My “budget”/no glass/super ugly/nano SPS reef build ...pic heavy

[MgSullivan]

MY ATTEPMT AT FEEDING MY SPS ADDICTION IN THE MIDST OF CAOS lol

This my most recent reefing project and first build thread on R2R. I’m certainly not looking for praise or attaboys (you’ll understand when you see it), but more just wanting to document and share what I’m doing.

In the past 18 months I...
- got engaged
- got married
- bought a fixer-upper home
- dumped all my time and money into said home

... - SOMEHOW snuck in a “reef tank” without upsetting my lovely new wife.

It’s definitely been a balancing act but so far so good.
I was only able to snag a small room upstairs in the attic that was planned for storage but now also has a saltwater bucket with some corals.

It is definitely not a looker, and no one sees it besides me in person. My wife hates going up to the attic room so it it my little escape.

 

[MgSullivan]

It is currently

1 15 gallon feed trough for the “DT” and 1 45 gallon stock tank for the sump

I was planning on 1 15g for DT and one for fuge but I have way to much empty space in the sump and a weak stomach about adding another 100+ lbs of water to the upstairs attic room.

Equipment is

Jebao dc return pump
Jebao circulation pump in dt
Super cheap amazon circulation pump in dt

Aqua knight LED fixture
Used ATI 8 bulb t5 fixture with 2 center bulbs removed and i retrofitted the aqua knight led to it. So it’s a cheap hybrid LED/t5 setup

Modified CAD lights pls50 elite skimmer (used to be in the back chamber of my IM 25g lagoon so I had to hack up the mount)

Cheap LED grow light for the chaeto

Jebao dosing pump

Triton core7

 

[MgSullivan]

One of my favorite changes to my reefing game this time around is a dedicated desk for water testing, and the utilization of a magnetic stirrer, bottle brushes and baby bottle drying rack

 

[NY_Caveman]

This is very cool. Do you keep inverts or fish with them?

 

[MgSullivan]

It start the beginning of March 2018 like this

Then I built the stand

 

[MgSullivan]

This is very cool. Do you keep inverts or fish with them?

Thanks
I do have a few trochus snails and blue legs in “DT” and sump, and because I don’t want to have a lid I have 3 green chromis in the sump where they would have to jump 12” high to go carpet surfing.
But overall those are just tools for cleaning and food for corals

 

[MgSullivan]

In the beginning it was way too clean and I didn’t want to put tradition live rock in there because I have battled too many pest in the past that I have gone at all cost this time to keep them out. Without live rock though it was too clean even with adding several bottles of tank starter bacteria.
One of the options I choose was to find a trusted source of pest free corals and buy a pack and add the corals with the plug and anything that came on them to help get some well established bacteria in the tank. The only supplier I felt comfortable with this option was Adam at Battle Corals, I told him my situation and he suggest pack he normally sends to people to test wether their tank is ready for stocking the expensive stuff. To me it was a bargain and way better than I expected.

The worst thing that ever happened to those corals was getting shipped to me lol. Sadly only 2 of them made it past 2 weeks, at no fault of Adam. The corals were super happy and healthy when they arrived and the montis survived but the acros did rtn.

 

[MgSullivan]

Since then I fragged 2 pieces out of my sisters reef tank, a piece of montipora spogodes and a tiny piece of red planet.

The red planet lasted about a month but when I changed my lighting it did not transition well and ended up firing over night.
Also, I with the red planet and spogodes I get bryopsis in the tank and treated that with Reef Flux, had great results

 

[MgSullivan]

About a month ago I traded my old Innovative Marine 25g lagoon set up to a quality LFS for store credit.

I used part of that on some green chromis, acrylic coral viewer and 3 frags. Got a multi branch piece of Walt Disney acro, tiny nub of some sort of milli or prostrata that was so super dark brown, and a piece of acan echinata.

 

[MgSullivan]

Brown nub went from this



To this so far



WD



Now that acros are doing well in the tank I have some pieces coming from a local reefer who has beautiful SPS. This is the pic he took when fragging them and they are healing now

Beautiful milli he said he got from BC
JF slow burn monti
Tyree pink lemonade