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MattIRL's low tech 40b


MattIRL

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Hey everyone! So this is my first post on Nano-reef but I've been a long time lurker. I've kept reef tanks in different forms for about 10 years now but due to constant moving in my 20's never really had anything that I would consider a well established tank! Now that I'm in my 30's and feel fairly settled when I saw a 40 breeder with stand pop up on my local Craigslist for $40 I jumped at the opportunity to pull out some old equipment and start my journey again! 

 

I've always loved the dimensions of 40b's and to me its the perfect nano sized tank. it has a big enough foot print to come up with some interesting aquascapes and house some interesting creatures while still being relatively affordable by not needing to go overboard on equipment like the fact that you only need one light. I used a majority old equipment I had laying around for this system. This system has been up for about 5 months now and has gone through a few changes, mainly lighting related.

 

Equipment:

Aqueon Tank Breeder Black 36X18X16 40gal

Older Reef Octopus HOB skimmer, closest thing I can find now is a classic 100

Aquaclear 70 with InTank media basket running filterfloss, chemipure elite, and biomedia

165w black box led (started with 4 bulb t5 fixture and may go back to t5 if I find a reasonably priced 6 bulb fixture)

2 old hydro powerheads I had laying around (plan to pickup single crossflow style pump in the near future)

 

Stock list:

only stock at the moment are a pair of snowflake clowns, a few frags, and clean up crew (random snails and a few hermit)

 

Future plans:

As someone who has had a bare bottom tank in the past I don't know why I thought I would like having a sand-bed. It's messy and I hate it so I'm going to start siphoning it out with water changes and go bare bottom. I like the look of reef tanks with a lot of "flowing" corals in it so I'm probably going to be pretty BTA and LPS dominated with the possibility of some SPS in the future. Also looking at adding a six-line wrasse and maybe a dwarf angel of some sort as tank mates. 

 

Early August 2019: initial set up

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July 2020: start of tank journal

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RoyalGramma001

Looks amazing, it would look really good with a royal gramma! (I have one, he is very active and eats well, some are different, guess I’m lucky.) You should also get some bounce mushroom corals which look very cool. If you do not like royal grammas a coral beauty angelfish would also look great in your tank.😁

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