Vision:

• My motivation for this tank is a shallow cube with very little live rock in the main display. I will still be relying on liverock and weekly water changes for the bulk of the filtration and nutrient export. These two sentences might seem at odds with each other if it weren't for the fact that I plan to put as much live rock as possible into the rear chamber of the AIO with some nice Cheato and a couple Mangroves.
• UPDATE (12DEC09): OK, so much has changed over the past month and a half of planning this thing. I originally wanted to do an LED set-up, nixed it for the prices, thought about a cheap T5 set-up, then decided on the Odyssea 150W MH doo-dab. That was ultimately nixed once evil and nanocustoms came out with the wide optic PAR38s which is on the tank right now. I also am leaning towards nixing the Mandarin, as frequently time away from home would make keeping up with the rigorous hand feeding difficult. One of my LFS is getting in a very large Clown shipment from ORA after the Holidays to include nakeds, picasso's, and B&Ws. I might just end up picking up one of the pairs of designer clowns. In other words, I will probably be DQed from the contest due to budget.

Hardware Specs/Prices:

• 10 Gallon Custom Tank by PCG Aquariums (20"x15"x8" AIO, with a 15"x15" display footprint) - $47.79
• Lights: 20K PAR38 LED lamp with 60 degree optics - $99 (got the optics before it was an official option gratis courtesy of Nick.)
• Heater: Generic 50 Watt - Free
• Powerheads: 2x Azoo Model 600s - $20.78
  
• Total: $167.57

Livestock and Prices:

• SPS
  ORA -$10 died from slime in my main tank
  Birds Nest - $5
  Acro Frag 1 - $5
  Acro Frag 2 - $5
  Pavona - $10
  Total SPS- $25
  
  
• LPS
  Torch - $5
  Trumpets - $3 slime got this one too
  Duncan - $10
  Favia - $25
  Chalice - $10
  Fungia - $30
  Total LPS - $80
  
  
• CuC
  Snails - Free
  Cheato -$2
  Mangroves -$3 Cool idea, just hard to implement atm.
  Rock - $20
  Fromia Star - $6
  Total - $28
  
  
• Fish
  YCG - $8
  Mandarin - $16
  Total - $8
  
  
• Livestock Total - $173

Total Hardware: $167.57
Total Livestock: $141
Total Spent: $308.57
Budget Remaining: $41.43


All feedback is appreciated and I will do my best to photo-document this entire process .

Neat tank, I like it, who is PCG?

Looking forward to seeing this one come together.

yes yes, tell us more about this pcg. lol lookin to have a tank made

PCG Aquariums is run by Patrick1234 on this forum. He lives north of Denver and I'm in Colorado Springs. Headed that way to go pick up the tank today. He sent me those pictures yesterday before he put the finishing touches on it. I will take some more pics tonight/tomorrow.

Gabe

Beautiful tank gabe!!

Ty .

shallow tanks are really nice. i wish i had one!!

Well, I drove up north of Denver today, about 2 hours north to meet with Patrick from PCG to pick the tank up. It looks great and I'm more excited now than I have been since I thought of doing the contest. The only issue for me will be not going over the budget with livestock. The way the competition is set up for prices really kills me putting a lot of the zoas I already have in there. If I put all my zoas, they would be over $350 alone, lol. My Darth Mauls would set me back something like $150 for the 6 head frag. I'm going to rethink the LED option in favor of a cheaper MH setup though, that will free up about $50 of livestock.

\

Looking good close to its final spot. Not sure if I will be able to buy the bulkheads at Lowes or if I will need to order them online though. They are two 1" bulkheads. Patrick also put a media rack in the middle compartment where the overflow is at.

omg that's so sexy.... ...... .......ok off for a smoke.

Thats a really good looking tank for the price. im gonna have to get one made next time i go up to Colorado.
cant wait to see it set up.

Lol, it makes me feel the same way.




Absolutely was. He hooked a yocal up. Even gave me some frags gratis when I made the drive up. Admitedly, that made driving home in the snow storm going 35mph (and passing most everyone at that speed) a little more bearable.

Looks good, not sure the overflow is going to let much water through though. How many GPH are you planning on running through there?

