Hi everyone,

I am really excited to participate this event. This will be my first time to this kind of contest. My arms, leg and back are still sore from building the tank, sump, and stand in 4 days. Although it's not fully complete, I took some pics just to get me qualify to enter. I still have a lot of do like plumbing, lighting, and I still need to build the skimmer.

The basic theme for my tank is a shallow square tank so I can appreciate the marine life from a bird's eye view, not the usual side view. I am going to stock mainly clams(flame on), probably with some Zoas and SPS as a complement.

I can't wait to put water in and start it up, hope everybody will have a good time and good luck yall!!!

Spec:
Tank Size: 17"x17"x8.75" (10.95 Gal)
Sump: 17"x11"x12.25" (9.92 Gal)
Lighting: 250W 20k MH
Flow: Mag 3 (350gph) with HydroFlo
Tank mates: Mainly clams, maybe zoas and SPSs

Entry Photo:
Display tank base dimension:
Click to view attachment
Display tank height dimension:
Click to view attachment
Sump base dimension:
Click to view attachment
Sump height dimension:
Click to view attachment
I designed my tank on Solidworks:
Click to view attachment

Some more pics.

Main tank building pic:
Click to view attachment
Sump building pic:
Click to view attachment
Stand:
Click to view attachment
Prelim test fitting of everything together. main tank is fully hand polished, sump will just left to be, as long as it doesn't leak, I am happy.
Click to view attachment
See the bottle? cheap and effective way to fix my muscle sore

More to come, enjoy!

Nice work!

I agree! This is by far the most custom tank of them all at the time of this posting. We'll have to see if Calvin can get a picture with a drink in it before the end of the day. Really good work on the CAD as well. I'll be interested to see the development of it.

I really like the fact that it will be square and shallow and that you'll have a good lighting setup over the tank. You better get some good pics!

And did you seriously drink all that LIIT after finishing? How were you able to take the pictures?

Wow, that is some nice work on that tank and stand.

I'm curious to see what a top-down aquascape will look like. Most corals look better viewed top-down anyway IMO, so it could be pretty neat.

Thank you for all the kind words. I did finished the plumbing late last night and I also put water in, till this morning, not a single drip yet. I also fire up the pump this morning to see if everything is in my calculation, turns out decent, but still have a couple places that I need to fine tune.

I already have the aquascaping all thought out, now I just need to see if I can get the things I need to proceed with my idea. Also, the next step would be building the MH pendent and also the skimmer. Probably by the end of tonight or tomorrow, I should have salt water in. Will update again, until then.

p.s. I didn't drink that much of LIIT just last night, but a LOT to celebrate the completion of my creation

I love this tank so you better make it good!!

A minor update, some pics with water in, please ignore the messy background.

Front view of the tank:
Click to view attachment
Back view of the tank:
Click to view attachment
Simple plumbing, one down, one up:
Click to view attachment
Sump in action:
Click to view attachment
Close up on the surface of the main tank:
Click to view attachment


If everything is doing fine for tonight, I will move it into the house tomorrow.
Enjoy!

WOW! that is awesome work

That tank is just awsome. I think I just got my inspiration for my next tank I build!

Good luck with the tank!

This tank looks awesome. Great design. Keep it up and I look forward to watching it progress.

now that there is ooooone purty tank! yowza! super suuweeeet imho!

I cannot wate to see whats next! Me and my buddies are planing to biuld a similar seamles clam bed with a custom light setup.Should be a fun prodject.

wow, i really like this tank...... its simple, yet striking at the same time

Ok I give u win!

Thank you everyone, hope everyone like it and enjoy it as much as I do. Keep the comments coming, I don't mind if it's good or bad, we all learn from it.

I have finished the canopy and all the wirings to the MH, now I have to somehow figure out how to stuff an actinic and moonlight in there. Also all the live rocks are in place, shook up a huge sandstorm last night so I didn't take any pics. Will update again with pics tonight. Stay tuned.

Great stuff man!! l love the frameless look, that's how mine is... but you really went all out and plumbed through the bottom. nice work. )

Nice.. look great....

But arnt you worried that the check value might fail...

Knocking on wood

Yes, if the check valve fail somehow, I will have a happy molding carpet. Although if any other important component fail, like overflow, baffle, piping, I will get the same result also. I will check for all the possible failure everyday, thanks for pointing that out.

So here are some update pics, hope you guys enjoy. And keep your comments coming.

