a makeshift reef

[Benny Z]

here is my "virgin" 29g softy reef.

this is most of the liverock i had in my old 46g bowfront, which was torn down in november when we moved. a buddy held the lr and my clownfish in his tank until last week, so i set up a spare 29g with the help of some local reefers. kromine delivered the skimmer to me and i was able to borrow a pump from hounddog01. i'm using some pc for actinic lighting and a standard florescent for white...no clue on the kelvin range. i hope to upgrade the lighting to an evc 250w retro halide sometime in the near future. i'd also like to upgrade the sump to a 20g to provide room for a small refugium to grow macro algae for nutrient export and will also be swapping 29g tanks with legoz so i can drill the tank for a more "safe" overflow design. ...so it will be torn down and rebuilt yet again here shortly. i have also ordered a mag3 to replace the borrowed return pump.

this tank is bare bottom...and so far...i love it! i've got 3 powerheads blowing across the bottom of the tank and there is no visible detritus accumulating anywhere that i can see...yet, of course. we'll see what happens over the next few months.

inhabitants:
10 blue leggers
5 astrias
1 false perc clown (several years old now...originally from petco ;D)
1 firefish
1 yellow fin (?) fairy wrasse
1 very small yellow watchman goby
1 peppermint shrimp (to eat aptasia...hopefully)
1 cleaner shrimp
various mushrooms

let me know what you think. cheers!

 

[brad23]

I like the lighting the mushrooms look a lot better than they did under my 2 year old 40w strip lights.

I'm not a fan of BB tanks but it does make it look deeper and gives you more to look at.

Hows the 200g project comming along? haven't seen any updates in a while.

 

[Benny Z]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7055972#post7055972 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by brad23
Hows the 200g project comming along? haven't seen any updates in a while.

got money?

the tank is on the stand, but that's about it. i still need to level it and then frame in the wall around it. once that's done i can durock/sheetrock it and finish the framing.

then it's just lights, skimmer, pumps, and plumbing. right? you know how this works.

 

[brad23]

I expect to see it up and running in the next two - three years. But it's cool that you can have a small reef between now and then like me.

 

[hounddog01]

Looks good. I have a 29 I am going to redo. Small tanks can be fun. They are less expensive so if you need to change something it cost alot less.

 

[Benny Z]

fun indeed.

i took this afternoon off and horace helped me modify a maxijet 1200 into a "tunze" style pump. HOLY COW this thing is freakin insane!!! with the pump mounted a few inches below the water it creates a torrential - no i'm not overplaying this - TORRENTIAL water surface. it is simply too much flow for my mushrooms...they all shrivled up 'n stuff.

so instead i've aimed the pump towards the bottom center of the tank behind the rockwork about 4" off the bottom on the right side. the current is still insane in this small tank, but the mushrooms don't get the direct current so they've opened back up.

i would highly recommend this mod to anyone. ...especially if you have maxijets laying around unused or find a good deal on a used one. who needs a $$$ seio or tunze??? lol

also, a sad side note... i didn't have a plastic cover over the open back space of the tank behind the glass lid. both the firefish and yellow watchman goby took the dive of death.

however, i remedy'd that problem and picked up an adult carpenter's flasher wrasse, 3 very small green chromis, and a small frag of green zoos tonight.

 

[smorrow5773]

That is funny...I just built one of those mods myself a while back. My powerhead is rated at 165 gph, and I took the prop off my old rc boat...holy *&%^ the flow is insane. As if I didn't have enough flow already...I am up to about 3700gph in my 60gal all directed at my island in the middle. Funny to watch the fish fly by you backwards..lol.

 

[brad23]

I'll have to come over and take a look this week.