That was an original concern of mine. If you notice in the first picture up top, there were 6 slots. I mentioned my concern to him with this and he increased it to 8. 6 was supposed to accommodate around 300 gph. Hopefully I'm closer to being able to run 2x200gph pumps now.

really cool design. can't wait to see more.

Looks awesome.

Your's was one of the dimensions that inspired it .





Thank you thank you!

I'm trying to get water in this thing soon. Just have to go get the bulkhead installed and pick up some new water. Hopefully it will still look good in a month when its full

i like your tank. I am itching to see what you'll do next.

Tank looks great.... curious to see how it works out... The mandarin should not present a problem... Mine is happy in the 12" cube with 2xday frozen mysis.... I still have a good 'pod population.... think he's lazy... my backup plan was/is to give him away if health becomes an issue.....

just so you know, mysis eating mandarins are not the norm, and are the exception.

Exactly my plan Joe. Currently, the only frozen food I keep is Mysis anyway, but was planning on giving him a few options. If he isn't playing along after a week or two, it shouldn't be a problem to give him away to someone local. Glad to hear he is doing well in such a small space. I'm looking at a few options right now for lighting. Originally it was LEDs, but that project quickly creeps up on the $200 range. It could be done for $150, but it would be half ass and not really give me exactly what I would want in a custom LED setup.

The other options are the Odyssea $99 150W MH and a $50 2x24w T5HO. I'm not so sure how my SPS would do under the 48watts of T5 though. I currently keep a lot of sps under 4x24w, but I don't feel comfortable cutting the light in half. I will probably end up with the 150W MH.

In other news, I added water to the tank. I'm working on getting the temp up to an acceptable range to add Live Rock. Also, the Rio 600 that I was going to use to cycle the tank with pooped out on me, so I ran to wal-mart just now and got a cheap $10 HOB there. I might end up keeping it on the tank for that price to run some media.

Nice tank you got there. good luck.

Yep, I do know this, but I also know with SDT's guide to training Mandarins, you can condition them to eat Pellets and all sorts of other things. I'm going to be working him/her from live pods, to brine, to live/frozen mix of brine, and from there to an assortment of frozen foods. I have done a lot of homework on the process and what kind of results to expect. If it isn't working after a couple weeks though, he will be gone from the tank.

There are plenty of people that haven't read up on training them or been exposed to people keeping them successfully long term by feeding them. These people often just assume they are being responsible by suggesting against keeping Mandarins, especially in a Nano. I can't fault you for the warning, but I have done more than just see them at the pretty fish store.

Yours ain't too bad either!

I kept SPS under 48w of T5 light for a little while in my 20g. If you get good bulbs and reflectors you can pull it off. Just make sure you stock lower light SPS. Personally, I would still go with the 150w mh. I just figured I would let you know that it IS possible to keep SPS under just 2 T5's.

very nice!! this tank is going to come along great i know it!! its a really cool shape how its big and shallow.. the display looks actually really big for a 10 gal because of its demensions.. i really like it... good luck with everything man

Wow, love the tank! very jelous and best of luck!!

Nice, I'm sure it could be done, but I want to keep the colors on my SPS really popping if I'm going to invest in some nicer pieces. I'm leaning towards the 150W MH a lot more now.


Thanks, the contest was a nice excuse to get exactly the dimensions I have been wanting.



Ty, you too

ah, a shallow tank. i love shallow tanks.

if you're going to go with sps, definitely 150w. I tried the 70 dealio, no bueno. It looked rather awful and not enough power (well, compared to 150w radiums anyways).

will be following.

That is quite possibly the sickest 10 gallon I have ever seen. NICE BUILD!

Wow gabe your tank is a big hit.

I heard it was well made



Hopefully I don't disapoint once I start stocking.

Even if you stocked poo it would look good in this tank!!

shweet frekkin tank gabe!!!!


that thing is awesome!

Awesome job on the tank!!

That said, down the road Patrick, I might look for your help with a aio shallow frag setup. I've got some ideas, but only a 1/4 of the acryllic know how to make it work!



Awesome idea for the tank!!

From a fellow Colorado reefer, I salute you both!


Gabe - I might have missed it, but how do you plan on going about top off? Manually? With such a clean setup, I'm sure you'd be somewhat annoyed with an ATO setup popping up and over the top..

