Jason sovereign
Community Member
Hello fellow reefers from Michigan,
A little background on myself. I am new to reef 2 reef but have been in the hobby since 2004. Over the years I have had several systems with my last 2 being mostly sps with a few of my lps favorites. Both torn down and sold off around moving. My last system which was set up in 2015 was a custom aquarium on a tslot stand in which I furniture maker build a custom shell. Ran all the bells and whistles on it from a ati power module, eco tech mp40’s and around this time the ecotech m1 return, max spect gyres and apex dos had just been released. It was a 65 gallon system that after all was said in done cost me just over $14k to set up. This system ran until the middle of 2018 and tore down because I wasn’t able to give the aquarium the attention it deserved. I had told myself then I am out for good but after 1 1/2 years I’m back. I took advantage of the Black Friday sales and started back on my journey. My intention was to do a small system that I can enjoy in the living room. One thing getting out taught me is I appreciate the quite so as I build this new system that is going to be at the forefront. Secondly and this will probably be unpopular is I don’t want a controller in which I am spending more time looking at my phone then enjoying the tank itself. In my experience I feel I always had better growth and color when I just let the system running without messing with it to much doing just the basics.
So that brings me to today. Starting off with a waterbox marine x 35.1. The tank itself the water volume is 22 gallons the sump is 11.2 gallons with a built in 2.1 gallon ato reservoir. I plan to keep it semi simple.
equipment I have decided on so far and have purchased.
lights - ecotech g5 blue. Backstory- because of the dimensions of the aquarium 17.5 square that took t5 off the table. Also being someone that really likes sps I was looking for something to blanket the aquarium. After weeding through a few dozen options. I narrowed it down to 4 lights. ati Stratton, kessil a360x, ecotech xr15 g5 blue and hydra 32 HD. Kessil I passed on because of its mounting height and spread. The hydra because of its sheen and not blending the different color LED well enough for my liking. The Stratton because of its mounting options and it’s literally 1 inch to big in diameter. The ecotech won out for me with its new panel design, mounting height and mounting options and with the diffuser it blends well and gives a sheen almost as well as the kessil.
skimmer -aquamaxx DCFC80. Backstory- where to begin. I looked at what seemed like 100 options and watched tons of videos. With this being such a small system I don’t need a very large skimmer. In fact many of the nano skimmers are rated for a much larger water volume. My experience tells me skimmers without a full body doesn’t allow for enough contact time to separate out the organics and I like to feed. I ran a nano skimmer years ago on a biocube and it left me unimpressed and have seen several in operation at my lfs the all skim wet from what I’ve seen if they skim at all. I narrowed it down after weeding through dozens to the tunze 9004, Cad lights 50, Octo 110 sss and aquamax fc80. Based on my sumps room and running depth without having to rig up a stand it came down to the octo 110 and aqua max fc80. YouTube had tons of videos of both but it appeared the aqua max real reviews appeared to be less temperamental and just a more modern design and just flat skims. Just as I went to purchase it over the holiday the released a DC version of the aquamaxx 80. So that’s what I went with. Will follow up with a review done the road once the system is up and has had some time to establish.
Powerheads. Jebao slw-5 backstory - this was not my first choice. I have been using ecotech mp powerheads since the control boxes where blue then white then black. The marketing for not having the cord in the water doesnt sell me. I just always trusted them and they all ran for years with minimal problems. The waterbox is drilled in the bottom with a rear sump area that will allow me to hide the pumps on the back which with the small viewing area it has I don’t want the brick hanging on the side. Sorry ecotech I still think you’re an awesome powerhead. So before the tank arrived I had a styrofoam container with the same dimensions of the tank that I tested a few in it. I first bought 2 octo pulse 2. They where amazing. Just a bit bigger then I wanted and without turning down all the way they where too much. I returned them purchased 1 AI Nero 5 and 1 jebao slw10 to compare and then buy a second of the winner. After comparing them they are so similar I’d swear they are made in the same factory. I’d almost bet on it. They where both great and still needed to tune the way down. They both have the same Wide flow with a super small body but again just a bit much. When I went to return the Nero just to save a few bucks I stumbled on jebao slw5. This powerhead is ultra low profile and very inexpensive. So I picked one up tested it in the container and it’s flow for the dimensions of the aquarium and the fact it’s so inexpensive sold me. In fact I purchased 4 at $40ea. which was still less the cost of 1 of the other pumps I tested so I have backups.
Thats enough for my introduction. I’ll follow up with some pictures of my progress if anyone cares to follow along and touch base on my other equipment in later posts.
