8g budget (<$300) and low maintenance (10% monthly wc)

[f16driver]

Yes, every guy's dream. Cheap and easy to maintain.

Been out of this hobby for more than 10 years now. Reefing is harder to quit than smoking. Seriously.

"reefing is a really expensive hobby" and "reefing needs a lot of time and energy"? So here's the challenge. Build a tank that's cheap ($300) and easy to maintain (10% monthly wc)

Let's go. And wish me luck!

Day 0. Equipment and start up purchase

Rainbow 8g R300 $80

Api test kits for ammonia nitrite and nitrates $42

Salifert phosphate test $24

Seachem purigen (I know, not a budget minded purchase. But the rainbow didn't come with carbon and I bought into the hype.) $14

Caribsea ocean direct live sand oolite 5lbs bag. $16

Revoreef marine salt $32

Live rock $24.60

24 bottles of 1.5 distilled water $13.40

Power strip $14.90

4 litre measuring jug $5.90

Upgraded pump $7

Hydrometer $8

Socket timer $10.90

Filter wool $2

Algae cleaner $4

Total $298.90!!!

[f16driver]

Day 1.

Fish tank. Decent. For that price,seriosuly can't complain. The qc is not quite there tho. I think I bought a second batch with reinforced silicon on the sump sections. But due to the extra silicon thickness, the media tray that is supposed to come with this tank can no longer fit. What does rainbow do? Throw in a mesh bag of used ceramic rings instead. Yes. USED. The whole thing smelled like pee. Way to go rainbow. But you make a cheap and good tank for the money so I forgive you.

With no need for a media tray, I bought it anyways. The close competitor to this choice was ocean free. But the design of the ios was weird. It had the underflow bypass all stages and goes back to the return pump. Beats me. Rainbow wins.

Substrate.

Sand goes in. Caribsea website states that's ocean direct oolite live sand is 0.1-1mm. That is incorrect. It has rocks, stones and seashells in there. Polyart uncle warned me but I bought it anyway.

So if you're fussy about your sand, buy arag alive Bahamas live sand instead. That is the truly ultra fine grains.

Water goes in. Quick review of revoreef salt.no complains here. Cheap and good? Tested for phosphate and nitrate. Both 0. Good enough for me. Was easy to mix which was a plus.

[Guest]

Going to camp here to see what fabulous nano creature you going to add

[ngjaso]

Keep yr updates coming. Thinking of having a similar tank set in the near future. Let us know yr total spending including the live stocks so I can budget myself. Thanks

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[f16driver]

Going to camp here to see what fabulous nano creature you going to add

This is it! Just a tank and live rock. No bio load = low maintenance

[f16driver]

Keep yr updates coming. Thinking of having a similar tank set in the near future. Let us know yr total spending including the live stocks so I can budget myself. Thanks

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Hi Jason, the price u see above has live rock in it. Basically I set a budget of 300 to have the medium suitable for reef keeping. From here on out, any other equipment I get is for convenience. A want rather than a need. Hth

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[f16driver]

End of day 2 came a crossroad

The water slowly heated and stabilised at 30.9 degree c.

Now the smart thing to do is get a fan for cooling. A fan can easily bring the temps down by a couple of degrees.

However, I travel quite a bit. So when the day comes I'll prolly need an ato to cope with the evaporation when I'm away. And a ro/di unit would then also be nice to get ro water.

So final cost for the fan option?

Fan 20 + ato 180 + ro/di 300 = 600.

Wah kao. That's way over budget.

So I went with the other option.

The Al30 chiller!

[f16driver]

Note the small air stone beside it for scale. This thing is super small. Low heat and it brings the temps down to 26.5 with ease.

My room ambient is on average 30.5 deg c.

Final cost 160.

So yes I did bust the budget by over $150. But it's still possible if

A) you set this up in an air-conditioned room or office

or use a fan but sacrifice some ease of maintenance later

[f16driver]

Day 3 which was yesterday.

Live rock went in. Transfered it from seaside to tank in under an hour. Lots of nice coraline on the rock.

Disturbed the water a little. As u can see.

Tested the water and some interesting results.

Now the tank has been running with live sand and sw for two days. Lr added day 3 and test done an hour after lr added.

Ammonia 0

Nitrate

0

Nitrate 10ppm and fell to 5ish after 10% water change.

I know the debate between water change and light on or off during cycle. I chose to do water changes in presence of Nitrate with no Ammonia and nitrite. And also to leave the lights on. No scientific reason. Just feels right.

[f16driver]

Going to wait a few more weeks before I decide if it's ready. But really unexpected results.

This is this morning. Water has settled.

Also, I noticed this hitchhiker on my lr.

Appreciate if someone could id him for me. Feeling lazy haha

[f16driver]

Total cost till date. $458.90

Not too bad still.

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[f16driver]

Day 4

Again my test results are indicating that the cycle is over.

