Mew, you totally hit a homerun in the concept department here. This is going to be really exciting to watch develop. This definitely has a strong chance of being my favorite contest tank.

Oh I get it!! I was like what are you hiding?? lol! That's gonna be a sweet scape, D!

totally rad idear derr!


another awesome mewtank...

thanks ilu guys seriously.

So I got my acrylic board! Just have to cut and glue, with the help of Maeda. I'll be doing that as soon as I'm done with finals this week.


Yep, it's going to hold my heater, powerheads, some floss and carbon when I'm all done with it.

Very nice.
To take it further, what if you had built a custom L shaped tank? You lose tank volume when you just box it off, but it could be larger if you designed it with this in mind originally.

Oh, I had thought about that.
But a custom L shaped tank requires (1) an acrylic tank (2) custom stand to support it (3) a lot of money and time waiting for tank and stand to be built.
I hate acrylic tanks (scratches too easily), a custom stand would have cost me a lot more money and time that I don't have, and our local acrylic guy would have taken like 3-6 months to build me a tank like that. Not going to name names but he's much talked about. I'm also sure a custom L tank alone would've taken me out of the contest due to budgeting! I prefer keeping DIY to stuff that wouldn't potentially drop 10G of water, rocks and livestock on my carpet if it fails.

I really don't mind the boxing off. I think of it as equivalent to an overflow box or a false wall.

DIY! doesn't have to be fancy. With that little amount of weight, a 2x12 cut to size in a U shape would suffice. you could even make it a storage area.
Oh the horrible dirty ideas you're giving me...

Tanks, I really would rather leave to professionals so that I have someone else to blame if it fails. And failing tanks are really not fun. I don't know if you're read this thread here: http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=322764

I went ahead and read it. On the small scale it's not nearly as difficult though. No judgement from me though, I know i don't have the time or money to devote to doing something like this now.

for the aquascape shots if you did'nt like the one you had PM me a new one

Another drop off:

Amazing...

ive thought of doing this plenty of times, the only problem is with a smaller tank is hard you need the longness of it in order to get that proper look. and if i ever did it, it would be a 3 sided tank.

yep, this is one of those tanks that does work much better in a larger size. and yes, if i were to redo this idea in a larger tank, i would definitely go for a longer tank as well.

Philippe Grosjean's tank was what got me thinking about this idea in the first place.

Because of the smaller size, I decided to focus on a smaller portion of the drop-off. This scribble was the starting point idea back a few months ago after seeing Grosjean's tank:

Also like this:


Of course, mine will inevitably look different, since it is a nano tank. I am kind of hoping to be able to look at my tank from any side, hence the cube shape, but we'll see how this goes.

I like.... is that top aquarium the NPS tank at Aquarium of the Pacific in its early days?

It is indeed an older picture of the Aquarium of the Pacific, I believe taken by Nick_Kun from San Diego (have to give credit where credit is due).
I should actually make it a point to visit this winter break, since I live so close to it!

So I have a dilemma right now.

With the limited contest budget, I only have enough budget to get a AquaticLife Internal Mini Protein Skimmer. I was thinking of daily water changes, which isn't a problem with my access to free Scripps NSW, but even so, the water pollution from feeding NPS corals concerns me. I'll probably be dosing vodka + Brightwell's MB7 as well, to help keep the nutrient levels decent, but I'm worried the AquaticLife won't be able to pull enough. Anyone have any suggestions? Anything, whether it be alternative skimmer suggestion or even budgeting help, would be appreciated.

I'd suggest taking some rock and cutting it to make a flat side so you don't take up too much space on teh dropoff. You only have so much room there anyway. MAybe liek this



Someone with more talent than me for fitting the rock together could forego fillin, but I made an aragocrete mix and infilled. I just kinda don't like plastic foam walls plus it's nasty to work with. Good luck! Great idea for a tank. The reef tank at the Georiga Aquarium in Atlanta has a two level arrangement like that also, and their overflow is in the shallow end!

Daily water changes > skimmer. Free NSW for say 25% daily water changes is ideal IMO.

But, it's possible you will still get bacterial blooms due to all the feeding. A skimmer will help with oxygen and removing some of the bacteria. If you can fit a euro reef nano in your budget, that's what I would go with. Be very conservative on the vodka dosing. I don't dose any vodka at all anymore, just MB7. I do plenty of carbon dosing just from the foods.

I love seeing awesome tank concepts. Though they always make me feel as if my tank is a failure.

yardboy:
sweet! yea i was thinking i should cut down my rocks more, and flattening them out on one side sounds like a great plan. Definitely gonna have to play with that over my winter break.

Uhuru:
Wow, I checked out that Euro-Reef nano skimmer and it looks like an awesome skimmer. I want to replace the 9002 in my main tank with it now. Unfortunately, as far as this NPS tank goes, the Euro-Reef nano skimmer is way out of my budget. Any skimmer I use would have to be sub-$100. The syringe pump took a good bit out of my budget, as did my custom tank.

AdriftQuasar:
Hey! Thanks, but no way! Your tank is pretty awesome too!