Here is a pic when I first move the tank in place, and just finish putting the sand in.
Click to view attachment
Here is a pic showing my newly made canopy and the freshly setup tank.
Click to view attachment
Below are 2 different angles of the tank.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Left side of the rock work for now.
Click to view attachment
Right side of the rock work.
Click to view attachment
And the last top view.
Click to view attachment

The tank is going into cycling mode, will start adding cleaning crew soon.
Any comments are welcome and hope you enjoy pics.

Cool stucco background! I think it looks good. I was expecting it to be a three--well four counting from above--sided tank. But it's your reef and you should do what you feel is best.

And that's really nice the way you have the LR going around the hydroflo output. Can you get some video of it running once you get it going? It'll be like a merry-go-round for your snails if they can get on it. I'm interesting to see how that setup works with it rotating horizontally. What type of pump are you using again?

well, my first idea was that I can look at it from all sides, but I just can't find a place in the house that I can put it. Even for a 3-sided look, I just don't know where to put it to look decent, for the house I mean. so I just stuff it in the living room corner. that seems to have the least impact with other things. oh well...

actually I have taken a short video, let me upload it to photobucket tonight. a horizontally placed hydro flo is shooting water at an angle of 50-60 degree give or take, I was expecting more like 30-40 degree. but oh well, this works pretty good anyways, all 4 sides get the flow that it needed, so it's all good. I am using a Mag 3 as return.

looks great! you bought some zoas or something from me awhile back, right? very sweet setup-- how much did the acrylic set you back (if you don't mind my asking)? i know that it is really expensive through TAP but i just found a website that sells sheets for pretty cheap (http://freckleface.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/acrylicsheet.html).

no matter-- the tanks is awesome... i'd love to build my own 60-90 gallon cube and this definitely has me thinking about doing so.

goodluck!
-danny

yoshiod9: yes I got some zoa from you beforethe blue with red skirt are doing very good, but the alien eye isn't. It never grow, but it didn't die either, oh well.

The acrylic cost around $70 for the main tank and $40 for the sump. I got them from TAPS, I know they are hella expensive, but my table saw isn't perfectly setup yet, so I rather have someone else cut it for me, at least I know they are true and square. www.lairdplastics.com have a factory locally and they have decent price on acrylic sheets, but they only do 4x8 sheet, as I said, I can't cut perfect square at the moment, so I rather not risk it. if you are doing 60-90 gal, you need almost a sheet anyways, so check it out.


As promised, here are couple movies showing how the tank work enjoy!

From top:


From side:


A short one for the sump:


Now I need to work on my skimmer, I am lazy and tired, I will probably use an old seaclone and mod it to make it work, but we'll see how it goes.

Looks good.

What are the chances of you do a set of plans for the tank? I have always wanted to do a top view tank, and your is perfect! What is the approx gallons for the display tank and the combined volume? The only thing that I could critique on the tank is the the outlet in the middle moves the surface a little too much to get a good view. All in all, great job! I can't wait to see it when it is finished.

The main tank is about 11G and the sump is around 9G, so the total volume is around 20G or so, but the real water volume is probably 15G. I will see if I can draw up the plan for the whole system.

And I totally agree that the output move the surface too much, if you want to look at it, you gonna turn off the pump. As I said in the earlier posts, I didn't expect hydro-flo would shoot water out almost straight up to the surface. Anyways, so I am trying to figure out a way to make a viewing plane to put on top so u can view it all the time.

Thanks for the comments, I have put couple new friends in there, I will update the pics soon.

i have a Hydro flow and they tend to get "Stuck" on a occasion and need a good cleaing.....wont you have to move your rock work to get the HydroFlow out?

I love the look of the tank and sump.... but my guess would be that its pretty hard to get the water still enough to view from the top with an overflow and your flow comming straight up from the middle of the tank ...and its a small tank so what flow doesnt go to the surface will hit the walls and cause ripples that way right?

just my thoughts .....looks great!!!

well, I think its time for me to do an update. recently I added some friends, this will be my first wave. will wait a little and see how the tank react before the next wave of stocking. here are some pics, I really need to get a filter on my camera, all the glare is killing my pics (remind self, get filter):

Left side


From top


Side view of my clam


Top view of my clam


Some zoa, I will add more when time comes





purple tip acro sp.


dark green acro sp.


Oregon Echinata/Tortousa


Tyree's LE Phonape Birdnest


Pokerstar Montipora Danae, lost color due to fresh water dip......
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/pokerstar.jpg[/img]

Montipora Vietnamensis, also lost color due to fresh water dip.....
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/viet.jpg[/img]

well, we'll see how it goes, enjoy!

This tank is going to be awesome!

