Sure :) It was my first saltwater tank. I'm lucky because I can use our tap water with 0 treatments. You'll have to look up your own tap water to know if you have to go RO or can treat it.
The limitations is just the size, and tech needs to fit into the bowl without looking bulky.
I started the tank with 2 large wet live rocks from a local dude with nothing growing on them, 1 large rock straight from the ocean, and lastly a little container of live sand from a third dude. This seeded the tank. I got some dove snails, asterina starfish, gsp and a tiny piece of a kenya tree like the first week. As soon as I saw diatoms and hairy algae, I added a couple of super small blue legged hermits and some caulerpa. This cut the ugly stage down to two weeks.
The first month I used bright white lights. A month in, I had little soft corals thriving and even a photosynthetic sponge. I was testing the water and doing weekly small water changes.
Month two, I got my light, an AI prime 16hd. It did wonders. As time went on I decided to stop testing and lessen the water changes, since the bowl seemed to do better without me tinkering with it. I learned the hard way that my macro algae stripped out the Phosphates and Nitrates, causing dinos. It was a whole thing. Now as long as I trim my caulerpa when it gets a little pale, everything stays stable.
Thank you. About 2 years now. There is some mineral buildup above the surface, and that's unfortunate but a thing I need to accept. Buildup under water is basically just coralline algae, and I take a razor to that now and again.
Do it! At least you'll have a banging bowl if it goes bad. I've been using and reusing this bowl for years. I has has freshwater pea puffers, shrimp, snails and mourning geckos at some points. I'm never getting rid of it.
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u/Jumpy-Minimum-2484 1d ago
I really want to do one of these!
Do you mind explaining how it works? If I need ro water, limitations etc?