DCJ
Community Member
Part of my collection of four different reef builds I'm doing at the same time.
I'm also setting up, and will have build threads for:
- a Fluval Evo 13.5 (remember when they came out?)
- a weird shaped ex-LFS 26 gallon "cube"
- a Fluval Spec III pico 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.
Before the RSR, the largest reef tank I had was my weird shaped 26 gal. I bought this RSR350 secondhand after we'd moved into the new house, to have a larger reef tank in the living room.
The tank is 120cm (4ft) and 73 gal display, 18 gal sump, total volume 91 gal.
It came with a mesh Reef Tops lid, currently being protected by layers of cardboard so it doesn't get torn as everyone uses it as a place to put stuff for now.
It came with an Evergrow light, which I'm keeping, and which I don't have pics of yet. It's going to be a puzzle mounting them - I'd like to hang them from the ceiling, but I don't know if the rest of the family is going to agree. May need to make some brackets for them, like the original owner did.
It has a Jebao 6500 return pump, and a Maxspect Gyre XF330 single pump.
A heater with Inkbird controller.
And a Jebao 3-head dosing pump.
Sump pic!
Sorry it's out of focus, my phone wouldn't sharpen it and my hand tremors also made it difficult.
As you can see it's currently a mess; I've yet to plumb it all up and get water in the thing, which I'm kinda terrified about because I've never plumbed a tank like this before, even if it's all pretty much screw together. I'm sure it'll be easy, just, fear of the unknown?
Apart from all the pipework, pumps, hoses and whatnot, you can see the skimmer. It's a Bubble Magus Curve 5, also secondhand.
I'm planning on setting up the integrated ATO with the float valve (Thank you again to @CasperOe who was so incredibly helpful, patient and kind helping me walk through it)
I'm thinking of using a magnetic filter sock when I need to, otherwise running it without, and from left to right, a refugium as big as I can make it, skimmer chamber, return pump chamber. I want to try a few types of decorative macro algae in there, make it look pretty in it's own right.
The more sharp-eyed of you may have noticed the remnants of what I can only assume was an asterina starfish plague that the previous owner was dealing with. There are tiny little dried satrfish bodies all over the place.
I'm going to need to clean the tank, and I want to run the skimmer and pumps through a citric acid bath to get them clean and gunk free before setting up the tank proper.
I'll be using 1-2mm aragonite sand and plain old Instant Ocean salt. I'll decide on what and how I'll be dosing as the needs of the tank change as I work on stocking the tank out, but I'll probably be utilising the experience of the biochem members of our hobby and using their recipes for dosing solutions.
I have to keep things as low cost as possible, but more than that, I don't want to have to rely on subscription-esque methods, where I need to keep a running supply of the same chemical or whatnot to keep the tank running. They inevitably end up going out of stock or shutting down, and the prices are usually high.
I have a lot of rock that came with the tank, which has been bleach-cured, rinse-soaked in dechlorinated water and is now in the process of drying and gassing off any remaining bleach. I think I might need to buy more rock for this build though - the previous owner was SPS dominated, and the rockscape he had was very low as a result.
I think I'd like a little more to build up some areas for extra bacteria housing, and for fish territories - I'd like some rubbly pieces in the bottom for the wrasse, for example.
Speaking of wrasse!
STOCKING
I'm still working this through, with help from you guys, you're all so kind and helpful with my n00b questions.
My current stocking list is:
- 1 tail spot blenny (ecsenius stigmatura) (thank you to @therootcause for steering me away from the molly miller)
- 1 orange-stripe prawn goby (& shrimp) (Amblyeleotris randalli)
- 1 royal gramma (gramma loreto)
- 1 bangaii cardinal (pterapogon kauderni)
- 1 blue-green chromis (chromis virids)
- 1 mcCosker's flasher wrasse (Paracheilinus mccoskeri)
- 1 flasher wrasse (p. cyaneus/p. lineopunctatus/p. flavinalis) - one of these
- 1 fairy wrasse (cirrhilabrus ribriventralis)
- 1 halichoeres cosmetus wrasse
- 2 clownfish (some orange & white classic type)
- 1 tang (one of the small Ctenochaetus, I like the blue-eyed Kole, Ctenochaetus binotatus and the Silver Spot, Ctenochaetus truncatus)
-
That list is broken up by what batches I'll be quarantining and adding to the tank in, although I might do something special against the risk of uronema for the chromis, and something gentler for the wrasse. I'm planning on doing TTM with hydrogen peroxide baths, and then two doses of worming while the fish are in the observation/resting/fattening up part of QT.