I think it's time for me to do an update, since a lot of other contestants are post whoring their thread to push it to the top. just kidding.

things I recently did:
1, changed my bulb from hamilton 10k to a hamilton 14k. give the coral a little bit more color.
2, dial in the kalk dripping

things that set me back:
1, I found a lot of monti nudis that are eating my montis, so I keep having to fresh water dip them, which the monti are still having really bad colors and hanging on by a thread.
2, Ca, Alk and pH are flying all over the place since I was using different ways to maintain Ca and Alk. all these fluctuation kind of lighten or brown out some of my SPS. but they settled down now.

well school is over next week, so I got a long list which I still need to work on.
I recently stocked up my tank, my good friend Doug generously gave me couple of his prized frags to put in, thanks Doug. well forget the babbling, here are the pics, sorry for the quality and I still haven't order the filter yet, I just can't take good pic with the blue lights, maybe I will figure something out, anyways enjoy!

Water quality:
SG: 1.024
Temp: 79-80F
Ca: 420
Alk : 9.6
pH: 8.00-8.14













[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/tearcloseup.jpg[/img]

let me know what you think

cool man! liking it alot...... keep the updates coming!

sweet clams what is the second one you got???

Thanks!

there are 3 clams in there right now,
the blue/black one is T. Crocea,
the wavy gold is T. Derasa,
and the last one is of course a gold teardrop T. Maxima

I am still looking for unique color/pattern crocea or maxima, but seems like most of the places are out of maximas due to the cutback of exports of maximas. We'll see, but I think I can fit 2-3 more in there I will post more pics these couple days, kind of hectic around the house during the holidays, u know what I mean

Sorry, no pics yet, I ordered the filter adapter and polarizer filter for my camera, due to christmas and new year's holiday, they keep delaying my shippment. oh well, should be here in couple days.

I recently up my flow from Mag3 (300gph) to a Mag5 (500gph), since the Mag5 was doing nothing in the garage. at first I just want to try to see the effects, but now I am liking it. I am thinking to up one more notch to a Mag7 (750gph), but we'll see.

Also I lowered my light a bit to blast the SPS, I am thinking to change it back to 10k bulb, since I think the 14k sucks. Although most of the SPS start to color back up nicely and the M. digitatas are starting to grow like weed.

the flatworms just don't like to leave me alone, they keep coming back. I even double the "flatworm exit" dose, and they still come back, I just don't know why they hate me so much... the monti nudi seems to be under control, I haven't seen one in weeks, and the encrusting montis are finally coloring up.

other then that, everything else seems fine. although I rearrange a lot of coral last night to make room for the new ones that are going to come in the next couple days, and everything was still sliming when I went to sleep. I broke a lot of tips off, so now I have to wait for them to heal.

I will be visiting friends next couple days to see what I can pick up from their tank to stock up mine. I will see what I can score, pics will follow, until then....

Hi again, I hope I am not late, I was out of town last couple days, didn't have time to update my final collection of corals. But here it is, my final selections of corals, a lot of friends helped. when they know the corals are going into the contest tank, they all frag out things that they didn't want to frag in the first place, I really appreciate all the helps, you know who u are!

took me a long time to glue things down, placing them and stuffs, and in the process, I broke off a lot of stuffs, now they need to heal. also my hand are always in the tank for the past week, I am sure the corals doesn't like it at all. since a lot SPSs and a clam is added, plus the cold weather, my calcium, alkalinity and pH go all wacky again. my kalk dosing seems not catching up, I need to find new ways to keep them stable.

anyways, enough of the babbling, nobody likes to read, here will be the pics, first will be the overall pics:

Tank in action:


Top:


Left:


Right:


Couple top close up:

Here is the break down of what is in the tank:

First are the Tridacnid, giant clams:

Large Tridacna Crocea:


Small Tridacna Crocea:


Tridacna Derasa:


Teardrop Tridacna Maxima:





Then to the Acroporidae:

Acropora Yongei (green slimer):


Acropora Tenuis:



Acropora Tortuosa (ORA Tort):



Acropora Valida:

Acropora Tortuosa (Cali tort):


Acropora Millepora:


Acropora Prostrata:


Couple Acropora Sp. if you know the species, please let me know:

ORA Chips Acro:


Green hairy: Acro

Green with blue tip:


Blue tip:


Purple acro:


Blue/purple tip:


Tabletop Acro:



Steely blue Acro:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/steblue.jpg[/img]

Montipora Digitata:


Montipora Digitata (Green base w/ orange polyp):


Montipora Capricornis (Idaho Grape):


Montipora Danae (Pokerstar):


Montipora Peltiformis:


Montipora Confusa:


Couple Montipora Sp:

Rainbow:


Bright Yellow:


Purple Polyp:

Seriatopora sp.:
Purple Polyps:


Tyree's Ponape:


Cyphastrea Ocellina (Atlantis Meteor Shower):


Couple shots of various Zoanthid Sp.:



Couple broken frags:



Hope I didn't leave anything out, let me know what you think, enjoy!

