- Joined
- Mar 8, 2004
- Messages
- 4,883
Hi, folks.
I stopped in an LFS that seems pretty good, and spoke with them a while. The guy there (and one random customer) said that they had had good luck with the Jebo all-in-one tanks, and I was thinking about looking into them as a "learn my stuff before getting a ceph" tank. I'd ideally like one that could have a bandensis at some point once I get the bugs worked out, and was wondering if anyone knew if the 40 gallon Jebo 375 they recommended could handle that... The LFS guy was recommending it as a good starter tank, in that it's got "everything you need built in," but of course that means that it's harder to customize and sort of wasteful if it doesn't suit my needs. I'm also interested in experimenting with DIY stuff, and I'm not too scared of drilling holes and running pipes and such, but I'm not sure that's a good idea in an all-in-one type tank like this... so things I'm considering are:
1) get the Jebo to learn about water parameters and cycling and such, and just keep fish and/or reefy stuff forever, and get another tank later
2) get the Jebo as above, but with the plan to stick a bandensis in it eventually.
3) same, but assume I'll have to drain it, re-plumb it to have a sump and other stuff and then re-cycle it (or maybe I can drill it first, but not do the whole plumbing arrangement until later?) before adding a ceph
4) same, but set it up with a sump and other add-ons from the start in addition to its built-in stuff
5) get some other small learning tank, maybe one that's more built from bits and pieces than one of these all-in-one tanks
6) get a huge tank suitable for long-term bimac/briareus sized cephs, and learn on that
I'm assuming #6 is foolish for several reasons: expense, and it's probably better to learn about water parameters in a small tank where there's less "inertia" from water volume, so that changes happen fast, and then switch to a big tank for ceph keeping.
I note that Jebo lights have a bad reputation and there seem to be some misgivings about their skimmers, but no one here has mentioned having one of their tanks. I think the one they guy was suggesting was one of the R375 tanks here but I thought it was model # R375KG which doesn't seem to be on that page. He also said it had an integrated wet/dry filter that used some sort of ceramic medium instead of bioballs to save space, but that it was very effective (they said they'd run a similar model as a test reef tank, and it had been supporting a large load for months and was doing well, and another patron in the store said he had the 40gal one at home, and its filtration worked better than the larger, custom tank he'd "moved up to." On the other hand, neither of them seemed to know much about ceph needs, but I did get a pretty good feeling from them, in that they seemed to be helpful and not too "hard sell"-- in fact, they encouraged me to not take on too much too fast.
Anyway, I'm in sort of a weird "half expert/ half novice" state because I've been reading all the TONMO discussions for over a year, but I haven't kept a tank since my seahorse around 1978-1980, and then, either because it wasn't popular yet or I was clueless, I didn't use all the "fancy, modern stuff" like skimmers, wet-dry filters, live rock/sand and whatnot, I just used an undergravel and a carbon filter on a bubble-aerator thingie, and did a lot of water changes.
So, what do people think? This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea, anyway; my fiancee and I are both in "career flux" right now, anyway, so it may be foolish to take on a hard-to-move thing like this lest we have to relocate, but it did sound like fun...
I stopped in an LFS that seems pretty good, and spoke with them a while. The guy there (and one random customer) said that they had had good luck with the Jebo all-in-one tanks, and I was thinking about looking into them as a "learn my stuff before getting a ceph" tank. I'd ideally like one that could have a bandensis at some point once I get the bugs worked out, and was wondering if anyone knew if the 40 gallon Jebo 375 they recommended could handle that... The LFS guy was recommending it as a good starter tank, in that it's got "everything you need built in," but of course that means that it's harder to customize and sort of wasteful if it doesn't suit my needs. I'm also interested in experimenting with DIY stuff, and I'm not too scared of drilling holes and running pipes and such, but I'm not sure that's a good idea in an all-in-one type tank like this... so things I'm considering are:
1) get the Jebo to learn about water parameters and cycling and such, and just keep fish and/or reefy stuff forever, and get another tank later
2) get the Jebo as above, but with the plan to stick a bandensis in it eventually.
3) same, but assume I'll have to drain it, re-plumb it to have a sump and other stuff and then re-cycle it (or maybe I can drill it first, but not do the whole plumbing arrangement until later?) before adding a ceph
4) same, but set it up with a sump and other add-ons from the start in addition to its built-in stuff
5) get some other small learning tank, maybe one that's more built from bits and pieces than one of these all-in-one tanks
6) get a huge tank suitable for long-term bimac/briareus sized cephs, and learn on that
I'm assuming #6 is foolish for several reasons: expense, and it's probably better to learn about water parameters in a small tank where there's less "inertia" from water volume, so that changes happen fast, and then switch to a big tank for ceph keeping.
I note that Jebo lights have a bad reputation and there seem to be some misgivings about their skimmers, but no one here has mentioned having one of their tanks. I think the one they guy was suggesting was one of the R375 tanks here but I thought it was model # R375KG which doesn't seem to be on that page. He also said it had an integrated wet/dry filter that used some sort of ceramic medium instead of bioballs to save space, but that it was very effective (they said they'd run a similar model as a test reef tank, and it had been supporting a large load for months and was doing well, and another patron in the store said he had the 40gal one at home, and its filtration worked better than the larger, custom tank he'd "moved up to." On the other hand, neither of them seemed to know much about ceph needs, but I did get a pretty good feeling from them, in that they seemed to be helpful and not too "hard sell"-- in fact, they encouraged me to not take on too much too fast.
Anyway, I'm in sort of a weird "half expert/ half novice" state because I've been reading all the TONMO discussions for over a year, but I haven't kept a tank since my seahorse around 1978-1980, and then, either because it wasn't popular yet or I was clueless, I didn't use all the "fancy, modern stuff" like skimmers, wet-dry filters, live rock/sand and whatnot, I just used an undergravel and a carbon filter on a bubble-aerator thingie, and did a lot of water changes.
So, what do people think? This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea, anyway; my fiancee and I are both in "career flux" right now, anyway, so it may be foolish to take on a hard-to-move thing like this lest we have to relocate, but it did sound like fun...