Onewolf
- #1
My wife and I recently decided that we would like to try setting up a saltwater reef tank. The initial theory was to start with a fairly small ‘all-in-one’ tank and I found/bought a very reasonably priced Waterbox 40.2 AIO on Facebook Marketplace. However after moving the 40AIO custom stand around to various locations in the house we concluded that we would prefer to place the new saltwater tank in the family/TV room where our 90 freshwater is currently located. We also concluded that we really don’t like the modern ‘rimless’ design with huge amounts of light spillage in the family room with the TV. Therefore we decided to replace the freshwater 90 with a saltwater 90 reef ready tank and reuse the existing stand because it has a nice 15” tall canopy which will help contain the spillage from the very bright LED reef lights. We also decided to split the existing freshwater 90 ‘residents’ into a new 65 gal planted tank in the sitting room and the 40 AIO in the home ‘office’. We also decided to use this ‘tank shuffle’ as an opportunity to install wood floors in the home office before moving the 40AIO into there.
I built this stand for a 40 breeder tank that was planned to be a Discus ‘grow’ tank but I decided not to pursue Discus for the time being. Since the Aqueon 65 tank has the same 36x18 footprint as the 40 breeder we re-purposed the stand for the 65 gal tank.
The tank uses a Penn Plax 1200 canister filter (which I swapped out from the cycled Freshwater 90 which had two Cascade 1200 filters) and an Aqueon Pro 200W heater. The ambient temp in the house is between 72-76 and the tank is kept at 76 so there is very little load on the heater.
After fighting with algae for 18 months with the 90FW tank we bought a RODI system and we no longer have algae issues so this tank will use RODI water.
The substrate is Caribsea Super Naturals “Torpedo Beach” sand.
I bought the driftwood pieces from "rocknartcreation" on E-bay. They are pre-mounted on slate and they are fantastic. Very highly recommended. NO TANNINS is a pleasant surprise after fighting with huge amounts of tannin and yellow water in the older 90FW tank.
After the initial water fill, first piece of driftwood, and first group of plants. All of these plants are from GreenPro on Amazon. I have had very good luck with plants from Greenpro. All these plants looked very good except the Rotala Indica seems a little weak so we will see how it does.
I dosed the RODI water with Seachem Equilibrium to help the plants. I also dose CO2 daily, Flourish weekly, and I used a Flourish root tab for each plant in the substrate.
I used CA to glue the Anubias BarterI to the driftwood.
After the water cleared up I transferred some of the fish from the FW90:
9 X-Ray tetras
6 Albino Cories
1 Common Pleco
I added the second driftwood piece, some Dark Red Ludwigia and some foreground plants (?).
I built this stand for a 40 breeder tank that was planned to be a Discus ‘grow’ tank but I decided not to pursue Discus for the time being. Since the Aqueon 65 tank has the same 36x18 footprint as the 40 breeder we re-purposed the stand for the 65 gal tank.
The tank uses a Penn Plax 1200 canister filter (which I swapped out from the cycled Freshwater 90 which had two Cascade 1200 filters) and an Aqueon Pro 200W heater. The ambient temp in the house is between 72-76 and the tank is kept at 76 so there is very little load on the heater.
After fighting with algae for 18 months with the 90FW tank we bought a RODI system and we no longer have algae issues so this tank will use RODI water.
The substrate is Caribsea Super Naturals “Torpedo Beach” sand.
I bought the driftwood pieces from "rocknartcreation" on E-bay. They are pre-mounted on slate and they are fantastic. Very highly recommended. NO TANNINS is a pleasant surprise after fighting with huge amounts of tannin and yellow water in the older 90FW tank.
After the initial water fill, first piece of driftwood, and first group of plants. All of these plants are from GreenPro on Amazon. I have had very good luck with plants from Greenpro. All these plants looked very good except the Rotala Indica seems a little weak so we will see how it does.
I dosed the RODI water with Seachem Equilibrium to help the plants. I also dose CO2 daily, Flourish weekly, and I used a Flourish root tab for each plant in the substrate.
I used CA to glue the Anubias BarterI to the driftwood.
After the water cleared up I transferred some of the fish from the FW90:
9 X-Ray tetras
6 Albino Cories
1 Common Pleco
I added the second driftwood piece, some Dark Red Ludwigia and some foreground plants (?).
