Nov 18.

Dec 22.

May 12



Take 3! First did ok but too little flow, second died after carekeeper did not top off with fresh water. Take 3 will hopefully solve problems of the first and look better in the process!

Pics!








In the last pic there are two areas circled. I don't really know what to put there . The one on the left has relatively high flow and little light. The one of the right has medium flow and lower light as well. I have a bubble coral that I was thinking of putting in the bottom right, but I'm not really sure...

I also added a few more zoas today (after these pics were taken).

If you look in the second pic, that blue folder is my ghetto chiller controller. Behind it is an airconditioning vent that blasts cold air 24/7. My little 50w stealth heater cannot keep up with the vent, thus the folder. My father has a 300w glass heater that I used to use for mixing water. Would that be too much for the little tank? Or would it be good for keeping the temp balanced (I could remove the folder)?

Current Equipment:

2 Koralia Nano's
1 200 gph minijet
1 400 gph maxijet
70w Sunpod
DIY ATO
DIY mesh lid - No fish
50w stealth heater
300w heater - Fried itself....
100w stealth heater
Bag of Carbon behind false wall

Current Livestock:

Pair of Yasha Hasha Gobies - 1 KIA 1 MIA
Emerald Crab
Yellow Clown Goby - Moved
1 Blue Legged Hermits
1 Scarlet Hermit
2 Astrea Snails
1 Nass Snails
3 Large Cerith Snails
10-12 Tiny Cerith Snails
GSP
Frogspawn - Moved to new tank.
Bubble Coral - Moved to new tank
Assorted Zoas
Assorted Florida Ricordia
Red Mushroom
Dragon Soul Favia
Espresso Favia
Alien Eye Chalice
Blue Clove Polyps
Cheato
Unknown Green Macro Algea


Livestock Want List:

Cleaner Shrimp
Spotted Porcelain Crab
More Nass. snailse
Acans
Assorted Clove and Snowflake Polyps
Small Brittle Stars??
Flaming Prawn Goby (pending winning lottery ticket )
Masked goby or blenny?

I have some mystery coral you can put in your area with low light and high flow, its brown and grows like a weed. but it doesn't take much light to make it happy, I like the rock work, very different

10 gallons are alot of fun, I love mine

Thanks for the compliment! I'm hoping for something not... brown? Thanks for the idea though!

wow, bro you have out done yourself with that awesome false wall.
And a good start with the few corals. Will be looking forward on seeing the final results.

How does one make one of those false walls

Well I took the idea from someone else honestly. But what I did was take some needle working canvas cut to size and laid the rocks I wanted to use down on it. I figured out where I wanted to hide my koralia nano's and worked around that. I made small tunnels with the canvas as well and place rocks over that. I then used black pond foam to fill in the gaps. Wherever the foam showed I coated with fiberglass resin and sprinkled crushed rocks on.

My first attempt I didn't use enough rocks and so the wall was mostly foam, which imo looked terrible. I ripped it apart and made this one using larger rocks and trying to place the rock close together.

I put it in the tank and put in some water to see how my idea worked. I liked it a lot but there was very little water movement. So I drilled a hole in the false wall and hid my minijet there. I also ran a small flex pipe around behind the back rock wall (pita to cut the path it used) and connected my maxijet to it.

either way of how you gotten the idea, it's still awesome nd outdone yaself.

I do have to say, this is one of the better looking false backs i have seen since i have been looking through SW forums.

I hope i can construct one that looks as good as your's and a few others i liked so much.

That wall is waaaay cool. In your low light area you could add a sun coral. They are brightly colored and, for me anyway, super easy to keep. Mine comes out during the day/night whatever and eats like a pig. Be prepared to invest in mysid shrimp! You can get yellow or orange sun corals. Love them. Probably prefer medium flow.

Get some stock in there and more photos asap!

Thanks for all the compliments!! I don't have my own digital camera so I have to borrow my girl friend's. I'm moving in my two yasha gobies and their pistol shrimp partner today. I'll try and get some pictures of the moving . I'm still trying to figure out how to get them out of the tank they are currently in...

Anyone have any thoughts of running the 300w heater in the 10g?

Hi Midna
Glad to see you did not get dissapointed and are trying to get the tank stable. I think 300watt heater may be a bit overkill but you can try it. Just be carefull not to over heat the tank. Keeping the temp. from large swings is more impostant than the exact temp. If you can keep the tank around 79 with only a plus and minus of one degree when lights are on and off that would be ideal. What is the difference in temp right now comparing lights on to lights off? Are you able to maintain the PH and SG ok?
Keep us posted, very nice looking tank. Great job on the false wall.

