JBJ 30g RL Personal Build Thread

[UM Aquarium Club]

So this account is generally used for posting about / for the UM Aquarium Club but this thread will be a personal build that I'm working on. I first bought this tank from a FMAS member last summer and collected a few other pieces from here (R2R). I put off building a stand because I knew I wanted one that was pretty tough and it didn't seem like the stock JBJ stand would cut it. I eventually, with the help of a friend, was able to build a pretty sturdy wood one and got the tank on it. I spent a while cleaning some former live rock, filled and ran the tank with freshwater to make sure there weren't leaks, and then spent a while trying to figure out what sort of aquascape I wanted.

Tank: JBJ 30g RL

Stand: DIY wood

Lights: Reefbreeders Photon V2 24"

Peak Settings:

• Deep Red: 15
• Green: 15
• Royal Blue: 45
• White: 30
• Cool Blue: 45
• Violet: 15

​

Flow: VorTech Mp10wQD & 2x stock returns (266 g/h)

Filtration: Media Rack with Chemipure, Sponge, Carbon & CPR HOB Refugium (will be doing chaeto) with the CPR AquaFuge light

Here is what the tank is looking like now about a week and a half after filling it and starting the cycle. I ran the lights off for the first week and am running them now to set up the schedule I want. I'm at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates, and a bit of nitrites still present. Planning to add some clean up crew in a week or two.



Still trying to plan out what livestock I want to add but I'm planning to do something along the lines of: 1x Coral Banded Shrimp, 2x clownfish, 1x goby. Ideally trying to keep the bioload fairly low so I might go lower than that.

 

[dbl]

Very nice looking. Love the cave created in the aquascape. Once it's established, that would be a neat spot for a Tubastraea.

 

[UM Aquarium Club]

Very nice looking. Love the cave created in the aquascape. Once it's established, that would be a neat spot for a Tubastraea.

Thanks, I always like to add some sort of cave / hiding space. With the stocking I'm looking at it'll probably only be used by a shrimp but it would be neat to put in some sun polyps and utilize the dark space. Might try to grow out some montipora on the left rim which might shade it even more.

 

[UM Aquarium Club]

Little bit of an update, diatoms went from a couple patches earlier today to covering most of the rock and substrate in the period of a few hours which was interesting to see. Planning to add some of the first clean up crew members later this week. Probably gonna go with a 3-4 assorted snails to start and add a couple more and some hermits once some more algae starts to grow. Still haven't fully decided what stocking I want but I put together a rough plan for placement of the corals for the tank. Would definitely appreciate some feedback as to placement or some ideas for stocking.


Edit: Should note that I'm gonna be switching out one or both of the two circulation pumps I have with a mp10 on the right side of the tank which is why I placed some things the way I did.