I do enough maintenance on my tanks daily that I don't mind not having an ATO. The cleaner the look, the better too. That being said, I will be out of town over Christmas for about a week. I'm going to have to put an ATO on it for that timeframe at a minimum. The biggest problem with the ATO is the budget. I hate to eat up a chunk of my budget for something that I wouldn't mind doing every day anyways. I'm going to be so tight on the budget as is. As I mentioned on another thread, the hardest part of this contest is not dropping out and dumping another $500-$1K into the tank.

Where are you at in Colorado, btw?

Thanks man. Yours looks pretty awesome too!

Great start and awesome custom tank. Can't wait to see what corals and critters look like in it!

Forgot to mention that last night when my wife was asking questions about the tank she was liking me talking about selling everything (4x24w T5 Sundial, Skimmer, corals, etc etc) in my other tank and then she realized that her two favorite fish would also be on the chopping block. She was not a happy camper. Any chance I could get by with keeping either a Yellow Clown Goby or Talbots Damsel in the tank with the Mandarin? 3 Fish would be pushing it too much I think .

Damsels can get ornery and territorial and I wouldn't trust one with a mandarin, expecially in a 10g. I've had a mandarin starve to death in a mature 50g with 2 feedings a day...

What a gorgeous tank!!!
Totally sweet!!

Well GOOD!!

It's really looking great, keep posting pics.

Thanks for the advice. Its a Talbot's Damsel and I got him because he was supposed to be one of the most mild-tempered. That being said, off he goes . The Mandarin is really going to be the focus here, so I don't want to do anything to conflict with him.


tyty




Right now its going to be a little slow on the updates while I wait for my powerheads to come in from Drs. Foster and Smith before I add any liverock. I promise to post pics as soon as anything meaningful happens with the tank

Wow Nice tank! And good work Patrick1234! Contest? Do i get one of these babies?

If you want one of these fine puppies, patrick is the man to talk to. The contest has already started, so you will have to sit this one out though. Nothing stopping you from starting a nice new tank!

I've got a dragonet in my six gallon contest tank, and I used the deep frozen cyclopeeze to wean him off of live pods. He still hunts them all day long, but it's not a big enough tank to sustain their diet. So if you don't have a copious amount of pods in your tank before you add him like I did, I'd suggest feeding live pods and cyclopeeze at the same time to train him to eat frozen.

Very nice dimensions to that tank.
Good luck!

Looks very promising

Thanks for the words of advice. I have access to both luckily.



TY, good luck to you too.



TY, I hope that I can pull off my vision and stay within budget

OMFG I'm currently sitting more than $100 over budget, wtf... I have around $173 for livestock and here is my list:

• SPS
  BZ1 - $30
  BZ2 - $20
  ORA -$10
  Bird- $10 Fragging it for $5 new price.
  Frag-$5
  Frag-$5
  Pavona - $20 $10
  Total SPS- $80 $35
• LPS
  Torch - $5
  Trumpets - $3
  Duncan - $10
  Favia - $25
  Chalice - $10
  Fungia - $30
  Total LPS - $83
• Softies/Polyps
  Green Toadstool - $5
  Bam bam - $5
  AOG - $5
  Tubbs - $5
  Whammins Watermelons - $15
  Darth Maul -$20
  Ric Yuma - $10
  1 Head of $1 orange Zoa - $1
  Total - $65 $31 $0
• CuC
  Snails - Free
  Cheato -$2
  Mangroves -$3
  Rock - $20
  Fromia Star - $6
  Total - $31
• Fish
  YCG - $8
  Mandarin - $16
  Total - $24
• Overall Total - $306, $217 $173 ($183 Allowed)

^^^^^^^^^^^^ How I'm feeling. The horrible thing is that so many of the zoa mini-colonies I got for like $20 IRL, would cost half my budget (i.e., 20 polyp AOG frag, 7 polyp Tubb's Frag, 12 polyp Bam-Bam /frag, 7 polyps of Darth Mauls - well those did cost me a lot, lol)

And perhaps the absolute worst thing of all.... I'm going over to THIS GUY's house in a few hours to do some trades...