B.LaCe's 1st SW tank: JBJ 30RL

[B.LaCe]

I'm Bill, from Pittsburgh, PA. This JBJ is my first venture into SW/Reef tanks. My plan has been to build a Nano Reef Tank that wouldn't be limited to any particular types of corals (other than size, of course). The tank was stocked with live rock and live sand from my LFS and wet as of 7/12/15.

We bought the tank as a "Package" which I now regret. It was a bit of a spur of the moment purchase as we intended on making a Planted Tank out of the ADA 60F I have collecting dust. Inevitably, we changed our minds at the LFS. My GF and I set up the tank with all the JBJ supplied equipment:

Upon joining a few forums and doing a LOT of reading, I quickly realized I needed to make a few upgrades and additions to our setup. The stock JBJ media baskets were replaced by a inTank media basket (chemipure blue, carbon and some bio rings for now) on one side and a CAD PLS-50 Elite on the other to replace the JBJ sk45. A Tunze Osmolator Nano ATO was added. The JBJ LED was replaced with a Radion XR30 pro. Also added a MP10 and Reeflink to control the lights and vortech.

At this point we had be dosing the tank with ammonium chloride. After a few weeks we saw our tank was cycling the ammonia to back zero and added a CUC of a camelback shrimp, snails and hermits.









A week later Ammonia and Nitrites were returning to zero after dosing and we decided to add a pair of Clownfish. That is where we stand today. Next we'll be setting up our RODI unit. Using a Rubbermaid BRUTE 32g for storage and a 20g for saltwater mixing. I'll try to get the DSLR out and get pics of the fish tonight. Thanks in advance for all the help in the future!

 

[smtank]

With that equipment list is should turn out to be a very nice system.

I am using a 5 gallon petco tank in the stand as my ATO source. You have pretty much the same equipment I do but for lighting.

How many fish are you going to have in the tank?

For an impulse buy it looks fantastic.

 

[B.LaCe]

Thanks! We have 5 fish and I think thats probably the max for this size tank. Our tank is progressing well for now. 5 gal water changes per week. It seems to be at 0-Nitrite, <10 -nitrate when we test 3 days per week.

 

[1MP3R1AL]

Heads up. If that's a two little fishes nano glass cleaner, don't leave the wet side in your tank they rust!

 

[pompeyjohn]

Is that rock painted?

 

[B.LaCe]

Heads up. If that's a two little fishes nano glass cleaner, don't leave the wet side in your tank they rust!

Its a Mag-Float... I've used them before with no issues

Is that rock painted?

No, I was advertised as "Aquacultured Live Rock" by my LFS who use it in all their display tanks.

 

[pompeyjohn]

it looks great.

 

[smtank]

How is the tank coming along?

 

[apex003]

Looking good! Clearly the folks who get the JBJ 30RL know what they're doing... Looking forward to seeing it progress.

Are you sure that's not painted rock? I bought Real Reef rock from my LFS too, and I thought it was coralline, but I began to wonder why it was purple on all sides. Turns out it was painted, but I still really like it. They've gotten quite good at the coloration and patterning to make it very convincing. They do cure it and there's some coralline and other organisms, but the bulk of the color comes from the paint until that really takes off. Definitely not a knock... I think it looks great and I really like that it's cultivated rather than wild collected. I consider myself a relatively avid hobbyist, and I was fooled by the paint for about 3 weeks. Yours looks very similar...

 

[bdehlin]

I'm looking forwsrd to seeing an update as I'm thinking if getting a similarly sized tank