+1 to that...

I like the 2nd scape the best. can't wait to see the tank up and running

cool idea. i'll be following

Here's an update on the tank!



Removable cover (to house maxijet, heater, carbon, floss and galore):


And a last picture of my attempt to fill it up, before I ran out of water!


Huge huge huge thanks to Maeda! He helped out with putting my tank together~ And to his gf for putting up with me 'til the late hours
There's a few things left to do. Still got to drill a few more holes in the acrylic (for the maxijet and wire cords), put on some window tint to cover up the chambers, and figure out my budgeting.
After I finish those and grab more water tomorrow, it's on like donkey kong! Time to power cycle this thing!

looks cool! (if you want more red let me know)

thanks caesar~ i think i might look for some flame algae too, but i know there are people in SD who have that, so i'm going to look more local first. thanks for the offer

Looks great.

oh yes! If you don't make this tank so pretty I wanna make love to it, then it is fail.

I like the scape so far.

Will you be using sand? (sorry if I missed it)

And ... dang, where the heck do you find Ochtodes? Everyone I PM never wants to give it up even though supposedly it's a fast grower. Good luck with the setup, it looks like an excellent start!

Very nice!
I was unaware that you were going to house things in there, but that's definitely a good idea. One thing that would be cool is if you had the front of a koralia pump sticking out from there, with a few grates on the top. Is circulation enough for the heater?
I do love the layout, and would love to see the guts of the system (if you haven't painted the back of the tank).

Ok ok, you got me... I am following

How soon until this will be up and running? Also, sand up top or just the bottom or none?

Love it!

That looks great Mew...

nice!

Awesome! Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

Thanks. I'm not 100% satisfied with the scape, but it'll work for now. Don't be surprised if I tweak it in the months to come.

I was thinking of going barebottom. I considered epoxying sand to the box and having sand on both top and bottom but it seems to be cleaner to go with no sand (easier to clean up after leftover food too). What do you guys think? Think it'll look better with or without sand? Both or just one side?

If I can grow out the octhodes fast enough, you'll be first on my list for some, Sushi. I had some initial loss when I first got mine, but I'm regrowing them out in a macro tank and they seem to grow fast. nips has got some too, to grow out, so you can try bothering him too.



I think it'll be enough circulation. I was just gonna stick a koralia regular style on the acrylic, but if it fits, I may consider having just the front stick out. Cool idea, thanks!

I'll post a pic of the back when I've made more progress (and before I cover it up with the window tint!)



It's been a game of slow and steady wins the race! I do have the latter part of this week off and most of next week free too, so I hope to make a lot of progress in this time! I don't really want to rush the setup. I'm thinking livestock in and fully running by the next FTS due (middle of January) shouldn't be unreasonable?






thanks~



thanks?

Thanks for the tip on ochtodes, I'll keep my eye out otherwise I'll send you a PM eventually next year

I think it'll look better with sand (more natural), especially since you're doing the drop off style scaping. Barebottom would of course be best maintenance wise but if you can maintain a nice white sandbed I can see it providing some nice contrast and help brighten up the tank a bit.

Thanks mew about the 10g... I don't check my scnrs much... I've been following your thread too! Hope you win, this is gonna be a sick tank! Wish I knew about the contest in time started makig my tank same exact time.


Terrible typing on an iPhone.. Don't hate

+1

Go with the sand. A good clean up crew should be able to take care of it.

Reefcleaners.org = Great place to order a CUC!

Gordon

you could always go with sand and put seagrass on it, that way it wouldnt look dirty at all.

Are you planning to keep dendronephthya? The sand provides a good substrate for bacteria and a collecting place for detritus. Stirring this up daily seems to make my dendro happy.

Hey guys!
Been a while! Hope it's been a great start to 2010 so far!
Been busy over the holidays, so I apologize about the lack of updates. I have to admit, between the holiday festives and the winter sniffles, I didn't accomplish too much with this tank. But here's what I worked on anyways!


Excuse the creepy naked baby in the background.


Yes, those are acrylic dust flying around in the water.


I forgot the cover in the test run picture, but the cover also helps keep the wires organized.
I also got my light, which is a nifty LED fixture I found on ebay. Pretty good color, cheap and since I don't have to worry about PAR or anything with NPS, win! It's a silver color, but I think I'm going to get some black auto paint and give it a spray over.

Well, that's it for now, hopefully I can make another update this weekend or so.

taking shape

Need A FTS today after the 16th of this month you will be DQ if no FTS is Posted on the main Thread
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=214206

So since the past post, the LR I've been curing separately went in, added some Prodibio and Brightwell for good measure, threw in water from my main tank and waited a while.




The color is not quite as blue and is brighter in person, but it's very hard to photograph LED lit tanks.

CAN NOT WAIT for this thing to get stocked up! Thanks for update.

why is your drop off all the way at the top? you can't put anything on it! or are those just misleading angles?

i actually need to add more water to the tank.

been too lazy to take another trip to get more scripps.

sweet tank mew !!!!