naterock101
Guest
Hey all,
Wanted to document our latest tank so thought this would be the perfect medium. I plan on it being a mixed reef and will put in a variety of coral from softies to sps as well as some fish. In terms of documenting the entire process I want to be open about everything im doing. Hope you guys enjoy. I'll try to use pictures.
Things I want to cover:
Cost of owning a tank (we're not exactly floating in the money so there will be a lot of DIY and hacks included). This is particularly interesting to us since we've been doing a lot of research into the subject for our investor talks.
DIY projects -- over time i want to have a completely automated tank
FishBit learnings (we're obviously putting one of these bad boys in here)
Opening setup costs:
Bought a 75 gallon off of Craigslist: $150
80 lbs of bleached rock that I cleaned and am seeding from my own live rock out of another tank: $108
2 D2120 120 watt leds: $207
80 lbs of dry sand: $91
Parts that i needed for tank stand and light stand: $90
Acrylic for sump that i made: $65 (repurposing Kris' 30 gallon - thanks!)
2 Jebao wavemakers (wp-25s): $125
10 lbs of miracle mud: $50
Bacteria to accelerate the cycle: $15
return pump (Danner Pondmaster 700): $63.88
plumbing: $102
We had a lot of things lying around from use in other tanks and some things donated to us such as our RO, Kris' old 30, and most of the stand materials that we repurposed so its not a complete list for a setup cost but its what we've spent.
Spend to date: ($959.12) <----holy crap i'm in trouble
percent on equipment (stand, tanks, chemicals, pumps, etc): 79.22%
percent on life (sand and rock only so far): 20.78%
*cost of electricity and water: $0, we work in a coworking space so its being paid for us
Setup process:
We have it setup on a homemade desk with some some legs that we reinforced with extra bolts, nuts, legs, and braces. Im confident it can hold 1500+ lbs which is roughly twice what it weighs. Originally I had the middle leg in the photo horizontal at the back of the table and I hadn't screwed the legs all the way tight. Halfway through adding the water i felt it slipping and had a mini freak out. Needless to say i reinforced the table with the middle leg, added more bolts and tightened everything. Seems safe now.
It has a bit of an industrial look that we really enjoyed and we moved that forward with our light stand which I made out of gas piping that you can get at any hardware store. I'm loving the look and its bolted all the way through the table so it shouldn't be going anywhere fast. The lights are held by caribiners rated at 75 lbs each so unless the LED units hooks break they should be safe.
I'm too afraid to drill a tank so we went with a hang on overflow. I actually regret doing this now as i realize im more afraid of a flood. I will be coming up with some sort ofhack solution in the short term to help minimize this. Probably just a float switch to make sure the return pump shuts off if the siphon breaks (keeping the water at a height that doesn't overflow the sump in case the return pump fails. I'll drill a small hole in the return pump to make sure that it doesn't turn into a reverse siphon in case of a failure.
I repurposed Kris and Rons old 30 gallon bowfront into a sump using silicone (i can still smell the vinegar fumes!) and some acrylic i bought. We have a pretty sweet shop (access to CNC, drill presses, laser cutter and most tools, etc) so cutting it was a breeze.
The sump has 3 segments. The first will allow for water entering through the overflow (might add a few live rocks down there). I'm not planning on using any filter socks or protein skimmers as of now because I got to meet Bob Smith of ecosystem aquariums at Reefstock and after a long talk with him i decided to experiment with Leng Sy's miracle mud method. I gave myself enough space that if i decide to go with a protein skimmer down the line i should be fine. The second section will hold ~10 lbs of miracle mud and have a light on it producing bacteria - probably will go with Chaeto. The third section will house our return pump. All in all the system will be around ~100 gallons of water.
Inside the tank:
I spent a couple hours before adding the sandbed and rock playing around with different formations and then more time than i expected hammer and chiseling some pieces to get more to work with. That was actually more difficult than i anticipated. We even threw a piece off the roof. I ended up with two main areas of rock that make what i call a big bay and a smaller one. I played around with the depth of the two sections and put a small rock in the back in between them to add more depth. Im hoping that it fills out nicely over time and I'm looking forward to seeing how the fish interact with the two sections.
In terms of the electronics inside of the tank:
I wanted to put a Gyre pump inside here but the cost made me think twice -- spending our money on getting FishBit to market instead. Our alternative is two Jebao wp-25 wavemakers which seem to be providing a lot of flow combined with the return pump. If it turns out to not be enough or there become spots that don't receive flow we have a bunch of smaller wavemakers we can put in. We also have two heaters in the tank but will eventually move those too the sump.
