I'll be setting up an uhhh, 10 gallon tank, with some uhhhhh, corals, and some uhhhh, fish, and maybe uhhhh, some other livestock.
I've got it all planned out in the last couple of minutes, should be a real prize winner.
I figure if I just hang on until the end I will at least place, as most of the rest of the contestents will wimp out and not be able to hang in there for the full six months.
My primary goal is to set the system up using no money (I know, everything will be fairly priced out, but it's already bought so I won't be buying anything else). Kinda like going to the junkyard and getting parts to build a car.
Actually I bought one of those pico LED lamps and was trying to figure out how to test it. this contest seemed a good way.
I've got all kinds of ideas, but they may suck so I'm not telling right now. Not being mysterious, just shy.

Budget - $350

Equipment -$220
10 gallon tank from Walmart - No charge
plexiglas divider DIY from Lowe's - No charge
MJ 1200 - (sounds strong but I got "ideas") - $20
Lowe's travertine tiles - (what?) - no charge (takes place of sand)
CCI LED Light Fixture - $200

Livestock - $115
LiveRock - 5# - $20
Hawkfish - $10
2 red leg hermits - no charge
2 blue leg hermits - no charge
2 Astreas with red corraline on shell - No charge!
Coral
1 Red mushroom - $5
7 1" montipora's - $35
1 - 2" Pocillipora - $10
1 - 1" Cyphastrea - $5
4 - 1" acropora - $20
1 - 2" Seriatopora - $10
Total Spent - $220+$115 = $335

Wow, this almost tempts me to enter!

MUST



EXERCISE



SELF-RESTRAINT!!!


Odds are very high I'd be one of those ppl who dropped out before the end.


Can't wait to see what you do with this, my friend.

Do tell!!!

Good Luck buddeh!

I am not a quitter...I think

Oh OH! I see some real competition coming now!!!!!!!

Tagging along with all the others contestants. I am not a contestant, just a voyeur!!

It's always better to win with lots of competition than in a one horse race!
If you'd find it easier to stay in due to constant harassment by me I'd be glad to do it.

FTFY.

Haha I do need a swift kick in the arse every now and then...

If you can take it I expect you to be able to dish it out too!
There's nothing worse than harangueing someone and they pout and start crying. I feed off strong responses!!!!!


EDIT: I should have looked closer at your history. I'd do better to figure out how to stick my foot out so you trip over it!
Good luck, though I'll be the one who needs it!

So get movin' ya Big Dork, we want some action!!!!

But, But But.....
I thought we had to wait until the "unknown" object was presented so we can take a picture of it with our bare tank?

For those with short attention spans, this post will be the updated tank shots.


FTS Post.

Start 11/15/09


Ready for water 11/20/09




1st Iteration of Rockwork - 11/23/09


Jan 14, 2010

No, go ahead and set it up now ;]

You can't set it up yet sillys. It has to be an empty tank pic posted after midnight tonight

^^With an object of my choosing

I decided to do an intensity test on the LED fixture. right now it's set up as all Royal Blue, but I may add some white to it, or I might not. After careful measurement of the flux intensity field using the percentage contraction of my pupil behind a Versace sunglass lenses, I can unequivocally state that these beatches are
BRIGHT!!!

i was only kidding =D

Crap!
Peewee, that's dirty pool. With your go ahead I already got the tank set up and the rock cycling. I just put my first coral in and a small tang.
I see how this game is going to be. Dirty tricks have already commensed.
J/K.

HAHAHA LOL

that's how we roll...

Those LED's are CRAZY BRIGHT!!!


edit- Versace... u r a high roller!

Well, that's what the guy in the trench coat on the street corner in New Orleans sold them to me as, for $10. Did I get a good deal?

At my job the typically go for $250-400 depending on the style
so yah u got a tremendous deal.
get me a pair

Nice LEDs

fakes? lol

only is it's spelled vursache

your hilarious.

^agree, and what a crazycool shot lol
And they are bright.

^^^. Those are hella bright lights.

I was left standing flatfooted at the starting line, hadn't so much as brushed the dust off the standard ten gallon tank that's provided faithful service every time it's been called on for my reefing experiments.
I had my concept, but the practicalities of its conception had not been worked out. After a series of unfortunate events, including 6 wet tests that resulted in further adjustments without compromise of the design, my faith began to flag, thinking of all the other things I needed to be doing, but I knew it was a necessary part of the process so I pressed on. Finally, while removing the upper rim of the tank it was required for me to offer up a sacrifice for the art.
To paraphrase my philosophical mentor, Jethro Bodine, "It is said that an artist must suffer for his work. After slicing off the end of my finger on the edge of the tank, I done me a heap of suffering."



Using a diamond bit, I carefully dulled the teeth that bit me, and all is right with the work. Everything is in place, and there will be water and rock in the tank tomorrow. Pics in the evening.

^^ looks like hot sauce!!! lol

and wheres the pix at!?!

orange blood?

alien!

Alienz

The camera had poor color rendering, the blood was fresh, and yes, I am an Alienz. I am seeking asylum from religious persecution, fleeing the wrath of Vortog the Destroyer. So far, no green card for me.

