Rufus's 30 gallon Bowfront

[Rufus6642]

So I’ve had a freshwater tank at my parents house for years, and upon moving into my own place I set up a 55 gallon planted freshwater with assorted tropical fish and a 30 gallon bowfront goldfish tank. That was a year ago and recently a good friend of mine turned his 11 gallon into a nano saltwater tank. After seeing how beautiful it turned out, I had the marine bug and decided to turn my 30 gallon into a nano. So I got on craigslist and found someone selling their live rock, bought 30 lbs and filled several 5 gallon buckets with water and set it up! This cued lots of expensive purchases, man there is a big start up cost! So I ended up with this hardware

• Hydor Koralia Evolution 550 Circulation pump

• Seaclone 100 Skimmer with pump

• Coralife Aqualight High Output T5 24 inch Dual Light

• 12.5 inch Ecoxotic Stunner 6W LED strip light 453 blue

• Fluval 100 W Submersible Heater

• Tetra 40i Whisper Filter with a bag of carbon

 

 

So then came the fun part; the livestock. I started with fish. I started as stereotypically as possible, a percula clown fish. When he survived a week and was still healthy I decided to start slowly adding other livestock. In the end, 3 months later I now have this

• Percula Clownfish (which my bf very creatively named Nemo)

• Royal Gramma

• Yellowtail Blue Damselfish

• Six Line Wrasse

• Green Clown Goby

• Peppermint Shrimp

• Blue Tuxedo Urchin

• 4 Turban Snails

• 2 Turbo Snails

• 3 Nassarius Snails

• 2 hermit crabs

 

 

So exciting! But we weren’t done yet! A whole other subset of marine tanks I hadn’t even considered: coral! I’m fortunate that there are several local dealers that could help me get some decent pieces without going bankrupt. I stuck to LPS for the obvious reason of I don’t know what I’m doing really yet.

So that brings us to this point, maintenance. I use RO/DI water to make my saltwater, using reef crystals at a salinity of 1.024 and I perform 20% water changes once a week. I’m feeding the fish every 3rd day and alternate between marine pellets and frozen brine shrimp. I target feed the corals twice a week using coral frenzy. My lights are on a timer and are on 8 hours a day, the lunar lights I usually have an an hour at night to admire the view ☺

So now the fun part: pictures of the tank! If anyone has any input, any advice, and recommendations for changes to my tank or regimen, they are more than welcome. I’m still a beginner and still learning as I go along, so I’m really open to critique

 

 

 

A wide shot of the entire tank

 

 

a close up of the reef

 

 

the wellsophyllia that has amazing coloring, possibly my favorite piece

 

 

My clown goby wants to make sweet sweet love to the wellso. I swear to god he pines when it closes at night

 

 

the awesome torch my bf got me for vday

 

 

my goniopora- I know, i read all the posts about how devastating it is when they die after a year for no reason, but it was just too pretty to pass up, I figure I'll at least get a year of enjoyment out of it

 

 

the whole gang

 

 

I just think the royal gramma is so pretty

 

 

 

alright guys, let me know what you think!