Saxman7
New member
Hey Everyone I've been waiting to get this one up an running for several months now and I'm excited to share one of my home tanks with you guys so here's what going on:
Backstory: My current setup is a 20 gallon that has been up for about a year and half now and has been through alot of changes. The out come has been a mixed reef of mainly lps and nps. considering all the various fish and inverts on top of this, it's getting alittle out of hand- BUT it is pretty cool to see multiple crinoids( most of which have multiple hosts) in a more reef like tank. The plan is to keep this tank running but theme it more like a muc bottom diving site. Minimal rock in the display with a mud like sand and the main focus being to display my medusa worms. I plan to add there host emperor shrimp along with multiple other small shrimp species and nano fish. Check out the documentary on youtube about the Lembeh Strait to get an idea of what i'm talking about!
So what's this have to do with my new tank?
Simple. make a seperate awesome Nps display. I'm going to move most of the nps corals and crinoids over along with hopeful plans of have a small school of a smaller species of anthias or (if I can find them!)a small group of Photoblepharon palpebratum. Now I can't say it's going to be full blown gorgs or full blown lps nps type corals like tubastreas but i'm planning to mainly have more filter feeders and gorgs. but will see! Here's the specs:
Tank:
I'm using the new Red Sea Reefer 28 as my starting point...but I did a few modifications.
Pump: Ecotech vectra m1
lighting: a little over kill but I currently it's a radion xr15. I like having the options to change colors to more reds and pink with nps because the color and pop you get is amazing.
Skimmer: not using on yet but will add soon
Reactors: Not added yet, but there are nice ones from beshea I use on my current tank that work well that work well.
wave makers: there isn't one yet.
The big idea here is that I took out the soft plumbing of the tank and made my own hard plumbing with a side 3 way manifold. being careful, I also drilled a small shelf inside the stand to make a shelf. The way this is planned to work so that the first two lines are for reactors. I plan on running GFO and Bio pellets with these (may need one or both, will see how things go as time goes). The third line is to run out the back to a fridge for foods(also seconds as a pressure release) which I plan to do a doser(inside the fridge) plumbed into a venturi valve that runs straight through the fridge. main question is how to run it back to the tank. if I was to put it back in the return it would just clog the reactors so i'm probably going to redo the manifold and the rest of the plumbing at some point.
The return is a little funky because I made a crazy 3-way lock line system. I really do not like wave makers cause my basket stars and medusa worms were always trying to get in them and the sponge coverings would clogs up quickly because of feeding. An Idea I have is to sync an mp 10 when the vectra shuts off for feeding and have a lower circulation to effectively feed( this way the mp10 doesn't get clogged fast either) but i'll keep messing with it. two of the locklines have rotating return nozzles to add some variation in flow while the main return has a flat spray nozzle with a valve so I can valve it back and push water out to the other side lines.
I did my own rock structure for this tank using a bonding martial my store developed to do custom rock structures and I plan to add a little something special later on too. Sand wise I've discovered that seachem Flourite sand for planted aquariums seem to not have any negative effects on the critters so I mix it with a white sand. the out come is a nice grey color sand that is all very fine and ideal for sand sifting species like cucumbers,medsua worms and SS gobies. Also I'm not noticing phosphates leaching like the caribb sea hawaiian black seems to do, which is also WAY to coarse to use for any of these organsims.
Hope y'all enjoy this and it's progression! if you have any questions on how I did these mods, i'll be happy to answer and help you.
Here's some pics: please excuse quality as android is letting me down currently...phone has also seen much better days.
Backstory: My current setup is a 20 gallon that has been up for about a year and half now and has been through alot of changes. The out come has been a mixed reef of mainly lps and nps. considering all the various fish and inverts on top of this, it's getting alittle out of hand- BUT it is pretty cool to see multiple crinoids( most of which have multiple hosts) in a more reef like tank. The plan is to keep this tank running but theme it more like a muc bottom diving site. Minimal rock in the display with a mud like sand and the main focus being to display my medusa worms. I plan to add there host emperor shrimp along with multiple other small shrimp species and nano fish. Check out the documentary on youtube about the Lembeh Strait to get an idea of what i'm talking about!
So what's this have to do with my new tank?
Simple. make a seperate awesome Nps display. I'm going to move most of the nps corals and crinoids over along with hopeful plans of have a small school of a smaller species of anthias or (if I can find them!)a small group of Photoblepharon palpebratum. Now I can't say it's going to be full blown gorgs or full blown lps nps type corals like tubastreas but i'm planning to mainly have more filter feeders and gorgs. but will see! Here's the specs:
Tank:
I'm using the new Red Sea Reefer 28 as my starting point...but I did a few modifications.
Pump: Ecotech vectra m1
lighting: a little over kill but I currently it's a radion xr15. I like having the options to change colors to more reds and pink with nps because the color and pop you get is amazing.
Skimmer: not using on yet but will add soon
Reactors: Not added yet, but there are nice ones from beshea I use on my current tank that work well that work well.
wave makers: there isn't one yet.
The big idea here is that I took out the soft plumbing of the tank and made my own hard plumbing with a side 3 way manifold. being careful, I also drilled a small shelf inside the stand to make a shelf. The way this is planned to work so that the first two lines are for reactors. I plan on running GFO and Bio pellets with these (may need one or both, will see how things go as time goes). The third line is to run out the back to a fridge for foods(also seconds as a pressure release) which I plan to do a doser(inside the fridge) plumbed into a venturi valve that runs straight through the fridge. main question is how to run it back to the tank. if I was to put it back in the return it would just clog the reactors so i'm probably going to redo the manifold and the rest of the plumbing at some point.
The return is a little funky because I made a crazy 3-way lock line system. I really do not like wave makers cause my basket stars and medusa worms were always trying to get in them and the sponge coverings would clogs up quickly because of feeding. An Idea I have is to sync an mp 10 when the vectra shuts off for feeding and have a lower circulation to effectively feed( this way the mp10 doesn't get clogged fast either) but i'll keep messing with it. two of the locklines have rotating return nozzles to add some variation in flow while the main return has a flat spray nozzle with a valve so I can valve it back and push water out to the other side lines.
I did my own rock structure for this tank using a bonding martial my store developed to do custom rock structures and I plan to add a little something special later on too. Sand wise I've discovered that seachem Flourite sand for planted aquariums seem to not have any negative effects on the critters so I mix it with a white sand. the out come is a nice grey color sand that is all very fine and ideal for sand sifting species like cucumbers,medsua worms and SS gobies. Also I'm not noticing phosphates leaching like the caribb sea hawaiian black seems to do, which is also WAY to coarse to use for any of these organsims.
Hope y'all enjoy this and it's progression! if you have any questions on how I did these mods, i'll be happy to answer and help you.
Here's some pics: please excuse quality as android is letting me down currently...phone has also seen much better days.