Hello everyone,
Im Peter, Irecently started a reef tank and wanted to share my story here as some of you did before me, giving inspiration to many like myself. My story is that I got this tank as a birthday gift for my 30th... My wife noticed I was getting more and more interested in reefing, looked up my search history and got a Nuvo 20 from BRS. The day after the b-day party, when I sobered up ... I started to plan it all our. Main challenges were, living in an apartment and being a bit short on space, needing a stand, figuring out how will I get my water and getting the rest of the equipment... I started browsing craigslist, OfferUp and R2R for some used equipment and was lucky to pick up a Kessil 360WE with a controller, a Smatr ATO, IM reactor and an RODI unit... even found an unopened bucket of Reef Crystals for $30. In the mean time I was building a stand at in-laws (with some help). The stand needed to be big enough to fit all my equipment, buckets, ato and RODI unit when not used as i didn't have any other place to keep it. Its pretty overbuild for a 20 gallon, but I also made the top removable for when I want to move the nano tank to my daughters room and put a 50 gallon or something similar on this stand.
Painted the inside and outside, to seal it up.
Next I replaced the outlet I will be using for the tank to a GFCI, and modified my plumbing abit to make constant connecting and disconnecting the RODI unit a bit less frustrating.
I install this small piece of tubbing with a cap on in the valve when not making water so I don't flood the down stairs neighbors if someone knocks the handle on the valve by accident. I also plug all the tubing on the RODI unit when not in use to stop the membrane from drying out.
Here is the setup in motion... kind of fail safe as all the water goes down the drain if the bucket overfills.
My daughter helping me test the tank... I think she is more excited than I am about it.
Aqua scape I came up with using reef saver rock...
View from the top showing a little "island" i plan to put zoanthids on...
I was surprised the heater I got was made in Poland, the country I grew up in. I hope it doesn't take a crap on me and put me to shame...
Tank is in place, waiting for few more things before getting filled.
Some mild wire management...
ATO bucket in...
RODI unit in place...
And everything else including salt... I have four 2" round felt floor protectors glued to the bottom of the stand and am still able to slide it around. I think i will still be able to do it if i take everything out when the tank is full...
I didn't like how the goose neck looks for the Kessils and made an arm out of 1/2" EMT conduit, painted it black and mounted it, but the holes i drilled didn't line up with the center of the pipe and the light was offset to the side a bit which frustrated me. I also didnt like the way i drilled the holes to fish the cables inside to hide them from view. Ill have to give it another try soon, but it looks way nicer imo...
A glimpse of the back of the stand and tank showing the light controller and ATO sensor. I had to cut out a square piece of the black vinyl for the sensor to work...
Im Peter, Irecently started a reef tank and wanted to share my story here as some of you did before me, giving inspiration to many like myself. My story is that I got this tank as a birthday gift for my 30th... My wife noticed I was getting more and more interested in reefing, looked up my search history and got a Nuvo 20 from BRS. The day after the b-day party, when I sobered up ... I started to plan it all our. Main challenges were, living in an apartment and being a bit short on space, needing a stand, figuring out how will I get my water and getting the rest of the equipment... I started browsing craigslist, OfferUp and R2R for some used equipment and was lucky to pick up a Kessil 360WE with a controller, a Smatr ATO, IM reactor and an RODI unit... even found an unopened bucket of Reef Crystals for $30. In the mean time I was building a stand at in-laws (with some help). The stand needed to be big enough to fit all my equipment, buckets, ato and RODI unit when not used as i didn't have any other place to keep it. Its pretty overbuild for a 20 gallon, but I also made the top removable for when I want to move the nano tank to my daughters room and put a 50 gallon or something similar on this stand.
Next I replaced the outlet I will be using for the tank to a GFCI, and modified my plumbing abit to make constant connecting and disconnecting the RODI unit a bit less frustrating.
I install this small piece of tubbing with a cap on in the valve when not making water so I don't flood the down stairs neighbors if someone knocks the handle on the valve by accident. I also plug all the tubing on the RODI unit when not in use to stop the membrane from drying out.
Here is the setup in motion... kind of fail safe as all the water goes down the drain if the bucket overfills.
My daughter helping me test the tank... I think she is more excited than I am about it.
Aqua scape I came up with using reef saver rock...
View from the top showing a little "island" i plan to put zoanthids on...
Tank is in place, waiting for few more things before getting filled.
RODI unit in place...
And everything else including salt... I have four 2" round felt floor protectors glued to the bottom of the stand and am still able to slide it around. I think i will still be able to do it if i take everything out when the tank is full...
I didn't like how the goose neck looks for the Kessils and made an arm out of 1/2" EMT conduit, painted it black and mounted it, but the holes i drilled didn't line up with the center of the pipe and the light was offset to the side a bit which frustrated me. I also didnt like the way i drilled the holes to fish the cables inside to hide them from view. Ill have to give it another try soon, but it looks way nicer imo...
A glimpse of the back of the stand and tank showing the light controller and ATO sensor. I had to cut out a square piece of the black vinyl for the sensor to work...
