RDA's Reef Tubb'n 🛁

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Hello everyone 🙃

 

The Mrs. and I have been working on landscaping around the house and doing a bit of interior design/sprucing up. Unfortunately part of those interior projects means shutting down my bowfront prematurely (lol who saw that coming?) We won't have much room for a reef tank as we'll probably be painting rooms and what not, and hundreds of pounds of water just doesn't seem fun to be moving around every other day tbh. Maybe when we're done I can set it up again. In the meantime, I've been indulging my freshwater side by watching all of these people set up tropical backyard ponds in Rubbermaid tubs and other containers. I also came across a video with Julian Sprung and his saltwater pond with mangroves; way cool and really inspiring. That got me thinking...shutting down my tank I need a place to put all of my coral and livestock. Setting up another tank is out of the question for now, but why not try an outdoor reef? The backyard is my domain, and besides, the Mrs. is on a work trip right now so what she doesn't know wont hurt 🤭 So bring your flipflops and grab a cold one, we're going reef tubb'n! 

 

*insert a 'blow your socks off' graphic here*

 

  

 

I picked up a few small ponds from Lowes. One is about 35 gallons and the other around 9 gallons. I'll be using the smaller container as a filter/sump of sorts, and the larger pond will be where all the good stuff is at. I'm not wanting to invest a ton on this project as this pond will be temporary due to the seasons where I live, but the basic idea is to have a nice sun lit tub where I can grow out my corals and fish -or it might turn into a raging dumpster fire, who knows, this is all really just for fun anyways. Obviously temperature and salinity are big concerns, but I don't think it will be too difficult to maintain

 

 

 

All of this will be on my backyard patio; close to an outlet for the equipment. This spot gets about 2-3 hours of direct sunlight during the day and the rest of the time its indirect/in the shade. I think it will be enough light for corals, but not enough to burn them or overheat the pond. I might move it around a bit depending on though.

 

 

There is still a lot to think about and to set up, I want this to mostly be a DIY project and definitely more on the utilitarian side of things vs. being aesthetic.

 

 

Equipment:

• Main Tank: 35 Gallon Lowe's Pond
• Filtration: 9 Gallon Lowe's Pond 
• Light: ✨THE SUN✨
• Return Pump: (TBD)
• Flow: (TBD)
• Heater: Cobalt 200w

 

Livestock:

• TBD

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

*small change of plans*

 

The pond from Lowe’s had a hole in it, and I ended up returning it. Of course they didn’t have another one in stock, so I headed over to ACE and picked up a 100 gallon stock tank that was on sale. Just a “small” upgrade, no? I zip tied my Tidal 75 to the side in the jankiest fashion I could muster; I really out-did myself 🤪 just need to add a few more things and let it cycle a bit before moving all of my livestock over.

[Woodini]

This should be interesting! 🍿 

where are you located?

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

3 hours ago, Woodini said:

This should be interesting! 🍿 

where are you located?

I’m in the Southwest of the US. Probably will keep this going until the heater can’t keep up with keeping it above 70 and then I’ll move everything indoors.

[Woodini]

Oh man, SW, ya might need a chiller. Here in FL it’s fvcking hot

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

12 hours ago, Woodini said:

Oh man, SW, ya might need a chiller. Here in FL it’s fvcking hot

Yeah I’ve thought about that. This summer has been a hot one so we’ll have to see. I’ve seen one guy have some outdoor frag tanks in well over 100f and he used fans to keep them from getting too hot. Might try that if it gets hot enough.