Hallo!
I'm going to try documenting the process as I set up 4 different reef tanks at the sameish time.
Apart from this Fluval Spec iii, I'm also setting up, and will do separate build threads for:
- a Fluval Evo 13.5 (remember when they came out?)
- a weird shaped ex-LFS 26 gallon "cube"
- a Red Sea Reefer 350 classic (73 gal, 90 display), my first big reef tank
A little background: I'm in the UK and don't work due to disability, which limits my mobility, but mostly my energy and strength. I live at home with my parents and my mum is my carer; they're wonderful and supportive of my hobbies. I'm on benefits so I have a really limited amount of money after bills go out, so I'm going to try to spend as little money as possible without compromising too much on quality, and keeping things manageable for me as a disabled reefer.
I've got a lot more experience with freshwater tanks than I do marine, but I have had reef tanks before, so I'm not starting from scratch. I did have to take all my tanks down a few years ago when we moved up North, and now I'm trying to set them back up again.
I had this little Fluval Spec iii tank set up previously with rock flower nems, sexy shrimp, a bumblebee snail (I had vermetid worms on the live rock I used, and he removed them)
I want to do something similar with this build.
Here's the tank, sitting on the low bookshelf beside my bed:
Really cropped so that you're not visually assaulted by the mess of my room. I'm still putting up shelves and storage two years after moving, but I'm getting there!
The tank at the moment houses some debris from times past, and I've just filled it with tap water for the time being. I never upgraded the stock pump from the first time, and I'm going to see how I go with it this time around too.
I have a AquaEl 75W flat heater in the back, which did pretty well for me last time.
The light, that looks hilariously huge on this tiny tank, is the 30W NICREW Reef light.
Honestly, I've been spoiled by the FW hobby, lights for the SW side are SO expensive.
I lost the stock light for the fluval somewhere in the move, so had to find a new one, and is it me, or is there a niche in the market for a small, afforable pico tank reef light? I didn't want to spend over £100 on a Kessil that comes without a stand, and the much lauded AI Prime is even worse.
The thing about the light, though, is...
...it's clipped on janky.
As you can see from the first pic, it's aligned way to the left, and that's because the stock light socket gets in the way.
Has anyone else with this tank managed to remove the socket without damaging the tank at all? Otherwise, I might have to put some padding between the clamp and the back of the tank to make up the difference - I tried just mounting it over the socket, but there's considerable difference in thickness to one side so the light doesn't stay stable.
Other than that, I need a new lid. The stock one doesn't fit around the new light, and I want to put one of those little bottle-fed ATO units beside it. That, and the hole in the lid. I'm planning on replacing it with a piece of clear plastic sheet cut to size to reduce evaporation as much as I can.
I'm leaving the pump in the last little sump chamber, and will probably end up putting the heater in there too.
As for the rest of it, I'm thinking a little bag of GFO or something, and a filter sponge at the comb that I can just throw out and replace.
I'm considering chaeto, but I don't know if it's worth it in a sump area that size. Maybe extra rock for more filtration?
The rock I'm planning to scape with has been bleach-cured, rinsed with dechlorinated water, and is currently drying so that anything left gasses off.
I don't have any sand yet, but I'm going with Aragonite around 1mm, like the rest of my tanks. Saltwise, I settled on Instant Ocean. Probably going to rely on water changes to keep my calcalkmag levels maintained, depending on testing.
STOCKING!
I might try a couple of rock flower nems, and a crop of clove polyps in the middle, but otherwise it's going to be all mushrooms. I think the stock pump should be okay for them? The stock light did fine too, if anything I think this light might need tuning down?
Critter-wise, I've been looking around the online reef shops (I don't have an LFS, and it's hard for me to travel further afield than maybe an hour because, disabled) to see what they have to offer, and I'm building a list based on that.
I know I want:
- a pom-pom crab (lybia sp.)
- 3? sexy shrimp (thor amboinensis)
And after that, maybe another bumblebee snail, a squat lobters, and possible anemone shrimp (the carid type). Also considering a porcelain crab, but I've yet to do my deep research and see if it'd cause problems for the pom-pom crab.
I've also been going back and forth on the idea of putting fish in this tank. It's like 2.6 gallons, which is really small.
I'm trying to be sensible about my options. I'm looking at a trimma goby, green-lined/christmas goby (Elacatinus multifasciatus), green or yellow clown goby, or one of the smaller shrimp gobies.
There's also a fish available claiming to be Tryssogobius colini, that looks more like Tryssogobius flavolineatus, commonly called the 'blue eye fairy goby', but I have as of yet been unable to find much about them.
My concerns about keeping a fish in this tank are if the RFA might pose a danger to them as they're so small, but also if they'll prey on my CUC.
Least sure about the clown gobies. I've seen a lot of people keeping shrimp gobies in a tank like this, but I'm leaning towards the trimma. I've seen them in a former LFS, they are truly tiny. But it is a 2.6 gal tank...
I hope to update as soon as possible, maybe when I get the salt, can make up the water and get the rock in? I'm going to be slow on this process, but luckily, this is the right kind of hobby when you can only do things slowly!
Thank you for anyone who managed to read this far! I'd love to hear input, especially on:
- mounting the light and the stock light socket situation
- compatability/experiences with the critters
- experience re: putting one of those fish in this tank
- compatability re: the critters and whichever fish
- anything from any other disabled reefers!
