Acord0296
New Member
SO, as I've begun to venture into the reef keeping hobby, I wanted to take some time and show the progress of the build and share any thoughts I have during the process so far... and of course, I'm open to any thoughts and advice that any of you guys may have!
When I was trying to figure out what size tank I wanted, I was thinking of a few factors. Since I am a beginner, I wanted something with a decent size that wasn't going to be overwhelming, and to my understanding, smaller tanks can actually be harder to keep consistently. I figured something between 40-75 gallons was my best bet. I could get a decent amount of room for a nice scape and livestock without it being overwhelming, and the larger volume of water will help me keep the tank's parameters stay consistent. Petco had been having their tank sales and the largest they had available at that time was their 55G. I disliked the narrowness of the 55 and ended up going with a 40B. Later on I was there and they had a 75G, which I would've loved, but that's another story for another day haha.. I do, however, still think I made the right choice for a first tank and it's gonna be perfect for me to start out learning, and from here I can eventually upgrade further down the road... I'm thinking Waterbox 130? lol
So with the tank painted (the other pictured is a 20G for a project of my girlfriend's) I had to figure out my stand situation...
I began looking into some commercially available stands, but many were not quite what I wanted. Others were too expensive, and I decided to just go the DIY route (I tend to be particularly picky about many things haha). I searched around for a short period of time and found this thread for a fairly simple build:
https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/309883-40b-stand-buildcomplete/
I gathered the materials and started going at it! I opted to not wrap it or anything because I figured it would be pretty easy to just add on to it later on if need be. Plus I'm not planning on using a sump, which I will get to, so I don't need the space for that right away either.
Please excuse the Michigan basement lol
During the process of building the stand, I was of course researching other things, and I started looking into lighting for the tank. At first I had been looking into pretty inexpensive and simple LED options, one being specifically the Aquatic Life EDGE Reef. While that probably would've been fine at first, I quickly realized that I would most likely want or have to upgrade to something else later on. I then started looking into more intermediate lighting options like the AI Primes, Hydras, the Ecotech Radions, etc. only, I was a little hesitant to spend so much RIGHT away haha. I ended up finding a listing on eBay for a pair of like-new AI Hydra HDs for an awesome deal... Dude was selling the pair he got with his RedSea 250 along with the mounting arms for like 500 or so bucks, and I had to jump on it! Once I got them, I just had to figure out how to mount them to my stand. I built a frame on the back of the stand to then fix the mounting arms to and it was that simple! I may also in the future use them in a LED/T5 hybrid setup, rather than just having LED. I like a lot of the results I see with hybrid setups.
As for my other equipment for filtration, flow, heating etc. I had a basic idea of what I wanted early on. I didn't want a sump and went with a HOB. I have seen quite a few successful tanks with a really basic setup and that was what I was wanting to go for to start out. I went with an Aquaclear 70 for the filter and plan on using just some poly filter pads, filter floss, and Chemipure Blue. If I don't end up liking the results I get, then I can figure something else out for media. Maybe even turning the Aquaclear into a refugium. For the flow I'm going to be using a Jebao RW4, and I'm thinking of setting up a 1k Gyre opposite of it, and I think I will have some great results for flow in the tank. The Idea would be to setup the Gyre under the HOB, so it can carry the clean water throughout the tank, and then use the Jebao in the opposite back corner angled to create more of the turbulent current. The heater I'm going with is a Cobalt Neotherm 200W. And as far as equipment that's mostly it for now. I plan on doing manual testing, top off, water changes, feeding, and when it comes to it dosing as well. I want to be much more hands on with everything and keep myself consistently on top of maintaining it. The work will be well worth it in my opinion. Also I ended top getting a Tripplite power strip to mount under the stand and keep everything nice and tidy *and also away from water* haha.
I started to plan out a rock scape pretty early on as well. Once I had the tank I had all sorts of ideas for this tank. I sketched out a few ideas and ultimately came to this one.
I grabbed up some Reef Saver rock from BRS, and created a scape that ended up pretty close to what I imagined! Once I can add water and start cycling, I also have some Caribsea Hawaiian Black Aragalive substrate that I will be adding in here.
SO as it stands hehe, I think my tank is coming along very well. I'm currently saving some money to get test kits, salt, and any of the last bits of things I need to get the tank going and cycled, and then I can finally start having this baby running! I'm currently debating on what salt I want to go with. I'd like it to be fairly inexpensive, and I'm heavily leaning towards Fritz RPM. I think that once I make a choice and stick with it and adjust what I need to when I need to, I won't matter too too much (?)
