20g Long all in One Reef Build
- Thread starter Lepisosteus
- Start date
So the tank has been up for just under a month. The initial goal of creating an all in one reef comparable to the fluval sea yet cheaper and bigger has definitely been achieved. The fluval sea 13.5 gallon will run you around $300 after tax in my area. That is inclusive of the tank a light and the internal filtration. However the light that comes with it isn't the best and would most likely be the first thing upgraded and there is no heater. So i took this 20 gallon long and built the entire internal filtration for a total of $150 including the tank. included all filter media, the pump, the 50 watt eheim heater, and the acrylic for the baffles. As of now I would comfortably say that this build will out perform the fluval sea 13.5gallon having owned both tanks. Will progress as this reef continues to build. Here is a potential sneak peak for an upgraded yet again version of this tank. Same concept of internal filtration will be used on this tank. I guess this goes to show that reefs do not need to be difficult. The new tank was initiallly bought to be used as a ray pup import tank but after the success of the 20 long it's screaming shallow reef to me.
Just popped in 23 more frags today. Was kinda disappointed by the size of some of them but others were beautiful. Will add some pics of them when they fill in a little. Everything looks to patchy right now
The point here is when you are turn to salt then there is no turning back
stay the the light side if you can...the dark side is very attempting and extremely DARK....
Pretty accurate. Dark side gets yaThe point here is when you are turn to salt then there is no turning back
So here's. Little update on the system. I left it for 13 days untouched and came back to it looking like this. Will do a waterchange tomorrow with around 1.020 specific gravity to even out the salinity after I top it off tonight with RODI. No lids on the tank makes for a lot of evaporation and salt creep but all the corals are looking fine. Water dropped below the overflow so the back up holes and overflow can handle the return pumps 320gph. The system is running flawlessly still. I got a temperature controller around 3 weeks ago because the heater was acting up in the cold to hot swings. Didn't upgrade to the apex, not until the upgrade at least. The system is already fairly automated so don't fix what's not broken. The blue paint (krylon fusion) is holding up well on the overflow. Update picture