I'm going to try documenting the process as I set up 4 different reef tanks at the sameish time.
Apart from this Fluval Spec iii, I'm also setting up, and will do separate build threads for:
- a Fluval Evo 13.5 (remember when they came out?)
- a weird shaped ex-LFS 26 gallon "cube"
- a Red Sea Reefer 350 classic (73 gal, 90 display), my first big reef tank
A little background: I'm in the UK and don't work due to disability, which limits my mobility, but mostly my energy and strength. I live at home with my parents and my mum is my carer; they're wonderful and supportive of my hobbies. I'm on benefits so I have a really limited amount of money after bills go out, so I'm going to try to spend as little money as possible without compromising too much on quality, and keeping things manageable for me as a disabled reefer.
I've got a lot more experience with freshwater tanks than I do marine, but I have had reef tanks before, so I'm not starting from scratch. I did have to take all my tanks down a few years ago when we moved up North, and now I'm trying to set them back up again.
I had this little Fluval Spec iii tank set up previously with rock flower nems, sexy shrimp, a bumblebee snail (I had vermetid worms on the live rock I used, and he removed them)
I want to do something similar with this build.
Here's the tank, sitting on the low bookshelf beside my bed:
Really cropped so that you're not visually assaulted by the mess of my room. I'm still putting up shelves and storage two years after moving, but I'm getting there!
The tank at the moment houses some debris from times past, and I've just filled it with tap water for the time being. I never upgraded the stock pump from the first time, and I'm going to see how I go with it this time around too.
I have a AquaEl 75W flat heater in the back, which did pretty well for me last time.
The light, that looks hilariously huge on this tiny tank, is the 30W NICREW Reef light.
Honestly, I've been spoiled by the FW hobby, lights for the SW side are SO expensive.
I lost the stock light for the fluval somewhere in the move, so had to find a new one, and is it me, or is there a niche in the market for a small, afforable pico tank reef light? I didn't want to spend over £100 on a Kessil that comes without a stand, and the much lauded AI Prime is even worse.
The thing about the light, though, is...
...it's clipped on janky.
As you can see from the first pic, it's aligned way to the left, and that's because the stock light socket gets in the way.
Has anyone else with this tank managed to remove the socket without damaging the tank at all? Otherwise, I might have to put some padding between the clamp and the back of the tank to make up the difference - I tried just mounting it over the socket, but there's considerable difference in thickness to one side so the light doesn't stay stable.
Other than that, I need a new lid. The stock one doesn't fit around the new light, and I want to put one of those little bottle-fed ATO units beside it. That, and the hole in the lid. I'm planning on replacing it with a piece of clear plastic sheet cut to size to reduce evaporation as much as I can.
I'm leaving the pump in the last little sump chamber, and will probably end up putting the heater in there too.
As for the rest of it, I'm thinking a little bag of GFO or something, and a filter sponge at the comb that I can just throw out and replace.
I'm considering chaeto, but I don't know if it's worth it in a sump area that size. Maybe extra rock for more filtration?
The rock I'm planning to scape with has been bleach-cured, rinsed with dechlorinated water, and is currently drying so that anything left gasses off.
I don't have any sand yet, but I'm going with Aragonite around 1mm, like the rest of my tanks. Saltwise, I settled on Instant Ocean. Probably going to rely on water changes to keep my calcalkmag levels maintained, depending on testing.
STOCKING!
I might try a couple of rock flower nems, and a crop of clove polyps in the middle, but otherwise it's going to be all mushrooms. I think the stock pump should be okay for them? The stock light did fine too, if anything I think this light might need tuning down?
Critter-wise, I've been looking around the online reef shops (I don't have an LFS, and it's hard for me to travel further afield than maybe an hour because, disabled) to see what they have to offer, and I'm building a list based on that.
I know I want:
- a pom-pom crab (lybia sp.)
- 3? sexy shrimp (thor amboinensis)
And after that, maybe another bumblebee snail, a squat lobters, and possible anemone shrimp (the carid type). Also considering a porcelain crab, but I've yet to do my deep research and see if it'd cause problems for the pom-pom crab.
I've also been going back and forth on the idea of putting fish in this tank. It's like 2.6 gallons, which is really small.
I'm trying to be sensible about my options. I'm looking at a trimma goby, green-lined/christmas goby (Elacatinus multifasciatus), green or yellow clown goby, or one of the smaller shrimp gobies.
There's also a fish available claiming to be Tryssogobius colini, that looks more like Tryssogobius flavolineatus, commonly called the 'blue eye fairy goby', but I have as of yet been unable to find much about them.
My concerns about keeping a fish in this tank are if the RFA might pose a danger to them as they're so small, but also if they'll prey on my CUC.
Least sure about the clown gobies. I've seen a lot of people keeping shrimp gobies in a tank like this, but I'm leaning towards the trimma. I've seen them in a former LFS, they are truly tiny. But it is a 2.6 gal tank...
I hope to update as soon as possible, maybe when I get the salt, can make up the water and get the rock in? I'm going to be slow on this process, but luckily, this is the right kind of hobby when you can only do things slowly!
Thank you for anyone who managed to read this far! I'd love to hear input, especially on:
- mounting the light and the stock light socket situation
- compatability/experiences with the critters
- experience re: putting one of those fish in this tank
- compatability re: the critters and whichever fish
- anything from any other disabled reefers!
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