Anyways, I know this is a long post, but clearly I am very excited, and I wanted there to be a little more insight to my decisions and such then just being like "welp here's my build." Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions or suggestions, definitely shoot them my way!
When I was trying to figure out what size tank I wanted, I was thinking of a few factors. Since I am a beginner, I wanted something with a decent size that wasn't going to be overwhelming, and to my understanding, smaller tanks can actually be harder to keep consistently. I figured something between 40-75 gallons was my best bet. I could get a decent amount of room for a nice scape and livestock without it being overwhelming, and the larger volume of water will help me keep the tank's parameters stay consistent. Petco had been having their tank sales and the largest they had available at that time was their 55G. I disliked the narrowness of the 55 and ended up going with a 40B. Later on I was there and they had a 75G, which I would've loved, but that's another story for another day haha.. I do, however, still think I made the right choice for a first tank and it's gonna be perfect for me to start out learning, and from here I can eventually upgrade further down the road... I'm thinking Waterbox 130? lol
So with the tank painted (the other pictured is a 20G for a project of my girlfriend's) I had to figure out my stand situation...
I began looking into some commercially available stands, but many were not quite what I wanted. Others were too expensive, and I decided to just go the DIY route (I tend to be particularly picky about many things haha). I searched around for a short period of time and found this thread for a fairly simple build:
https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/309883-40b-stand-buildcomplete/
I gathered the materials and started going at it! I opted to not wrap it or anything because I figured it would be pretty easy to just add on to it later on if need be. Plus I'm not planning on using a sump, which I will get to, so I don't need the space for that right away either.
Please excuse the Michigan basement lol
During the process of building the stand, I was of course researching other things, and I started looking into lighting for the tank. At first I had been looking into pretty inexpensive and simple LED options, one being specifically the Aquatic Life EDGE Reef. While that probably would've been fine at first, I quickly realized that I would most likely want or have to upgrade to something else later on. I then started looking into more intermediate lighting options like the AI Primes, Hydras, the Ecotech Radions, etc. only, I was a little hesitant to spend so much RIGHT away haha. I ended up finding a listing on eBay for a pair of like-new AI Hydra HDs for an awesome deal... Dude was selling the pair he got with his RedSea 250 along with the mounting arms for like 500 or so bucks, and I had to jump on it! Once I got them, I just had to figure out how to mount them to my stand. I built a frame on the back of the stand to then fix the mounting arms to and it was that simple! I may also in the future use them in a LED/T5 hybrid setup, rather than just having LED. I like a lot of the results I see with hybrid setups.
As for my other equipment for filtration, flow, heating etc. I had a basic idea of what I wanted early on. I didn't want a sump and went with a HOB. I have seen quite a few successful tanks with a really basic setup and that was what I was wanting to go for to start out. I went with an Aquaclear 70 for the filter and plan on using just some poly filter pads, filter floss, and Chemipure Blue. If I don't end up liking the results I get, then I can figure something else out for media. Maybe even turning the Aquaclear into a refugium. For the flow I'm going to be using a Jebao RW4, and I'm thinking of setting up a 1k Gyre opposite of it, and I think I will have some great results for flow in the tank. The Idea would be to setup the Gyre under the HOB, so it can carry the clean water throughout the tank, and then use the Jebao in the opposite back corner angled to create more of the turbulent current. The heater I'm going with is a Cobalt Neotherm 200W. And as far as equipment that's mostly it for now. I plan on doing manual testing, top off, water changes, feeding, and when it comes to it dosing as well. I want to be much more hands on with everything and keep myself consistently on top of maintaining it. The work will be well worth it in my opinion. Also I ended top getting a Tripplite power strip to mount under the stand and keep everything nice and tidy *and also away from water* haha.
I started to plan out a rock scape pretty early on as well. Once I had the tank I had all sorts of ideas for this tank. I sketched out a few ideas and ultimately came to this one.
I grabbed up some Reef Saver rock from BRS, and created a scape that ended up pretty close to what I imagined! Once I can add water and start cycling, I also have some Caribsea Hawaiian Black Aragalive substrate that I will be adding in here.
SO as it stands hehe, I think my tank is coming along very well. I'm currently saving some money to get test kits, salt, and any of the last bits of things I need to get the tank going and cycled, and then I can finally start having this baby running! I'm currently debating on what salt I want to go with. I'd like it to be fairly inexpensive, and I'm heavily leaning towards Fritz RPM. I think that once I make a choice and stick with it and adjust what I need to when I need to, I won't matter too too much (?)
Anyways, I know this is a long post, but clearly I am very excited, and I wanted there to be a little more insight to my decisions and such then just being like "welp here's my build." Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions or suggestions, definitely shoot them my way!
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