That's a lot of corals! Looking great! Hopefully we'll see some good growth over the next few months.

wow, some great stuff! man, makes me wish i had the money to get some new corals! loving the encrusting monti's

thanks, SPS don't grow fast, that's why I am stocking it up like it is. but couple of my older frags have start taking off, especially the green digitata, it's starting to grow like weeds, u literally see growth everyday.







thanks, a lot of the great stuffs are from friends, they are all exotic SPSers. you just need to beg to the right person

couple of the montis when I got them they are totally browned out, I got kind of an idea what they suppose to be, I took them in to see if I can color them back up. well I am starting to see some intense color from the new growth, so in a month or two, I am sure they will be more extrodinary, we'll see.

a little update, as my luck always, expect the worst. yesterday, I found on one of my encrusting monti have a large portion got eaten/died off, I think the nudi problem still there. so I did a FW dip again, oh well, it was doing so well, and a lot of places are turning bright blue/purple, now we are back to square one again.... all the Acros are doing well, all of them have encrusted the base already, so let's hope they will be taking off soon.

I guess I am a little late for the update pics, I am really busy these days. Whenever I am home, the light is already off, so I didn't get any pics. Anyways, nothing much happen to the tank, other than the dreaded bug munching on my rainbow once a while, everything else is in pretty good condition, and very stable.
temp : 79-81F
calcium : 410 ppm
alk : 8.6 dKh
pH : 8-8.2
here comes the pics, my photo taking technique is getting worse and worse, oh well, the tank look way better in real person. Anyways, here we go:







close up of my cali tort:

Awesome collection of SPS, those clams are nice too!

thank you, you yourself have a nice collection going on over there too, btw, love your dendro. I still need to get one for my other tank.

Yeah, dendros are cool! Only problem is that they like to eat a lot. Good luck with the contest.

Any new FTS? How is the growout going?

yes, I will upload them shortly. they are growing at a steady speed, everything is happy. most of them color up decently, granted, a lot of them are deep brown color when I got them. but they still could be better, 3-4 months is not enough for full coloration from brownies, I will have comparison in my final report, stay tuned! thanks.

ok, here's my March update. But seriously, I just don't know how to take good aauarium pictures! all the pics turn out crappy, my tank looks way better then that, I can have ppl confirm that. what can you do right? anyways, if the tank looks ugly, it's because of my photography skills, not because of the tank, here it is:
left:

right:

top:

look at it from middle:

actinic shot:




couple pics showing how much growth there have been:






enjoy! I will have full report and all the corals update in my final report, stay tuned! thanks

First of all, I want to thank nano-reef.com to host such a wonderful contest. It gave me another meaning to keeping a reef. I learned a lot through my tank and I learn a lot through other contestant’s tank. Even if I did not win this contest, the experience of keeping up with the tank during the past 6 month is just phenomenal. Let’s see how these 6 months have treated me.

I first started with this design is because I have always wanted a large cube tank. When I notice this contest, I thought why don’t I start a mini cube and see how it goes? After a lot of calculations and planning, I did not end up with a perfect cube, but I prefer this a little more because I can have the top down look of my corals. Also this is my first self-build display tank, I was very nervous when I was building it, but I did a lot of research and the final product turns out fine. Moreover, I am a starved college student so for the equipments I tried to stayed as less as possible to keep the total cost down. Ended up spending more then I anticipate but couple less meals did not kill me either

Equipments:
Display tank dimension: 17"x17"x8.75" = 10.95 gallon
Sump dimension: 17"x11"x12.25" = 9.92 gallon
Lighting: 250W MH XM20k + 2x 32W Compact Florescence Actinic (9hr MH, 13hr CF)
Flow: Mag5 w/ hydro flo
Skimmer: AquaC Urchin w/ Maxi-Jet 1200
Heating: 100W tube

Designed in Solidworks:


When building the display tank:


Finished display tank:


Sump:


I hand polished everything... took a lonnnnngggggggg time....