A little background on myself. I am new to reef 2 reef but have been in the hobby since 2004. Over the years I have had several systems with my last 2 being mostly sps with a few of my lps favorites. Both torn down and sold off around moving. My last system which was set up in 2015 was a custom aquarium on a tslot stand in which I furniture maker build a custom shell. Ran all the bells and whistles on it from a ati power module, eco tech mp40’s and around this time the ecotech m1 return, max spect gyres and apex dos had just been released. It was a 65 gallon system that after all was said in done cost me just over $14k to set up. This system ran until the middle of 2018 and tore down because I wasn’t able to give the aquarium the attention it deserved. I had told myself then I am out for good but after 1 1/2 years I’m back. I took advantage of the Black Friday sales and started back on my journey. My intention was to do a small system that I can enjoy in the living room. One thing getting out taught me is I appreciate the quite so as I build this new system that is going to be at the forefront. Secondly and this will probably be unpopular is I don’t want a controller in which I am spending more time looking at my phone then enjoying the tank itself. In my experience I feel I always had better growth and color when I just let the system running without messing with it to much doing just the basics.
So that brings me to today. Starting off with a waterbox marine x 35.1. The tank itself the water volume is 22 gallons the sump is 11.2 gallons with a built in 2.1 gallon ato reservoir. I plan to keep it semi simple.
equipment I have decided on so far and have purchased.
lights - ecotech g5 blue. Backstory- because of the dimensions of the aquarium 17.5 square that took t5 off the table. Also being someone that really likes sps I was looking for something to blanket the aquarium. After weeding through a few dozen options. I narrowed it down to 4 lights. ati Stratton, kessil a360x, ecotech xr15 g5 blue and hydra 32 HD. Kessil I passed on because of its mounting height and spread. The hydra because of its sheen and not blending the different color LED well enough for my liking. The Stratton because of its mounting options and it’s literally 1 inch to big in diameter. The ecotech won out for me with its new panel design, mounting height and mounting options and with the diffuser it blends well and gives a sheen almost as well as the kessil.
skimmer -aquamaxx DCFC80. Backstory- where to begin. I looked at what seemed like 100 options and watched tons of videos. With this being such a small system I don’t need a very large skimmer. In fact many of the nano skimmers are rated for a much larger water volume. My experience tells me skimmers without a full body doesn’t allow for enough contact time to separate out the organics and I like to feed. I ran a nano skimmer years ago on a biocube and it left me unimpressed and have seen several in operation at my lfs the all skim wet from what I’ve seen if they skim at all. I narrowed it down after weeding through dozens to the tunze 9004, Cad lights 50, Octo 110 sss and aquamax fc80. Based on my sumps room and running depth without having to rig up a stand it came down to the octo 110 and aqua max fc80. YouTube had tons of videos of both but it appeared the aqua max real reviews appeared to be less temperamental and just a more modern design and just flat skims. Just as I went to purchase it over the holiday the released a DC version of the aquamaxx 80. So that’s what I went with. Will follow up with a review done the road once the system is up and has had some time to establish.
Powerheads. Jebao slw-5 backstory - this was not my first choice. I have been using ecotech mp powerheads since the control boxes where blue then white then black. The marketing for not having the cord in the water doesnt sell me. I just always trusted them and they all ran for years with minimal problems. The waterbox is drilled in the bottom with a rear sump area that will allow me to hide the pumps on the back which with the small viewing area it has I don’t want the brick hanging on the side. Sorry ecotech I still think you’re an awesome powerhead. So before the tank arrived I had a styrofoam container with the same dimensions of the tank that I tested a few in it. I first bought 2 octo pulse 2. They where amazing. Just a bit bigger then I wanted and without turning down all the way they where too much. I returned them purchased 1 AI Nero 5 and 1 jebao slw10 to compare and then buy a second of the winner. After comparing them they are so similar I’d swear they are made in the same factory. I’d almost bet on it. They where both great and still needed to tune the way down. They both have the same Wide flow with a super small body but again just a bit much. When I went to return the Nero just to save a few bucks I stumbled on jebao slw5. This powerhead is ultra low profile and very inexpensive. So I picked one up tested it in the container and it’s flow for the dimensions of the aquarium and the fact it’s so inexpensive sold me. In fact I purchased 4 at $40ea. which was still less the cost of 1 of the other pumps I tested so I have backups.
Thats enough for my introduction. I’ll follow up with some pictures of my progress if anyone cares to follow along and touch base on my other equipment in later posts.
