10 gallon tank build on a budget :)

[seastar12]

Have you been doing water changes?

Oh, and if you don't mind do you have your parameters?

thank you[i'm trying to get a 5.5 started]

[Kraylen]

I love your tank so much!

[Hoss]

Great build. I've started gathering up all the parts I need for my budget 10 gallon and had a few quick questions:

 

- Did you use all of the 20lbs of sand? I was thinking 10 would be enought, but if you used all 20, I definately need at least that much. How are you liking the Tahitian sand? That is the route I was going to go as well.

 

- The lighting seems to be the most difficult thing for me to find. The best thing I found was a Current Satellite 20" 80w with 1 ML for $130. I do not want to skimp on the lights, but if you like yours, I would definately go that route.

 

- I got one nano powerhead, but was thinking about a second. Now that you have had it up a bit, what do you think....one or two?

 

Great looking tank and I look forward to more progress pics. I'll post mine up once I get everything up and running. Later.

 

Hoss

[singmealullaby]

Have you been doing water changes?

Oh, and if you don't mind do you have your parameters?

thank you[i'm trying to get a 5.5 started]

 

hey seastar, after my tank cycled i started doing water changes (about 50%) once a day until my nitrates went down to almost nothing, now i'll probably go one water change per week. so as of right now ammonia and nitrite are at zero, and nitrate is near zero. temperature is pretty steady at 79 degrees, and ph is around 8.3 using seachem's reef buffer. things are going pretty well, i hope that answers your question. good luck with your 5.5 and remember to have fun with it

 

I love your tank so much!

 

I love you for loving my tank! thanks Kraylen.

[singmealullaby]

Great build. I've started gathering up all the parts I need for my budget 10 gallon and had a few quick questions:

 

- Did you use all of the 20lbs of sand? I was thinking 10 would be enought, but if you used all 20, I definately need at least that much. How are you liking the Tahitian sand? That is the route I was going to go as well.

 

- The lighting seems to be the most difficult thing for me to find. The best thing I found was a Current Satellite 20" 80w with 1 ML for $130. I do not want to skimp on the lights, but if you like yours, I would definately go that route.

 

- I got one nano powerhead, but was thinking about a second. Now that you have had it up a bit, what do you think....one or two?

 

Great looking tank and I look forward to more progress pics. I'll post mine up once I get everything up and running. Later.

 

Hoss

 

Hi Hoss, thanks alot!, i'm having a lot of fun putting this tank together and i hope you do the same once you get the ball rolling on your ten. As for you questions...

 

-the sand : I actually picked up the 20 lb bag of tahitian and used less than half in my shallow sand bed. i think the 20 lb bag is worth while though and not much more expensive than the 10 pounder, just in case you want to siphon a bit of the surface or something. But you should be ok with the 10. I love my tahitian moon sand! I've always had regular sand and black is definitely a nice change. Certain colors in your corals will contrast more with the black sand. I don't think you'll regret it.

 

-the lights: the current satellite your looking at would be a good choice, it's not too expensive at all. right now I'm happy with my current 40 watt t5 ho i have, but i may upgrade later if coloration isn't where i want it to be. it's hard to say cause i hardly have any corals at the moment.

 

-powerheads: well... flow isn't great with just one nano, but isn't terrible either. you can definitely live with just one, so if i were you i'd go with the one you have, and if you want more flow grab another. it will depend on what corals you decide to go with.

 

well i think i covered everything. i hope it helps! good luck with your build Hoss, and try to have as much fun as possible!

[Dadoboy]

This tanks is fantastic! Your photos are great, so don't think otherwise.

 

I also have the tahitian moon sand... I love it..

 

Keep up the great work!

Dave A.

[singmealullaby]

This tanks is fantastic! Your photos are great, so don't think otherwise.

 

I also have the tahitian moon sand... I love it..

 

Keep up the great work!

Dave A.

 

Thanks Dave! Tahitian moon sand for life.

[singmealullaby]

New Pictures!

 

here's a shot of my new frogspawn with green and pink tips! I plan on trimming the base a bit and epoxying it to my rocks after my midterms are over. my aquastick epoxy i ordered came in today, went with the coralline red color, so i should be good to go.

 

 

pic of orange zoa frag.

 

 

better shot of one of the rics i ordered from Coral Morphologic.

 

 

finally a picture of my coralline growth, it's really taken off and spreading everywhere! the colors are amazing, it's hard to get a good picture though.

 

 

 

i'm really happy with the new additions, but i think i'm moving too fast. i'll try to control myself for a few days and let the tank settle down a bit. the water specs are still looking perfect as of today. i think i'll cut back on the water changes a bit too. anyhow, thanks for stopping by.

[OceanNano]

Your tank is looking great & Those frags look amazing. It's great to see some growth on your LR already. I think my LR and GSP are in shock going from 20w PC to 96w of PC on my new 10 gallon. keep up the good work

[doctorreef]

Looking good

[CarterNichols]

I love the tank, and the placement especially..

 

Great job!

[reefgurusDOTcom]

Asides from that big heater, I'm loving the look of your tank. Nice rocks too.

[bluepanda]

Nice job on the set up! It looks very clean, and I love the sand. I was debating whether or not to use that sand on my new 20H, but decided to go cheap and reuse the sand in my 10 gallon.