That's 12 fish; I've seen these tanks stocked with 13 fish on average. I don't THINK I'm overloading in terms of bioload, aggression, habitat and space in the tank.
CUC, I'm not thinking of anything too wild. Cleaner shrimp, an urchin, trochus and nassarius snails, a conch, and maybe a few crabs. Might pop some bumblebee snails in there for the tiny cracks in the rock.
I was going to try a clam, but I don't want to see it potentially be eaten.
Corals wise, I think mostly the milder/less aggressive LPS, then some softies, and some of the easier LPS corals - I'd love a couple of nice large colonies of branching SPS and large leather corals, with some large plating SPS, and then extra pieces of LPS filling up the rest of the space.
I'm excited to try keeping some of the larger species of fish, as I've only kept nano fish in my nano tanks before now. I know a 90 gal isn't that big, but I think it lets me try some of the more common larger species that I haven't before.
My energy and strength (and money) is limited, so I'll be going slow on this build, but that's cool. I'm looking forward to slowly cycling the tank with ammonia, it's one of my favourite parts of keeping FW tanks and reef tanks. I'm looking in terms of months, not weeks, but that gives me time to get things cycled, have some cycled media for the QT tanks, and to let my corals and non-fish purchases go through QT too before they go into the DT.
I'd love to hear from anyone who:
- has this tank and what you stocked it with
- maybe has experience with the predicted stocking
- has tips on running tanks cost effectively
- and any other disabled reefers, especially physically disabled!
Thank you forum, and thank you to anyone who managed to make it to the end of this post!
I'm also setting up, and will have build threads for:
- a Fluval Evo 13.5 (remember when they came out?)
- a weird shaped ex-LFS 26 gallon "cube"
- a Fluval Spec III pico 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.
Before the RSR, the largest reef tank I had was my weird shaped 26 gal. I bought this RSR350 secondhand after we'd moved into the new house, to have a larger reef tank in the living room.
The tank is 120cm (4ft) and 73 gal display, 18 gal sump, total volume 91 gal.
It came with a mesh Reef Tops lid, currently being protected by layers of cardboard so it doesn't get torn as everyone uses it as a place to put stuff for now.
It came with an Evergrow light, which I'm keeping, and which I don't have pics of yet. It's going to be a puzzle mounting them - I'd like to hang them from the ceiling, but I don't know if the rest of the family is going to agree. May need to make some brackets for them, like the original owner did.
It has a Jebao 6500 return pump, and a Maxspect Gyre XF330 single pump.
A heater with Inkbird controller.
And a Jebao 3-head dosing pump.
Sump pic!
Sorry it's out of focus, my phone wouldn't sharpen it and my hand tremors also made it difficult.
As you can see it's currently a mess; I've yet to plumb it all up and get water in the thing, which I'm kinda terrified about because I've never plumbed a tank like this before, even if it's all pretty much screw together. I'm sure it'll be easy, just, fear of the unknown?
Apart from all the pipework, pumps, hoses and whatnot, you can see the skimmer. It's a Bubble Magus Curve 5, also secondhand.
I'm planning on setting up the integrated ATO with the float valve (Thank you again to @CasperOe who was so incredibly helpful, patient and kind helping me walk through it)
I'm thinking of using a magnetic filter sock when I need to, otherwise running it without, and from left to right, a refugium as big as I can make it, skimmer chamber, return pump chamber. I want to try a few types of decorative macro algae in there, make it look pretty in it's own right.
