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I figured I might as well share a bit of my build with you guys. A little background this reef was started in January 2019 so it is over 3 years old at this point. This has always been a pretty low budget operation that I've added bits and pieces to over the years but in general it's pretty darn basic.
Full tank shot, mostly softies and LPS. The unicorn horn acro nub pointing out the top is a recent addition.
Right side of the tank, you can see my banded shrimp as well as plenty of the misc corals here.
Left side, the very large bubble coral is kind of the centerpiece of my tank. It's one of the first corals I ever added to this. If I turn the flow way down it will expand to over 11" across.
Center shot of the alveo and goni, plenty of mushrooms and polyps. My six line wrasse hanging out in there.
Lighting I'm using. It's a basic cheap 4x24w horticultural T5 unit with ATI bulbs and two reef brite 50/50 LED bars I got on clearance that I attached to it. I get about 220 PAR in the high center and maybe 100 PAR in the low corners.
This tank does have a sump that is fed using a Eshopps Nano HOB siphon overflow. The sump is a basic 5.5g glass tank with no baffles, a ball of chaeto, and an aquaclear hanging onto it. I have two heaters, both of which are hooked into my Ranco ETC temp controller for safety. Return pump is a Sicce 1.5 and the powerheads are Jebao SW4s running in anti-sync on/off pulses. Dosing is handled by a single BRS 1.1ml pump which adds 165ml of saturated kalkwasser during the day in 15ml periods. ATO is an Avast Marine. Salt is HW Marinemix and I do about a 5g water change once every 2 weeks.
My stocking goes about as follows
Three total fish: Banggai Cardinal, six line wrasse, orange skunk clown
Inverts: Coral banded shrimp, lots of hermits, misc snails
Corals: (Sorry in advance I don't know named corals and such). Big honking bubble coral. Green sinularia or possibly a nepthea. Big duncan, maybe 30-40 heads on it. Green hammer with three heads. Very small and slow growing bicolor euphy that is neither hammer nor frogspawn nor torch but kinda has attributes of all of them, I guess they are called frammers? Another 2 head hammer frammer ish thing, greenish blue. Misc gorgs, purple plumes and angular whips mostly. Two gonis, one alveo. A ton of mushrooms, like way too many. Discos, rhodactics, yumas, floridas....Let's see I've got some basic vietnamese wild zoas of the usual green and red types. I've got some orange zoas. There's a few palys in there, some are green, some are pink, some are purple. Don't have any names for ya there.
Anyway that's my reef tank. Maybe I'll start one for my 15g mantis tank as well, but the mantis is shy and hard to photograph so this is easier. Enjoy.
Full tank shot, mostly softies and LPS. The unicorn horn acro nub pointing out the top is a recent addition.
Right side of the tank, you can see my banded shrimp as well as plenty of the misc corals here.
Left side, the very large bubble coral is kind of the centerpiece of my tank. It's one of the first corals I ever added to this. If I turn the flow way down it will expand to over 11" across.
Center shot of the alveo and goni, plenty of mushrooms and polyps. My six line wrasse hanging out in there.
Lighting I'm using. It's a basic cheap 4x24w horticultural T5 unit with ATI bulbs and two reef brite 50/50 LED bars I got on clearance that I attached to it. I get about 220 PAR in the high center and maybe 100 PAR in the low corners.
This tank does have a sump that is fed using a Eshopps Nano HOB siphon overflow. The sump is a basic 5.5g glass tank with no baffles, a ball of chaeto, and an aquaclear hanging onto it. I have two heaters, both of which are hooked into my Ranco ETC temp controller for safety. Return pump is a Sicce 1.5 and the powerheads are Jebao SW4s running in anti-sync on/off pulses. Dosing is handled by a single BRS 1.1ml pump which adds 165ml of saturated kalkwasser during the day in 15ml periods. ATO is an Avast Marine. Salt is HW Marinemix and I do about a 5g water change once every 2 weeks.
My stocking goes about as follows
Three total fish: Banggai Cardinal, six line wrasse, orange skunk clown
Inverts: Coral banded shrimp, lots of hermits, misc snails
Corals: (Sorry in advance I don't know named corals and such). Big honking bubble coral. Green sinularia or possibly a nepthea. Big duncan, maybe 30-40 heads on it. Green hammer with three heads. Very small and slow growing bicolor euphy that is neither hammer nor frogspawn nor torch but kinda has attributes of all of them, I guess they are called frammers? Another 2 head hammer frammer ish thing, greenish blue. Misc gorgs, purple plumes and angular whips mostly. Two gonis, one alveo. A ton of mushrooms, like way too many. Discos, rhodactics, yumas, floridas....Let's see I've got some basic vietnamese wild zoas of the usual green and red types. I've got some orange zoas. There's a few palys in there, some are green, some are pink, some are purple. Don't have any names for ya there.
Anyway that's my reef tank. Maybe I'll start one for my 15g mantis tank as well, but the mantis is shy and hard to photograph so this is easier. Enjoy.