Well when the lights go out the tank will drop to about 71 with the vent half covered. It will only rise to about 78. When I completely cover the vent, the tank will drop to 78 and than rise to 84. I'd rather have cooler than hotter as most dives I've done were cooler than 78 anyways.

Well I put in the 300w heater and the folder is no longer needed . The air condition vent keeps the tank down to no more than 79 when the lights are on, and the heater keeps the temp above 76. A 3 degree range is fine with me for now. Maybe down the road I'll buy a real chiller and narrow it down to 1.

Anyways, my two yasha's are in the tank. Took 2.5 hours to catch the little buggers out of the tank they were being housed in. They found a place to hide almost immediately and haven't really moved since. Today I finally saw one peaking out, as soon as it saw me though away it went. Hopefully they will gain some confidence.

I'll get more pics up once I figure out where to put my frogspawn and bubble coral. Got two exams tomorow though .

glad to know things are looking good for you right now with this awesome tank.

How easy or hard are those bubble corals to care for. I ask this cuz awhile back at the pet store, we had one in the 120 display tank and in a few weeks time ( maybe around a 4 week mark) the bubble died off. I thought it was the bubble coral was a real beauty.

im just going to say, with a 300watt heater in such a small tank- once that air conditioning vent kicks off, your tank is fried..

in the dark spots you could look into a sun coral - that is if you dont mind the feeding routine..

Yeah I'm thinking about sun corals. I'm trying to figure out how much it will cost in feeding to keep them alive. The 300w has one of those temperature controls, so if the air conditioning vent isn't on, neither is it. Of course if the heater were to stick and the vent were to turn off, that would be bad.....

I had a bubble coral in one of my 5.5g under PC lights and it loved my tank. It was half dead when I got it and it was recovering nicely. It is currently in a frag tank for holding and it doesn't look as good as it did in my little 5.5g. I think it may want lower light and slower flow. I never fed it either, and a lot of people say they do even better if you feed them.

New heads

Possible sunpolyps location

shy little devils...

obligatory blue hermit shot

I love these guys

hmmmmmmm

opening up

fed this guy once and out pops a baby

Hi midna looking good

That rock work looks awesome! The rest of the tank looks like it is off to a good start too.

Watch that frogspawn. Ours reaches out at least a couple inches and can sting other corals.

On the heater issue... 300w makes me nervous in 10g. If the A/C shuts off, it may not control well. If the heater doesn't turn on, your tank is a refrigerator. If it sticks on, you might have chowder. There are too many ways it can go bad. I prefer the blue folder chiller moderator device better. Another alternative - if you have space - is to go with two heaters set to slightly different points. Then A/C off or heater failure is much less likely to destroy your tank.

-hank

Thanks for the compliments

Yeah, I may go with the two heater method, I'll throw my 50w back in there after this next water change. The 300w decided to start sparking and so I took it out and replaced it with a 100w...

The thing I'm most worried about is someone turning off the ac during the day. I tested that out and the tank climbed to around 82 before I turned the AC back on. I just don't have the money for a chiller atm and I'm afraid fans + ac would be too much cooling power for my heaters.

One thing I'm toying with is adding my aquac remora hot skimmer. Currently my back section looks a bit like this:



I was thinking of buying a second maxijet 1200 and Y'ing the two water outs together and connecting it to one of the maxijets. Than I could use the other maxijet for powering the skimmer. Plus I could hide the heater inside the skimmer return. Than I could use the minijet for mixing water change water

I run a fan off the same timer as the light. On cooler days (that we seem to be getting these days) I can leave the fan off, but it has always kept the tank cool with the light on. Would that work for you?

I'm also glad I have an ATO (DIY) as the fan can result in extra evaporation.

-hank

I might be able to run a fan off the same timer as the light. I'll have to look into that. Even at night the tank temp rises quickly without the ac though. The 4 pumps produce a ton of heat. If there was a local store that had tiny fans that I could try out I would. I just don't want to order something online and find out it wasn't what I needed.

Edit: woooo 2 pages!

