Low budget reef setup (pics)

[HBtank]

Nice, and inspiring.

I think your methods are just fine, and your tank proves it. I love that fact you just did it, and did not get cuaght up in the obsessive parts of this hobby trying to get everything "perfect".

Keep up the waterchanges (which is a great way to approach things BTW) and trimming that macro. And put the top on your little skimmer!

Also, don't let the naysayers here bug you, many people only see one way to do things, their way....

Only suggestion is reducing the number of large fish until you get that larger tank.

Looking forward to updates Someday I will be living right at the source, so this is inspiration for me.

[sunfish11]

I would do it the way you are if I lived near the ocean. I would want to have more light but if I didn't have it I would use sunlight.

With the ich, feed the fish well and frequently and soak the food in a few drops of straight garlic juice. Maybe do a little extra water change and as long as the fish keeps eating the ich should clear on it's own.

I found it interesting that there is an ich season and the fish in the reef have it when they are caught. Good to know.

I like the natural method (you are using) and try to use it as much as I can. I also only test my water for calcium, mag, and alk. You don't have to test for those because you are using natural sea water. I stay away from other tests unless the coral/fish etc. act like something is wrong.

Good luck!

Lisa

[uyenk]

thanks shutiny
oh.. i have two 50g tanks connected, 20g wc = 20%, ok ill follow you, ill do 30g WC weekly

yes right 100% the naso eat alots of greens, and she poop alot too...
i dont feed other fish on reef tank(sixline, PJ cardinal, and sea horse, they found food themself, is that wise?

oh.. and ill release the naso,may be after i found other descent hardy fish

for sand, maybe i going to run Remote DSB (any suggestion?), because i have trouble to clean DSB in my old tank (thats why i choose bare bottom

[DewDropPony]

Originally posted by uyenk
[B]"WTH? You don't test your water parameters, you are going for a rude awakening."
yes no test at all since day 1, all i do is water change.
my stupid opinion is:
if i do a test, then the result is bad, theres nothing i can do to fix it,water change will fix it right??? and i have lots of it
]

That's like judging a book by its cover. You can't look at your water and determine what is going on. You have to take water readings. You can't look at the cover of a book and see if its going to be a good book. You have to open the book up and read it. Read that water!!

[uyenk]

Originally posted by HBtank
Nice, and inspiring.

I think your methods are just fine, and your tank proves it. I love that fact you just did it, and did not get cuaght up in the obsessive parts of this hobby trying to get everything "perfect".

Keep up the waterchanges (which is a great way to approach things BTW) and trimming that macro. And put the top on your little skimmer!

Also, don't let the naysayers here bug you, many people only see one way to do things, their way....

Only suggestion is reducing the number of large fish until you get that larger tank.

Looking forward to updates Someday I will be living right at the source, so this is inspiration for me.

thanks HBtank,
the naysayers here not bug me at ball, btw they're right, the way i run the tank may be irrationable, and i know it.
thats why this thread are for, for obtain everyone opinions and experience, and hope some will be good for my situations.

and yes maybe someday if the tank going ok, the methods can inspire anyone who live near the sea

thanks

[uyenk]

Originally posted by sunfish11
I would do it the way you are if I lived near the ocean. I would want to have more light but if I didn't have it I would use sunlight.

With the ich, feed the fish well and frequently and soak the food in a few drops of straight garlic juice. Maybe do a little extra water change and as long as the fish keeps eating the ich should clear on it's own.

I found it interesting that there is an ich season and the fish in the reef have it when they are caught. Good to know.

I like the natural method (you are using) and try to use it as much as I can. I also only test my water for calcium, mag, and alk. You don't have to test for those because you are using natural sea water. I stay away from other tests unless the coral/fish etc. act like something is wrong.

Good luck!

Lisa

thanks for the advice lisa, ill do garlic soak for feeding, the problem is the infected fish is scopas tang, he eat algae from the rock i collect from the sea(already have algae on it), i just hope the other fish (chromis) not infected. BTW my clown tank is gain his health, after a bad ich, and start to gain some weight too.. (ill release it anyway next month )

yes thats the fact, theres ich season on natural reef, at least on my region, believe it or not in this season almost all LFS on the city have spreading an ich too! they say it start on march and end on may, i dont know its true or not, maybe some scientist here have some explanation?

[uyenk]

Originally posted by DewDropPony
That's like judging a book by its cover. You can't look at your water and determine what is going on. You have to take water readings. You can't look at the cover of a book and see if its going to be a good book. You have to open the book up and read it. Read that water!!

i agree with you Derwdrop, i will be happy to test my water..
the situations is, theres no good test kit sold here, and i have dificulty to order it online (i live at some small city on some small island in indonesia)

so for now, all i can do is judge the book by its cover, if the cover looks good, at least i can enjoy it
btw who can read the book if he's "blind" ?

[uyenk]

OK, time to list the livestock, hoping more comments, all welcome, correct me with the ID's please


Lobophyllia Brain Coral, 18 days on tank (just before this new setup), for me, it looks like doing ok, how about you guys?


Long Tentacle Plate Coral, 7 days on the tank, too big for my tank, my mistake, i bought it when the tentacles not open on full size, after i place it to the tank it grow almost 2 times of the base skeleton, maybe ill remove it after ive got my tank out of space

[uyenk]

The Clavularia Clove/Glove Polyp Corals.
2,5 months on the tank, it grow fast, small frag is al ways come out,and getting bigger each day,when first introduce this colony is not this big, this coral maybe settled on the tank, i hope...