[singmealullaby]

Your tank is looking great & Those frags look amazing. It's great to see some growth on your LR already. I think my LR and GSP are in shock going from 20w PC to 96w of PC on my new 10 gallon. keep up the good work

 

Thanks Ocean, i'm really happy with my frags, i just hope they don't lose a lot of color because my lights aren't strong enough. anyhow i'm sure your tank is gonna come around in no time, it looks amazing with the new lights, you inspire me to get some stronger lights, i just don't have the money!

 

Looking good

 

it's always a good to get a second opinion , thanks doc!

[singmealullaby]

I love the tank, and the placement especially..

 

Great job!

 

Thanks Carter, i checked out your build and i'm really diggin it too! Love your clowns. really makes me want to get a pair. awesome.

 

Asides from that big heater, I'm loving the look of your tank. Nice rocks too.

 

lol, that's the smallest heater i could find! it works really well though, my temp stays spot on at 79. good job jager, you made a good heater. anyhow thanks reefgurus, i'm glad you stopped by.

[singmealullaby]

Nice job on the set up! It looks very clean, and I love the sand. I was debating whether or not to use that sand on my new 20H, but decided to go cheap and reuse the sand in my 10 gallon.

 

thanks bluepanda, i was thinking about going with some old sand i had too, but i decided to try something different with the black sand and i'm happy with it. clean at the moment, but less so each day... thanks for stopping by panda, i hope you share some pics of your new 20H once you get the ball rolling.

[singmealullaby]

Well, recently I made some huge changes to my tank. The biggest of which is swapping out the black tahitian moon sand for some fiji pink. At first I thought it was a huge mistake, but now I'm ok with it. I really want some shimmer lines later on. I swapped tanks for a blue background on the side and also added a aquaclear 30 powerhead, which puts out a TON of flow at only 175 gph. It seems twice as strong as my koralia nano. Here's some pics of the remodeling.

 

 

FTS with all the changes

 

 

closer FTS

 

 

placed my green ricordia and orange zoas on the rocks, no glue or epoxy but they seem pretty stable

 

 

shot of my purple coralline, i love the color, it's spreading everywhere!

 

 

lastly a shot of my green and pink tipped frogspawn. I cut down the base and used epoxy to stick on the rocks. I used WAY to much epoxy! I'm a first timer.

 

 

I'm looking around for a true percula or maybe an azure damsel, I haven't decided yet. Any suggestions on some new corals to add? I don't know where to go from here, but I'm happy with things so far!

[nanoreef-R]

you should definitaly get perculas or beter yet a mated pair, that way they mite host ur frogspawn!

[singmealullaby]

you should definitaly get perculas or beter yet a mated pair, that way they mite host ur frogspawn!

 

Having a percula pair would be really cool! although I'm kinda hoping any new clowns won't host my frogspawn cause I don't want them to stress the frogspawn out, i heard they can be really rough sometimes and cause the frog to not open all the way. Two clowns would kinda max out my bioload too, it's been really cool going fishless so far cause my water stats are close to perfect. I'll wait for now until i see a perfect clown at a LFS, i'm kinda picky about fish. Thanks nanoreef-R.

[xxReidxx]

do you think the 24 inch t5's would look good on this and provide much more lighting?

[singmealullaby]

do you think the 24 inch t5's would look good on this and provide much more lighting?

 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean...? If your talking about using the 24" T5 nova extreme with 2 bulbs the extra watts would just spill over the side and it would be almost the same as using the 18" fixture. If your talking about a four bulb fixture than it would definitely be a ton of light, enough for sps probably. I hope that helps but I'm not exactly sure what your question is... thanks for stopping by.

[CarterNichols]

so clean looking, i love it!

[airman_verde04]

Hey singmealullaby, super cool tank, your set up is very similar to mine! You know, I've played with the color settings on my camera, and got some decent color out of my LR. But really, unless you have photoshop to edit your pics. If you dont have metal halide, you wont get as rich of colors I guess. I'm only saying that because I asked someone else how they got the awesome colors in his pictures! haha..but dont take my advice, I haven't even had a tank for 2 weeks yet. anyways, I have the same light and I get really good color in person though. at least I think so.. its good enough for my wife and I. we like the moon light better anyways.. we get some awsome shimmer from the LEDs in our tank.

 

Why didn't you DIY it? Plenty of write-ups out there and you could have done it for 1/10th the cost.

 

Mr.fosi, I'm forever going to call you, Jared from subway-DIY master of SC nano-reefers! until I actually see a real picture of you.

[singmealullaby]

so clean looking, i love it!

 

Thanks Carter.

[singmealullaby]

Hey singmealullaby, super cool tank, your set up is very similar to mine! You know, I've played with the color settings on my camera, and got some decent color out of my LR. But really, unless you have photoshop to edit your pics. If you dont have metal halide, you wont get as rich of colors I guess. I'm only saying that because I asked someone else how they got the awesome colors in his pictures! haha..but dont take my advice, I haven't even had a tank for 2 weeks yet. anyways, I have the same light and I get really good color in person though. at least I think so.. its good enough for my wife and I. we like the moon light better anyways.. we get some awsome shimmer from the LEDs in our tank.

 

 

 

Mr.fosi, I'm forever going to call you, Jared from subway-DIY master of SC nano-reefers! until I actually see a real picture of you.

 

hey airman_verde04, yea the 18" nova extreme has been a great light so far, i agree it looks alot better in person. i checked out your moonlight led mod and it's really cool! I'm thinking about adding some moonlights myself. anyhow i love your tank and can't wait to see some corals in there. any ideas on stocking? the frogspawn i have is doing well so I think we're safe with most LPS, i heard someone keep sps high with the light we have... but I'm too scared to risk it.