29 Gallon Reef

robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
My wife and I recently moved into temporary housing which unfortunately didn't have enough room for my 65 gallon reef. I decided the best thing to do was set up a smaller reef that I could transfer my livestock into at our temporary house.
The day that I made this decision, I found a local reefer selling a 29 gallon tank with two 1" drains drilled in the upper-back corners for an unbelievable price. My goal then became to set this tank up as a nice reef while using as much existing equipment as possible to keep the costs low. Most of the equipment was on my 65 and was sized for that sized tank; which explains why some of the equipment seems oversized for this size tank.
The only work I had to do to get this tank going was the plumbing and finding a way to mount a 250W MH retrofit kit. I was worried about putting a 250W MH light in a canopy, so I devised a lightbox that sits on stilts that is removable if I need to get in the tank. (More info about the lightbox can be found in the Equipment & DIY forum in this thread)
My 65 was lightly stocked, so it was easy to transfer everything over, though I didn't have enough room for all of the LR and had to give some away. Somehow I was able to shoehorn almost 75 pounds of LR into this tank! The transfer went smooth and I never saw the slightest trace of a recycle.
Equipment:
-29 Gallon tank with dual 1" drains
-20 Gallon sump
-70-75 lbs. of assorted LR
-1/2" Southdown sandbed
-Mag 9.5 return pump split into a manifold with four Locline outlets hidden in the rockwork
-250W MH (PFO 13,000K bulb; lightbox with 4" fan; 2x DIY LED moonlights)
-Euro Reef CS6-1
-Phosban Reactor running with carbon
-Tunze Osmolator auto-topoff
-100W Won Brothers Pro Heat titanium heater
Livestock:
--SPS--
-Montipora digitata (green)
-Montipora digitata (orange)
-Montipora capricornis (green)
-Elkhorn montipora
--LPS--
-Branching hammer
-Candycane
-Purple Galaxea
--Other corals/polyps/etc.--
-Xenia
-Assorted Zoanthids
-Green Star Polyps
-Blue Ricordea
--Fish--
-Pair of Darwin Clowns
-Royal Gramma
-Yellow Clown Goby
This tank has been set up for only 10 days now, and my nano-experience so far has been a blast! I'd love to hear what you all think of this tank and any suggestions that could make my nano-experience even more enjoyable!
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
...and if you look closely at the middle of this picture, you can see the 2x4 blocks I rigged up to hold the stilts of the lightbox in place
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
Ideally, I would have liked to use an overflow box and Durso standpipes, but because space is such a premium in nano tanks, I found a system with drains drilled in the upper corners and installed 90's and strainers on the inside of the bulkheads. I also wanted to keep the plumbing as inconspicuous as possible, so I plumbed all of the return plumbing in black Locline and did all of the drain fittings with black Schedule 40 PVC that I found through Savko.
Here is a picture of one of the drains and 1/2 of the return plumbing:
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
The tangled mess of my power center. I'm currently looking for a cabinet suitable for storing all of my tank accessories and sorting out the electrical cords, but for now, this will do.
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member

Originally posted by overanalyzer
sounds sweet!!
what are Pair of Darwin Clowns??
Lastly - PICTURES!!
Darwin Clowns are basically tank-bred black ocellaris clowns bred and raised by ORA. The LFS I bought them from marketed them as Darwin Clownfish, largely because their ancestors were collected from the Darwin region near Australia. Here is a picture of them from when they were living in my old 65 gallon reef.
 
elijah

elijah

Member
Wow, very nice!!! Once your corals start taking off and growing, it will be spectacular!! Can I make a suggestion for some coral that grows rapidly and looks great?
Hey, get some FInger leathers. They are so very hardy and grow very rapidly, and are very easy to propogate, and split.
The same about Mushrooms. They are relatively cheaper and grow rapidly and can be split often to double+ the amount you started with.
Colt corals are very hardy too and does very well with propogation and splitting. It is also very pretty.
keep us updated with more pics,and let me know what you think, by posting.
Elijah
 
effloresce

effloresce

Member
Hey, get some FInger leathers. They are so very hardy and grow very rapidly, and are very easy to propogate, and split.
The same about Mushrooms. They are relatively cheaper and grow rapidly and can be split often to double+ the amount you started with.
Colt corals are very hardy too and does very well with propogation and splitting. It is also very pretty.
All are great soft corals, but it seems to me rob wants an SPS tank,and all three of those soft corals release slime and wage chmeical warefare on SPS corals, stunting their growth and health.
 
elijah

elijah

Member
Oh ok, thanks for the info! I have all soft coral in my tanks, so I did'nt know. Thank you
Elijah.:D
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
Thanks for the compliments! This tank was set up as a temporary system to consolidate all of my reef critters into while our housing situation comes together, so I don't really have any set plan of what to stock it with.
Right now it is SPS and LPS dominated with some zoanthids and ricordea. I like softies alot, especially leathers, but don't want to create a situation where the corals would be killing each other through allelopathy. So most of the additions will probably be SPS or less-aggressive LPS corals.
 
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