The Frogspawn Coral.
2,5months on the tank, belive it or not,its grow some frag, 4-5 branches come ooy from it, i only see the small tentacles, with not much skeleton on it, is that a problem?
ill post the frag pics, i have to borrow a better camera first

[uyenk]

left view of the tank


frogspawn, torch coral, Glove Polyp, and the PJ cardinal
about the PJ, i never feed them, actually i only feed the reef tank with green for naso, other fish found food themself somehow


my favorites, Fox Coral or Jasmine Coral, 1 month in the tank, look ok to me

[drummereef]

Nice pics, uyenk! I agree, the fox coral is one of my favs too.

[chinaman4u]

Uyenk, I love your DIY setup and your corals. Maybe you can cut a sunroof in your garage for more natural lighting, but adding more light could mean more algea growth. After seeing your stuff, I fail to see why we need all these high megawatt halides for our U.S. tanks. Must be nice to drive 30 mi to get all those nice corals and all the FSW water you want.

[uyenk]

thanks drummereef the rockin' reefer,

yes thats a great idea chinaman4u, ill open the roof soon, may be with natural lighting i can keep sps and clam? tridacna clam here is only 3 - 5$, cool nice colourfull living thing. thanks

[uyenk]

Back to the list
hope anyone will notice if something goes wrong with these livestock,or wrong placement, etc


center view of the tank.
oh and the naso size for me is acceptable, she can swim freely, actually my naso is not so active fast swimmer, but just like everyone here said the tang must GO


Cynarina Doughnut Coral
1,5 month on the tank, since the first introduce, the shape not fully rounded, there some part that not open up, i hope the picture shown it, maybe it has some scar on it, btw when it full grown, the size expanding almost 5 times from it base rock. i feed it with shrimp (freswater) is that ok?

[uyenk]

(Left) Candy Cane Coral (Green Brown)
Almost die when i get it a month ago, its a bonus from LFS owner after buy about 100gal SW (he gave me dying coral as a bonus!) but its a bless for me, lucky me after 1 weeks the corals get better, the color start to shine under the lamp, and now its look like healty coral for me

(center) small carpet anemone
my little brother gave to me from his 30g tank, he gave me the anemone paired with nemo ( false percula), but the nemo always pick/nip my Doughnut Coral when i feed the coral, i dont like it, and when i start (moving) this setup 16 days ago, i return the nemo back to my brother tank

(top right) Alveopora Daisy Coral
just move in 3days ago, not much to say, looks like me its not adapting yet, hope will be better

[DewDropPony]

Originally posted by uyenk
(i live at some small city on some small island in indonesia)

you're in indonesia??!!??

[uyenk]

Originally posted by DewDropPony
you're in indonesia??!!??

yes i live in indonesia, the country that lost over 3000 square meters of reef habitat yearly, most because of water polution, second is because of reefkeepers like us (specially newbie reefer like me )

and you know what? theres global bleaching of SPS corals all over indonesia to australia, because of the change of earth climate recent years (i read it somewhere).

so human kind be prepare, next going to bleaching is us !!!

[chinaman4u]

Originally posted by uyenk
....second is because of reefkeepers like us (specially newbie reefer like me )

Don't be to hard on yourself, I think 'us' as in America is actually causing the most damage as Indonesia is a top exporter of corals to U.S.

[jer77]

To answer your question uyenk, not having a cycle or more precisely having a small or unnoticeable one is the best way to do it. It just means that your tank didn't need to start from scratch by slowly building up bacteria. This is possible by having little die-off in the LR and clean water. Sometimes however this is not the case and doing water changes only delays the process. But I think with enough clean rock and water your tank has already cycled. This is only a guess though and cannot be true without proper testing. If you can't even get a hold of some basic ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests then just do lots of water changes. Trim the caulerpa and macroalgae, and make sure to wash the sponges and stuff. Also a remote DSB might be a good idea. I don't have the links right now but I will later when I'm on my computer.

[seaskraP]

doing a great job uyenk, really like your original setup.

how is the tang doing?

such a great option to be able to simply put a sick fish/coral back in the ocean. wish we could do that here.

[turnburn]

Are those desks you have the tanks sitting on?

[djscribz]

water testing is for people keeping calcium consuming tanks and heavy bioload tanks. personally i never test for anything other than salinity. i run a ATO and dose NanoReef AB everyday. i do a 20% WC every 2 weeks and my corals thrive, grow, and have fantastic coloration. i think the more stringiant practices come from SPS keepers personally.

[crhis]

something smells like a big steaming pile of dung around here.....jmo

[tacocat]

Originally posted by uyenk
thanks sepeku,
i have to use "unique" method because of difference circumtances with most people here on RC. the natural resources here (Livestock,Live Rock,etc) is cheaper than the equipment. the situation is livestock and LR price here is about 10-20 times cheaper than on your LFS (US), the opposite is the equipment here is maybe 5-10 times more expensive than in US (same Brand).
so natural methods is what i choose...
and i hope with this thread, ill have more input, and more advice

about the crack...

craked because im to tight screwing the overflow pipes
i reinforced the crack with square glass, hope it strong enough, its been about one month, and its seem OK
btw the tank is 5mm thick
Ill cover the table with thick board, soon

plan ahead, is upgrade to a bigger tank 200g+, but not in short of time, may be, next year

I'd replace that tank if I were you. If that thing sprung a leak, you could recieve a severe shock, or set fire to something.

[AJtheReefer]

Uyenk,
Can you gather some more information on the ich season?

What does LFS say about it? Is there a significant change in the ocean Temp, etc.?

If understand correctly the season starts in March and end in May?

Thanks in advance