All 0 except nitrates at 10ppm

I'm still gonna wait and see. Tho it's rather tempting to add stuff in lol

[josephwzr]

I think ur cycle have not started leh. 4 days abit fast. Did any of the test u did from day 1 to day 4 show ammonia?

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[Admiraltian]

Looking good.

[f16driver]

yeah i tracked it since the water went in. day 1 ammonia was at 1ppm and that was the last i've seen any ammonia traces in the tank.

went to do some research, (googled nitrates early in cycle) and apparently i'm not the only one. Many other reefers there also experienced the same thing when they cycle with live rock and live sand. This is due to very little bacteria die off when they transfered the live rock. i took about 45 mins from water source to my tank so i'm thinking this applies to me.

also, i went to test my freshly mixed sea water for nitrates and it came up at 0. So....the nitrates are coming from somewhere....within the tank....suggesting the nitrogen cycle is complete.

But! i'm going to be patient. gonna test again tonight when i get back. did not do a water change last night with nitrates at 5ppm. 

will update tonight. anyone with similar rapid tank cycling experience please let me know!

[f16driver]

Thanks bro. Your new tank is looking good too. designing my own sump is like a dream la

[soeminpaing]

yeah i tracked it since the water went in. day 1 ammonia was at 1ppm and that was the last i've seen any ammonia traces in the tank.

went to do some research, (googled nitrates early in cycle) and apparently i'm not the only one. Many other reefers there also experienced the same thing when they cycle with live rock and live sand. This is due to very little bacteria die off when they transfered the live rock. i took about 45 mins from water source to my tank so i'm thinking this applies to me.

also, i went to test my freshly mixed sea water for nitrates and it came up at 0. So....the nitrates are coming from somewhere....within the tank....suggesting the nitrogen cycle is complete.

But! i'm going to be patient. gonna test again tonight when i get back. did not do a water change last night with nitrates at 5ppm. 

will update tonight. anyone with similar rapid tank cycling experience please let me know!

Did you use shrimp method with fishless cycling? It is no use measuring if you did not add any food or shrimp cause live rock can handle small amount of ammonia.

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[f16driver]

Did you use shrimp method with fishless cycling? It is no use measuring if you did not add any food or shrimp cause live rock can handle small amount of ammonia.

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That's a good point. I did think about dosing ammonia (using the dead shrimp method) to encourage a ammonia spike but it got me thinking, if my lr is handling the ammonia, doesn't that mean that the cycle is technically complete? (as in ammonia breaking down to nitrite then nitrate) or is there concern that there was so little ammonia to begin with, the denitrifying and nitrifying bacteria quantities handled it and did not grow in numbers.

Even in that case, I can increase my bioload slowly and marginally without risk of having a lethal ammonia spike?

What does everyone think?

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[soeminpaing]

That's a good point. I did think about dosing ammonia (using the dead shrimp method) to encourage a ammonia spike but it got me thinking, if my lr is handling the ammonia, doesn't that mean that the cycle is technically complete? (as in ammonia breaking down to nitrite then nitrate) or is there concern that there was so little ammonia to begin with, the denitrifying and nitrifying bacteria quantities handled it and did not grow in numbers.

Even in that case, I can increase my bioload slowly and marginally without risk of having a lethal ammonia spike?

What does everyone think?

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It's a good thing to increase bioload slowly. But in some case like clownfish, I like to introduce pairs which is quite a big bioload for a small tank like yours.

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[f16driver]

It's a good thing to increase bioload slowly. But in some case like clownfish, I like to introduce pairs which is quite a big bioload for a small tank like yours.

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Appreciate all the help I can get! Thanks again! Will introduce some nassarius tonight and see what happens

[f16driver]

So added this guy and two others in the tank today. Kinda just plonked them in and read after that snails are really hard to acclimatise. Big whoops.

So only this guy bothered to come out after I dropped 5 pallets of ocean nutrition formula one.

The other stuck his feeler eye thing out, but remained borrowed. And the other is no where to be seen.

[f16driver]

Day 5

All 0 with nitrate at 10

Did a 10% wc after. I'm hoping some left over food from the snails will pick ammonia up a little and I'll wait and see what my tank does with it.

Really cool to watch these guys borrow tho!

[tuajia]

Honestly I also did the same, just bought a bunch of live rock and put it in. I transported it without water so I assumed some die off would occur anyway and kick-start the cycle. Then just let it run for a month, started testing when I saw aesterina stars appearing then put in my first fish when parameters seemed ok. No issues there.

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[Harlequinmania]

Welcome back to the salty side.. hope you can keep within your budget although I know is very hard heehee..

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[f16driver]

Welcome back to the salty side.. hope you can keep within your budget although I know is very hard heehee..

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I know right!

The last time I was in this trap, bought the best skimmers and pumps and fr and cr and etc etc.

Now I just wanna see if I can keep it simple. Low bioload is the key