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Old 11-18-2009, 06:26 PM
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Wink Josh's 10 gallon Build

So after much thought, time, money and effort I decided to start a tank journal. Now this isn't a overly fancy tank in terms of gadgets. I started this tank with simplicity and silence in mind, since this tank is in my bedroom after all. Now most tank journals start with a run down list of what is going in it for livestock. What is going to be used run it. What kind of stand is being used. Well, sorry to disappoint, I don't plan on doing that until later.

Instead, I'm going to tell a short story of this tank and how it came to be. I got into the hobby about 8 months ago. I started three years ago in freshwater, ending my freshwater hobby with two 55 gallon tanks and a 33 gallon tank and somewhere around 80 fish. When I got into saltwater, I got rid of every single freshwater tank that I had and gave all the fish away. So I impulsively got rid of $3000.00 worth of freshwater stuff to start at ground level again . Dont get me wrong, I'm still twitching from it haha.

My first saltwater tank was a 45 gallon used petland livestock tank with dual overflow with 1 inch bulheads. I bought a simple used sump for it, along with a Sedra KSP-7000 for a pump. I got 16 lbs of liverock at first to start the cycle. And for lighting, I used a 36" Corallife dual PC fixture with one crappy actinic and one true white. First coral in that tank was GSP, Hammer Frogspawn and Xenia. First fish was a yellow damsel given to me by my roomate Terry. So, for first tank running on a budget, I thought that I was doing pretty good. I built a simple but majorly over killed stand for the tank, and by over kill I mean 2 x 6 frame. And that was my first tank, up to the point where I woke up at 3 am to find the silicone seals on the tank fail and the sump cracked and about 40 gallons of water on my bedroom floor with a blown circuit breaker! So I tried fixing it, and it just wouldnt work. Say the least, Terry got back his fish along with a bunch of coral, LR and a pump which I sold to him.

I didnt get another tank for 2 months till I got this ten gallon. This tank was given to me by the LFS because they wanted to be rid of it and I wanted to start another tank. I looked at this tank and thought that it would be the perfect little frag tank to start growing coral for a bigger tank. So I took the tank home, cleaned it, bought a Corallife 150 watt MH for it and slapped together a filter canister for it with 2 lbs of LR for cycle and seeding and this is what I got.

P1000629.jpg
P1000634.jpg

So I stuck with that for a while, added more LR here and there. and got some coral finally!

P1000632.jpg
P1000644.jpg

And then I moved the tank into my room. Then went to Calgary to meet up with Simon (simplycoral) and got more coral!

P1010837.jpg


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Old 11-18-2009, 07:55 PM
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And some more from Simon.




So I ran with that for a while. Everything went very good, very healthy coral growth. But the canister filter was way to loud for me to be able to sleep peacefully at night since the tank was sitting on the ledge above my bed. So I wanted to go back to Calgary and get a Koralia Nano fan and maybe a frag or two.

So I went to Calgary with Terry and met up with John (lobsterboy) at his place to take alook at his SPS tank and ended up buying some Digi.



Then we got to talking and John told us about Coral Vit, LPS Amino Acid and all that nice stuff that you can dose your tank with for coral growth. So Terry and I decided to try it on our tanks and we then went down to Red Coral Aquariums and met up with Doug(fishytime)

That store was one of the coolest little saltwater store I have been to yet! There were so many corals to choose from and so many toys to buy . Anyways I bought 3 zoo frags, a large zoo colony, a colony of blue pom pom xenia, a Koralia Nano fan (the original reason to go to Calgary) and got some of that Coral Vit, LPS Amino Acid and Pohls.







So I got rid of the canister filter, got some frags and no I'm running a silent, sumpless system with great results.





Say the least, Im pretty happy about where this tank has gone so far. And now I need a stand! Well I'll post that later on tonight once the stain dries
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Old 11-18-2009, 09:19 PM
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Looks really good. I love the simplicity you've gone for, it really works. The blue xenia is going to look great once it settles in.
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Old 11-18-2009, 09:22 PM
Reef_surfer Reef_surfer is offline
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I hope you dont use Rickards to do the water changes lol
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Old 11-18-2009, 09:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueAbyss View Post
Looks really good. I love the simplicity you've gone for, it really works. The blue xenia is going to look great once it settles in.
Thanks for the compliment! Simplicity was my mission. No sump, no protein skimmer no noise! I just wanted the tank to do its own thing naturally. The blue xenia is settled in, its just that it has moments through out the whole day that its cranky about something. But when its happy it looks pretty good, I just have to have the camera at the ready then lol.

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I hope you dont use Rickards to do the water changes lol
Lol thanks reef_surfer! Yah no, Rickards is for my personal water change
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Old 11-18-2009, 09:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bauder1986 View Post
Lol thanks reef_surfer! Yah no, Rickards is for my personal water change
Lmao.
Tank's looking good. Consistent water changes is all that 10 gallon will need.
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Old 11-18-2009, 11:19 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elitesurfer View Post
Lmao.
Tank's looking good. Consistent water changes is all that 10 gallon will need.
Actually, no. I have had this tank running for almost 5 months now and its weekly to bi-weekly water changes. I have next to no bioload. My perameters are Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 Ph: 8.1 to 8.3 Salinity: 1.021 Calcium: 420 ppm to 440 ppm Alkalinity: 6.5 to 7.6

Those are the parimeters for the last 3 months. They fluctuate in those ranges. Coral growth and color is great. Also I havent had an algea spike in about 2 months. I might be just lucky, but this tank seems to be able to function with out massive amounts of water changes.
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Old 11-19-2009, 12:10 AM
simplycoral simplycoral is offline
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Looking good Josh..

Keep the pictures coming. Always good to see how some of my siblings are getting on Looks like you're taking good care of them...

Simon.
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Old 11-19-2009, 01:42 AM
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Simply beautiful
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Old 11-19-2009, 10:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by simplycoral View Post
Looking good Josh..

Keep the pictures coming. Always good to see how some of my siblings are getting on Looks like you're taking good care of them...

Simon.
Thanks Simon, the frags that I got from you are doing great! Some of the healthiest looking corals I've ever had. Oh and I still promise you that once that Octospawn is ready, Ill frag a good piece for you as well!

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Simply beautiful
Thank You Doug! Like I told you, one of the reasons why I am in this hobby is the beauty that can be created through it!
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