Well the yashia's seem to coming out more and more and I've added a few more zoas. Soon as I get the camera back I'll have more pics up

More pics! Well it needs a water change since I ran out of salt. Waiting for evap to do it's work on my mixed bucket. I'm only behind a day and my corals are a bit droopy and some green is popping up on the glass. I can't wait to get a my remora hooked up. If anyone has a maxijet 1200 they'd be willing to part with cheap I'm interested .

Anyways, onto the pics:

Current FTS






A second look at my DIY fishguard


Side View


I can't wait till this fills out a bit


Yuma?


Needs picked up before I get my pistol shrimp


Getting out of control over here!


I'm going to put a green Trachyphyllia radiata on the bottom right


Maybe a chalice up top right?


Good monti locations in the back?


Nothing to see here, just checking my escape hatch....

Looking Amazing, DAZZling,(deep breath), SPEC.... you get my point!!!!

nice! that zoa garden is gonna look great in a few months!

Awesome tank, The rock work is amazing.

Thanks guys

Wow, nice job on that rock wall!

Hi Midna
The tank is making great progress. I agree when those zoas grow alittle that is going to look marvelous. The wall is giving you some really good spots for coral placement.

Thanks for all the compliments! I got some new corals on the way from mrcoral . They should be here sometime on tuesday. I'm going to have to clean some of those yellow polyps off the rock in front to make room for some new rics. The rest of the new corals are a surprise.... I should have pics up wednesday at the latest.

Well fedex messed up and I didn't get my corals until yesterday afternoon. Everything seems ok except for my new acans. They are really shriveled up into themselves. I ordered from Mr. Coral and I must say they did a wonderful job though the whole ordeal keeping me updated and lighting a fire under fedex's rear.

For now all my corals are on my sand and I'll place them around tomorrow. Hopefully I should have pics up then.

cant wait for pics!

love the rock wall!

OK stop teasing and take some pictures. J/K I hope the alcan is OK. Can's wait to see.

That is a amazing tank I wish my rock wall looked that good. Did you take any pics to documnet the building I am sure some of us would love to see that.

Unfortunately I think most of my build pictures were lost when my computer crashed a while back. I will double check though I might have a few left on a friends digital camera.

Ok, well I didn't move everything around and I got out my old digital camera so I apologize for the poor picture quality.

PS: all the white on the acan is skeleton...



drip acclimating

what a mess...



waaayyy bigger than expected

i really hope it makes it, any ideas?

Bad focus, was my new blue cloves. I love these guys. Thank you Mr. Coral!!!

better top down

Looks like you got some nice corals. I love cloves also and they look great in small tanks.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm really impressed with Mr. Coral, everything was exactly as advertised.

probably most creative and favorite tank ive seen yet :] keep it up!

looks great,still looking for the nano pumps hidden in there.Im in process of doing wall for my 22x22x14 im building.My pumps wont be hidden as well as your though lol

I don't understand what my bubble coral is trying to do... It has been doing this more and more.
Also, I'm really hoping the last head of the acan survives. Stupid bugger

Here is the poor acan


Finally the blue clove polyps... I really hope they take off

Here is a shot of the nanos

you bubble coral is like a clownfish, just plain stupid...

Well, I think the acan is going to die. I did one iodine dip already, and I'll do another but I doubt it will make it. FedEx screwed up and am betting that is what did it in. Is there anything I can do or amd I just stuck losing it? Stupid thing was really expensive

The acan is gone...

New Pics!
FTS

Will move rics to rock at some point... i swear

few more zoas

alien eye chalice

favia (dragon soul and espresso)

dang kenya tree keeps growing!

mr. bubbly

camera shy

more of Mr. Bubbly!

side shot

Well. I've left for thanksgiving break and the tank stayed at the dorm.... please don't hurt me murphy!

Updates!
Well I moved the tank home for christmas break and the stress killed one of my yashas The remaining yasha is incredibly shy now which is frustrating. I think I may send him to a 600g in trade for something else (maybe a tailspot blenny and some coral?) since I can't afford a new mate and I'd rather have a more outgoing fish anyway. Good news is that I have a new YCG little guy is awesome, just hope I can keep him fed well. He's already picking at stuff out of the water but it doesn't appear to be the cyclopleeze I'm trying to feed him.

Got a new xsi for christmas so I'm playing with that a lot. Managed to get a few shots I care to share out of the literally thousand I've taken lol. New pics whenever I get better at this.

Looking good! Congrats on the new camera.

Thanks! Your tanks are awesome too and the pictures stunning!