in the display. This may get picked off and placed elsewhere. Also, a rose coral was on a piece of the live rock. At first we thought it was a small zoa polyp, but after a couple of weeks of light we noticed there were no eyelashes and small sweepers coming from the middle. It's coming right along and looks great under the LEDs. Also, there is an encrusting sponge and what we believe to be tunicate of some sort.
We've added some zoas, ricordea, and a mummy eye chalice. We're taking it slow and watching it grow!
There's a handful of hermits eating diatoms currently and stirring the sand ever so slightly. Since this is "Regina's tank", I've really stepped back on livestock selection and only offered my opinions on tank mates that will work together or not. We were give an azure damsel in the beginning, but it has went back to the lfs. She now has a mated pair of Banggai Cardinalfish (that spit eggs out on the ride home from the lfs - SCORE on them mating) and this weekend she added a yellow watchman goby and tiger pistol shrimp pair. I'm trying to stand back and let her do her thing with this tank, but I'm curious about adding some cerith and/or nassarius snails too.
Everyone has been great on the board so far. I've asked several questions, made some comments, and can honestly say this seems like a great site!
Look for more to follow...