Anyway, I am ready for water. A few "deviations" from norm. While it's a peninsular AIO, my return line is under a liverock bommie I will construct. The eggcrate helps reduce the restriction of flow through the myriad of holes drilled into the line. Flow is chaotic and pushed through a MJ 1200. The high rate over the overflow gave me fits for awhile, but I've got it worked out now.
Teetering between a sand bed and bare bottom, I decided to go with material I've used as frag plugs, a layer of fossil coral tiles. The "grout" between the tiles is a blend of superglue and oolitic sand so there are minimal spaces to trap detritus.


The space in the sump was very simply divided. First chamber is overflow, and will have chaeto to remove phosphate/nitrate and act as a detrital filter. It will be cleaned weekly with the water change.
Water will flow through a bulkhead into my patented media holder/microbubble eliminator. Out the bottom, through the MJ, into the tank. Note the shiny new return pump.

Looks great!

I hate removing lids from tanks, my hands had so many scratches after de-framing a 5.5g

I really love the clean look of AIO's

cool idea!!!

very clever design.

Thanks guys. It may be a little odd, but when I have guests for dinner I always cook something I've not cooked before, and I think a contest is to try something new. And whether I'm "in the money" or "at the tail end" I'll have learned something new.
I discovered a reason frames are put on tanks that I'd not heard before. The top edge of the tank isn't so even. After setting the tank in place, I began leveling it with small wedges, tap..tap..tap..tap. Water doesn't lie, the top could not be perfectly evened out, oh well. Still looks better than that ghastly rim.

Rock is in, and while the overflow says there's a lot of flow, the surface is quite still. I've got another idea for increasing internal movement, but I'm going to get the light built first. Trouble with LED's is that often, "some assembly is required".

I've sometimes sensed unexpressed negativity towards homemade liverock. While my artistic abilities hover around zero, I have tried my hand at making it, and while I might hesitate to bust up a piece of high-dollar Pacific liverock, I do not have such aversions to my own liverock. To maximize the amount of corraline and other growth on the pieces in my aquascape, I took this piece which had been used as base and chiselled it out at the marked line. A little more work and it fit just where I wanted it.

I thinks that a neat idea

I should have known after the sudden outbreak of back hair..........


Neato work on the tank, especially the blood sacrifices. Does blood add calcium or phosphates?

Who doesn't like homemade liverock? And you're not being graded on use of literary devices.

Some people don't like anything! And I've got no T&A, got to set myself apart. Plus I finished Steinbeck's "Log of the Sea of Cortez" and just started Herman Melville's "Typee" so my mind's talking to itself in weird ways. And I shocked the piss out of myself hooking up my LED's! And those rascals are freakin' great.
Odd introduction to my first FTS:
Still got some work on the liverock, but it's coming together.
No closeups, though enough of a view for criticism.
Managed to get some yellow polyp hitchhikers, but didn't really want them, but they look cool.

looks really good i like the scape

Cool scape. The whole setup is very clean looking. I'm trying to get my hands on some led actinics for my little 6er

I rikey alot!! looks clean yard boy

I sure am missing alot of these 10G contest tanks. This one is truly unique and I love the scape too. Good luck in this contest.

Looks like a good start

After using well cured rock, tank water from my other system and quarried coral rock tile, I wasn't sure that I'd have a cycle or much of one, but I did my first water change yesterday, a 2 gallon siphon of detritus off the bottom and the sump chambers. Looked like bits of sponge, which I'm sure there was some there. I have no ammonia, nitrite, and only a trace of nitrogen, so I added two red-legged hermits and this red mushroom.
It is a light meter of sorts, as the colony I took this one from are at the top of a tank over 4 overdriven T-5 bulbs. After I placed it last night I came home to day to it shrinking back slightly, so possibly the light was brighter under the LED's than the T-5's. This shot was taken after lights out so it'd expanded back out somewhat.

love the biuld, good luck.

After seeing the Mushroom, I think you need to go get a few of those red starfish at the jetties. Did you need to borrow my wetsuit? I do like the tile. I wasn't sure at first, but it has some nice texture to it. Definitely want to know how it works out.

P.S.
I still want to know if the blood adds Calcium......

If I actually thought I could find some I'd do it, as the few hitchhikers of the common grey brittle stars don't seem to like getting on the bottom of the rockwork, probably due to the water jets shooting out, though I have noticed that they've taken up positions higher in the rock work and so are much more visible. Some red arms waving around in the current would look really cool.
Leslie at the Museum of Natural Hisotry in LA (my worm guru) told me it'd be okay to trim up the tube on the coco worm, so he's going in the tank as soon as we get back on Friday.
Oh, and the blood is a protein source. Too bad I can't find or afford a red goniopora as he'd likely thrive on a diet of human blood with it's chelated iron supply.
Actually I wouldn't want to dose with blood as it'd add a variable that will make it more difficult to evaluate the LED's! But you know I would. I'm willing to "sacrifice for my art"!

This is my canary coral, Pocillipora damicornis. It's used in coral research regularly, and I've kept a colony for years. This is the pink morph, which it will exhibit under intense light. This colony, 2" diameter (with good water flow they are highly branched) was being kept under an old 250W SE 20K on the edge of the tank, so it'd browned out somewhat. It looks better already under the LED's, after just a 3 days, so I'm hopeful. If there are no other corals, I have to have this one. In the wild, these corals play host to dozens if not thousands of species of symbionts, few of which you see in anyone's tanks.

Stunning as usual YB. I really like how this tank is shaping up.

Question: were did you get the coral tile? Did you make it yourself? I have some base rock that was given to me that is super dense and had the thought of doing something similar by running it through my tile saw.

-Prof