The more sharp-eyed of you may have noticed the remnants of what I can only assume was an asterina starfish plague that the previous owner was dealing with. There are tiny little dried satrfish bodies all over the place.
I'm going to need to clean the tank, and I want to run the skimmer and pumps through a citric acid bath to get them clean and gunk free before setting up the tank proper.
I'll be using 1-2mm aragonite sand and plain old Instant Ocean salt. I'll decide on what and how I'll be dosing as the needs of the tank change as I work on stocking the tank out, but I'll probably be utilising the experience of the biochem members of our hobby and using their recipes for dosing solutions.
I have to keep things as low cost as possible, but more than that, I don't want to have to rely on subscription-esque methods, where I need to keep a running supply of the same chemical or whatnot to keep the tank running. They inevitably end up going out of stock or shutting down, and the prices are usually high.
I have a lot of rock that came with the tank, which has been bleach-cured, rinse-soaked in dechlorinated water and is now in the process of drying and gassing off any remaining bleach. I think I might need to buy more rock for this build though - the previous owner was SPS dominated, and the rockscape he had was very low as a result.
I think I'd like a little more to build up some areas for extra bacteria housing, and for fish territories - I'd like some rubbly pieces in the bottom for the wrasse, for example.
Speaking of wrasse!
STOCKING
I'm still working this through, with help from you guys, you're all so kind and helpful with my n00b questions.
My current stocking list is:
- 1 tail spot blenny (ecsenius stigmatura) (thank you to @therootcause for steering me away from the molly miller)
- 1 orange-stripe prawn goby (& shrimp) (Amblyeleotris randalli)
- 1 royal gramma (gramma loreto)
- 1 bangaii cardinal (pterapogon kauderni)
- 1 blue-green chromis (chromis virids)
- 1 mcCosker's flasher wrasse (Paracheilinus mccoskeri)
- 1 flasher wrasse (p. cyaneus/p. lineopunctatus/p. flavinalis) - one of these
- 1 fairy wrasse (cirrhilabrus ribriventralis)
- 1 halichoeres cosmetus wrasse
- 2 clownfish (some orange & white classic type)
- 1 tang (one of the small Ctenochaetus, I like the blue-eyed Kole, Ctenochaetus binotatus and the Silver Spot, Ctenochaetus truncatus)
-
That list is broken up by what batches I'll be quarantining and adding to the tank in, although I might do something special against the risk of uronema for the chromis, and something gentler for the wrasse. I'm planning on doing TTM with hydrogen peroxide baths, and then two doses of worming while the fish are in the observation/resting/fattening up part of QT.
That's 12 fish; I've seen these tanks stocked with 13 fish on average. I don't THINK I'm overloading in terms of bioload, aggression, habitat and space in the tank.
CUC, I'm not thinking of anything too wild. Cleaner shrimp, an urchin, trochus and nassarius snails, a conch, and maybe a few crabs. Might pop some bumblebee snails in there for the tiny cracks in the rock.
I was going to try a clam, but I don't want to see it potentially be eaten.
Corals wise, I think mostly the milder/less aggressive LPS, then some softies, and some of the easier LPS corals - I'd love a couple of nice large colonies of branching SPS and large leather corals, with some large plating SPS, and then extra pieces of LPS filling up the rest of the space.
I'm excited to try keeping some of the larger species of fish, as I've only kept nano fish in my nano tanks before now. I know a 90 gal isn't that big, but I think it lets me try some of the more common larger species that I haven't before.
My energy and strength (and money) is limited, so I'll be going slow on this build, but that's cool. I'm looking forward to slowly cycling the tank with ammonia, it's one of my favourite parts of keeping FW tanks and reef tanks. I'm looking in terms of months, not weeks, but that gives me time to get things cycled, have some cycled media for the QT tanks, and to let my corals and non-fish purchases go through QT too before they go into the DT.
I'd love to hear from anyone who:
- has this tank and what you stocked it with
- maybe has experience with the predicted stocking
- has tips on running tanks cost effectively
- and any other disabled reefers, especially physically disabled!
Thank you forum, and thank you to anyone who managed to make it to the end of this post!
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