The complete setup for now looks like:
We have it set up in our office in Portero Hill (San Francisco). If any of y'all ever want to stop by and see our tank and development on FishBit we are happy to have you around and talk shop
We are interested in interviewing both our users and reef experts in those orange chairs in kind of a between twoferns tanks style (not the constant jokes just the setup). We think it would be great to be able to bring insights from these interviews to the greater community
till next time,
Nate
Wanted to document our latest tank so thought this would be the perfect medium. I plan on it being a mixed reef and will put in a variety of coral from softies to sps as well as some fish. In terms of documenting the entire process I want to be open about everything im doing. Hope you guys enjoy. I'll try to use pictures.
Things I want to cover:
Cost of owning a tank (we're not exactly floating in the money so there will be a lot of DIY and hacks included). This is particularly interesting to us since we've been doing a lot of research into the subject for our investor talks.
DIY projects -- over time i want to have a completely automated tank
FishBit learnings (we're obviously putting one of these bad boys in here)
Opening setup costs:
Bought a 75 gallon off of Craigslist: $150
80 lbs of bleached rock that I cleaned and am seeding from my own live rock out of another tank: $108
2 D2120 120 watt leds: $207
80 lbs of dry sand: $91
Parts that i needed for tank stand and light stand: $90
Acrylic for sump that i made: $65 (repurposing Kris' 30 gallon - thanks!)
2 Jebao wavemakers (wp-25s): $125
10 lbs of miracle mud: $50
Bacteria to accelerate the cycle: $15
return pump (Danner Pondmaster 700): $63.88
plumbing: $102
We had a lot of things lying around from use in other tanks and some things donated to us such as our RO, Kris' old 30, and most of the stand materials that we repurposed so its not a complete list for a setup cost but its what we've spent.
Spend to date: ($959.12) <----holy crap i'm in trouble
percent on equipment (stand, tanks, chemicals, pumps, etc): 79.22%
percent on life (sand and rock only so far): 20.78%
*cost of electricity and water: $0, we work in a coworking space so its being paid for us
Setup process:
We have it setup on a homemade desk with some some legs that we reinforced with extra bolts, nuts, legs, and braces. Im confident it can hold 1500+ lbs which is roughly twice what it weighs. Originally I had the middle leg in the photo horizontal at the back of the table and I hadn't screwed the legs all the way tight. Halfway through adding the water i felt it slipping and had a mini freak out. Needless to say i reinforced the table with the middle leg, added more bolts and tightened everything. Seems safe now.
It has a bit of an industrial look that we really enjoyed and we moved that forward with our light stand which I made out of gas piping that you can get at any hardware store. I'm loving the look and its bolted all the way through the table so it shouldn't be going anywhere fast. The lights are held by caribiners rated at 75 lbs each so unless the LED units hooks break they should be safe.
I'm too afraid to drill a tank so we went with a hang on overflow. I actually regret doing this now as i realize im more afraid of a flood. I will be coming up with some sort of
I repurposed Kris and Rons old 30 gallon bowfront into a sump using silicone (i can still smell the vinegar fumes!) and some acrylic i bought. We have a pretty sweet shop (access to CNC, drill presses, laser cutter and most tools, etc) so cutting it was a breeze.
The sump has 3 segments. The first will allow for water entering through the overflow (might add a few live rocks down there). I'm not planning on using any filter socks or protein skimmers as of now because I got to meet Bob Smith of ecosystem aquariums at Reefstock and after a long talk with him i decided to experiment with Leng Sy's miracle mud method. I gave myself enough space that if i decide to go with a protein skimmer down the line i should be fine. The second section will hold ~10 lbs of miracle mud and have a light on it producing bacteria - probably will go with Chaeto. The third section will house our return pump. All in all the system will be around ~100 gallons of water.
Inside the tank:
I spent a couple hours before adding the sandbed and rock playing around with different formations and then more time than i expected hammer and chiseling some pieces to get more to work with. That was actually more difficult than i anticipated. We even threw a piece off the roof. I ended up with two main areas of rock that make what i call a big bay and a smaller one. I played around with the depth of the two sections and put a small rock in the back in between them to add more depth. Im hoping that it fills out nicely over time and I'm looking forward to seeing how the fish interact with the two sections.
In terms of the electronics inside of the tank:
I wanted to put a Gyre pump inside here but the cost made me think twice -- spending our money on getting FishBit to market instead. Our alternative is two Jebao wp-25 wavemakers which seem to be providing a lot of flow combined with the return pump. If it turns out to not be enough or there become spots that don't receive flow we have a bunch of smaller wavemakers we can put in. We also have two heaters in the tank but will eventually move those too the sump.
The complete setup for now looks like:
We have it set up in our office in Portero Hill (San Francisco). If any of y'all ever want to stop by and see our tank and development on FishBit we are happy to have you around and talk shop
We are interested in interviewing both our users and reef experts in those orange chairs in kind of a between two
till next time,
Nate
