I'm a born again newbie when it comes to reefkeeping. I used to raise saltwater corals 10-20 years ago when I was in Highschool and college. Marine biology was a hobby of mine and I had some reasonable success back then with soft corals. Mostly mushrooms, leathers, finger, polyps, etc. Well after a 10 year hiatus and living in ENgland, I found my old 20 gallon tall tank and decided to ressurrect it along with my passion for saltwater. 20 years ago I designed my own stand, canopy, wet-dry, protein skimmer, and lighting because I was still in Highschool and poor. Now that I'm in my 30's, I am married have a kid and find myself still poor lol. So I was back to trying to save money by building everything myself again. I decided to try and set up my tank this time for SPS and decided to try running it without any filters. My setup has no protein skimmer, no wet dry trickle filter, no fluidized bed, no carbon, no sponges, no mechanical filtration of any kind. All I am using is a couple of refugiums with various types of macro algae. I will list out my setup
1) 20 gallon tall acryllic tank (spent 2 weeks taking scratches out from being in storage for 10 years)
2) 10 gallon sump / refugium (also from 10 years ago)
3) 20 gallon tall glass refugium drilled ($29 from LFS)
4) homemade stand
5) 175 W 10K metal Halide (made from scratch for $70 plus $60 for bulb)
6) 65 W 03 power compact (made from scratch for $10 plus $15 for bulb)
7) 2x 40 W HO fluorescent bulbs (made from scratch for free plus $30 for bulbs)
8) 2x 65 W 50/50 power compacts (made from scratch for $15 plus $38 for bulbs)
9) 1 quietone 2200 pump ($65 from LFS)
10) 1 homemade float valve for topoff tank ($12 from scratch)
11) 2x 150 watt heaters ($45 from LFS)
That's just the basics.
My tank is still relatively new.
The inhabitants are:
Fish: one clownfish (ocelaris percula?), one fire fish goby
invertebrates: one peppermint shrimp, one bristle starfish, 12 hermit crabs (about the size of a pencil eraser ), one pistol shrimp (hitchhiker), 2 astrea snails, various other hitchikers.
corals: 2 xenia colonies that are going crazy (keep having to trim them and sell them back to the LFS. luckily they take them for credit), One pipe organ coral (same as xenia, keeps growing like crazy. Anyone interested in pipe organs for trade?) one closed brain, one blasto, 1 zoo, 1 frogspawn frag, 2 acros, 1 porites hitchhiker that is spreading a bit too fast for my taste (anyone want some porites pieces ?) one cup coral frag.
Half of my corals were corals that were doing very poorly in the LFS and I got them for under $10 (some for free). You can see the hole on the closed brain. That was about the size of a quarter when I got it 2 weeks ago. It is almost completely healed back up. The xenias I basically got for free because they looked dead. THe pipe organ coral never fully opened at the pet store. the pagoda and the frogspawn looked about dead in the store also. Just decided to take them home and see if they would revive.
Ok here are the pics
1) 20 gallon tall acryllic tank (spent 2 weeks taking scratches out from being in storage for 10 years)
2) 10 gallon sump / refugium (also from 10 years ago)
3) 20 gallon tall glass refugium drilled ($29 from LFS)
4) homemade stand
5) 175 W 10K metal Halide (made from scratch for $70 plus $60 for bulb)
6) 65 W 03 power compact (made from scratch for $10 plus $15 for bulb)
7) 2x 40 W HO fluorescent bulbs (made from scratch for free plus $30 for bulbs)
8) 2x 65 W 50/50 power compacts (made from scratch for $15 plus $38 for bulbs)
9) 1 quietone 2200 pump ($65 from LFS)
10) 1 homemade float valve for topoff tank ($12 from scratch)
11) 2x 150 watt heaters ($45 from LFS)
That's just the basics.
My tank is still relatively new.
The inhabitants are:
Fish: one clownfish (ocelaris percula?), one fire fish goby
invertebrates: one peppermint shrimp, one bristle starfish, 12 hermit crabs (about the size of a pencil eraser ), one pistol shrimp (hitchhiker), 2 astrea snails, various other hitchikers.
corals: 2 xenia colonies that are going crazy (keep having to trim them and sell them back to the LFS. luckily they take them for credit), One pipe organ coral (same as xenia, keeps growing like crazy. Anyone interested in pipe organs for trade?) one closed brain, one blasto, 1 zoo, 1 frogspawn frag, 2 acros, 1 porites hitchhiker that is spreading a bit too fast for my taste (anyone want some porites pieces ?) one cup coral frag.
Half of my corals were corals that were doing very poorly in the LFS and I got them for under $10 (some for free). You can see the hole on the closed brain. That was about the size of a quarter when I got it 2 weeks ago. It is almost completely healed back up. The xenias I basically got for free because they looked dead. THe pipe organ coral never fully opened at the pet store. the pagoda and the frogspawn looked about dead in the store also. Just decided to take them home and see if they would revive.
Ok here are the pics