And resting in the final position:

For corals, my original idea was to keep it an all clam tank, with a sprinkle of a little zoa and encrusting SPS. Unfortunately just right after the contest began, from what I read, the importers have slowed down the import of the clams, especially the T. Maxima, due to the heavy harvesting of these species. And I have not seen any good looking clams in the store for a long time. So I decide to go another route and switch my original idea to go mainly SPS because nobody else in the contest are going for it. Since I have couple friends who have really nice collections of SPSs, everybody chipped in a little, or sell it to me for a very low price. I ended up with: 4 clams, 15 Acropora, 10 Montipora, 2 birdnest, 1 LPS and various zoas.
List (please check other thread for every single picture):
2x Tridacna Crocea
Tridacna Derasa
Tridacna Maxima (teardrop)
Acropora Yongei (green slimer)
Acropora Tenuis
Acropora Tortuosa (ORA Tort)
Acropora Tortuosa (Cali tort)
Acropora Valida
Acropora Millepora
Acropora Prostrata (ROAB pink with blue tip)
Acropora Abrolhensis
Acropora Lovelli (Mike Paletta Turquoise Lovelli)
Acropora Loisettae
Acropora Solitaryensis
Acropora Sp. (ORA Chips)
Acropora Sp. (purple stag)
Acropora Sp. (purple/blue tip)
Acropora Sp. (steely blue)
Montipora Digitata
Montipora Digitata (Green base w/ orange polyp)
Montipora Capricornis (Idaho Grape)
Montipora Danae (Pokerstar)
Montipora Danae (Superman)
Montipora Danae (Rainbow)
Montipora Peltiformis
Montipora Confusa
Montipora Nodosa
Montipora Sp. (plating w/ purple polyp)
Seriatopora sp. (purple polyp)
Seriatopora sp. (Tyree’s Ponape)
Cyphastrea Ocellina (Atlantis Meteor Shower)
Several Zoathids sp.

For every project, there are always ups and downs. My first downs is, since I start the tank, I have been having flatworm problems. I tried heavy dosing of Salifert Flatworm Exit, it will kill the flatworm instantly, but after a week they will start popping up again, I don’t understand why. Lucky that these are not the acropora eating ones, nor would they do any harm, but I just don’t like the idea of having them in the tank. Second is the montipora eating nudibranch, I think I got my first one from the M. Confusa. Also resilient little bugger, I have to keep dipping all my montipora in fresh water, but they would come back in time. This fresh water dip actually made all my montipora hanging by a thread. They all lost their skin, color, and looked really bad. But now they seem doing just fine, the colors have been slowly coming back, took really long time though.

Maintenance wise, other then the weekly water change of 1.5 gallon. I have to dose 2 part - Seachem’s Reef builder for alkalinity and Seachem’s Advantage Calcium for calcium supplement. Also I feed the tank twice per week with Golden Pearl, DT’s Phyto and a little Cylop-eeze.
My parameter:
Temperature: 81F-83F
Salinity: 1.023-1.024
Calcium: 410ppm
Alkalinity: 8dKh
pH: 8.2-8.3
NH4, NO2, NO3, and PO4 all zero

Some monthly pictures:
October:


November:


December:






January:


February:


March:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/left6.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/top6.jpg[/img]




The coral growth is phenomenal, I am surprised to see the SPS grew faster then some of the softies, the clams grew a whole lot also. Here are some of the pictures to show the differences:

Tyree's ponape birdsnest
November:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/LEbirdsnest.jpg[/img]
Now:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/lebn.jpg[/img]

ORA Tort:
December:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/tort1.jpg[/img]
Now:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/ORAtort3.jpg[/img]

Purple polyp birdsnest
December:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/birdnest.jpg[/img]
Now:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/gpbn.jpg[/img]



Cali Tort:
December:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/calitort.jpg[/img]
Now:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/catortfinal.jpg[/img]

Acropora Lovelli (Mike Paletta Turquoise Lovelli)
December:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/acrosp1.jpg[/img]
Now:
[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/mpfinal.jpg[/img]

Seriously this might be one of the best experiences I have had in my 4 years of reefing. I am actually proud of myself, I went through the whole 6 months with minimal problems. I did not crash the tank, everything seems healthy; as far as I can tell, they are all growing. Although some of them lost the color, maybe because of too much light and not enough nutrition, but I am sure they will gain the color back once they fully acclimate to the environment. But on the other hand, I colored up couple brownies and saved couple dying pieces from the fish store. A big pat on my back, but then without this contest I may never try to build this tank and made it worked. Once again, thank you nano-reef.com for hosting this event, thank you everybody who helped me with my corals and supports, and also, thank you everyone on this site for reading and the kind words. May everybody have a nice reefing experience. Good luck.

[img]http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/darkdevilmmm/right6.jpg[/img]