Hi all, I haven't been active in a while, but I thought I'd get in on this contest.
I have most of this planned out.

CONCEPT STATEMENTS
-To create a leather dominated soft coral nano reef influenced by the work of Amano; mimicing natural scenery (forests, meadows, etc..) in an underwater aquascape.
-The aquarium is to be constructed with quality equipment along with self built parts, but not to be "overbuilt" and cluttered.
-Livestock will not be composed of "exotic/rare/exclusive/wild/Limited Edition" corals, but of average aquacultured corals.

CURRENT EQUIPMENT
Tank: standard AGA 10 gallon
Lighting: 150 watt aquamedic halide
Filtration: TUNZE Nano skimmer and DIY (sumpless)
Circulation: Undecided (Eheim hobby pump)
Temperature control: Aquamedic titan 150 chiller (still deciding whether to use or not)




More to come

ps. please spare teh catfish comments k thx

Gotta go with black substrate!

Sounds cool. Good luck with the contest. The ones that win are the ones that think outside the box.

Thanks, I'm set on using a rubble bottom. The aquascaping will be comprised of a flat rubble bed (1.5"-2" deep). There will be some "tiers" (areas that will raise up no more than 1"-2" in height), but for the most part the corals will provide the dymamics, not the rockwork. I have this distinct image in my mind about how I want it to look. A single species of leather coral "planted" together "tightly" to create what I imagine as a thick forest. I'm leaning towards using kenya tree. There will be a foreground, for this I imagine some type of "carpeting" coral, candidates are: clove polyps, star polyps (the really pinkish-almost white ones), pipe organ of sorts. I also imagine some zoanthid patches towards the back of the foreground. The tank is going to be 70-80% filled with whatever leather coral I decide on. As for composition, I will try to apply the rule of 1/3rds wherever I can as well as some type of golden mean:

http://www.astridfitzgerald.com/images/Golden-Mean-1.jpg

I like your thinking. Curious to see the final product.

If this turns out to be anything like takashi's tanks, it'll be sweet- regardless.

Ive heard of people using reverse UGF filters on rubble bottoms, and they set the pump(s) on a timer, to periodically blow detritus out of the crevices in between the rubble. This also forms sort of a fuge type thing under the ufg plate, in which various types of cryptic organisms can multiply/ be fed to your system. This may be worth trying out.... I mean, you could hide the pump to feed it behind some rocks right?
To maintain the asthetics and what not....Its your call

And its good to see youre goin with all aquacultured corals.
We all gotta support the coral farming industry!!
its a great cause

I was thinking about doing a reverse UGF. I think the concept has merit. I will have to give it more thought, a UGF shouldn't be very hard to build.

Anyways, who doesn't hate the trim that comes on a standard AGA? I thought about taking it off completely, but I think I found a nice alternative.

Heres the acrylic I got (2 sheets of 1/8" black acrylic 12"x24" costing about $20.00)



The design will not be unveiled until I build it, so it might be a day or two.

I'm going to use the laser cutter at my school tommorow to do the cuts, but I found it is alot easier to design when you have the actual material you are going to use in your possession. It really helps to use a caliper to get as close to an exact dimension of the acrylic as possible.

It looks like there are some pretty cool tanks being entered in the competition and I just wanted to wish everyone competing good luck.

I got to do some work on the canopy/canard thing I designed. Here it is being cut on the laser cutter the other day.



more to come on that.

But, I'm still undecided on a good small pump. I want to try the Eheim 1048 (158 gph), but does anyone have a good suggestion? I think tunze makes a small pump as well.

the tunze mini pushes 78/150ish. I wanna try the eheim compacts as well. I pretty much hate maxijets at this point

I miscalculated something and messed up the measurements of the canopy. But, I put two sides together to show a mock up of how it would look. I'll have to make a new canopy though.




Snips, i was looking at the compacts as well, they are cheaper than the hobby pumps, but they look kind of well, generic-ish? I may give them a try.

Thats a cool looking hood

if i enter, i want to do mine amano-style as well. i wish you the best in your aquascaping! GL.

Never heard of Amano. Interested to see this one develope.

^^^He has just about the most amazing freshwater tanks ever... even has a FW shrimp named after him

Do a search

I love the idea on the trim!!!

It's amazing to me how Amano can make even the most simple design look beautiful. This will be very interesting to see what you do with this if his style is you inspiration.

Very interesting in deed, good luck to ya!

I wish i had access to a laser cutter!

thanks guys.

TUW,
I was thinking of buying one. They run for around 10k and I think you could find a way to make the money back.

I need to get water in this tank and get it going. I've been a little busy with school as of late. I'm waiting on a couple of little tunze pumps and I need to go to ikea to buy my 39.99 dollar stand. http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/22510_PE107389_S4.jpg

yay for mr amano!

good luck with your project, I hope it works.

I've always wanted to do something like this.

cool idea....... would like to see it develope!

so, its now november and I have yet to get this set up. Lifes been crazy, gf moved out, house became a mess, school got crazy, I could keep going but I won't.

Anyways, I took that tank apart. I mean, completely apart. Then I cleaned off all the silicone, and re-siliconed the tank back together using black silicon. I think it looks much better having a thin black seam vs a sloppy fat clear one, but it was alot of work for a 10 dollar fish tank. And now the tank is rimless, but I have to go find myself some glass strips to brace it.

Hopefully the tank will be up and running within the next week or two. But, I'm not trying to rush the project. I still need to find a suitable location in my house for the tank.

teaser pics:

nice work man!!!

i'm glad to see i'm not the only one taking my sweet time.

i hear you man... life gets busy and the first thing that takes a back seat is the things we probably want to do the most.

Cant wait to see how the tank looks resiliconed and set up!

here it is being siliconed


as it looks right now in mycleaned up studio area


how the side panel seams came out



The bottom seam is rather sloppy, and I need to take a razor to the whole tank pretty much and clean everything up.

Hint: use masking tape along seams before putting down silicone. Then apply silicone, and when still wet, peel up masking tape giving you perfect seam edges. Saves have to go back with razor blade.

ty legodude. I started doing the sides with tape, but got lost err... lazy when it came to the bottom. I think I'm just going to redo the bottom.

I'm feeling more and more like a slacker as each day passes that this tank isn't set up.. So, I'll make up with an update of sorts

so, here is what I have sorta come up with as for location. Theres this little hallway in front of my bathroom that looks rather ideal. I need to paint the walls with a fresh coat of white, and figure out a solution to getting power to the tank (theres no outlet in this room, I'm thinking of maybe exposed conduit coming down from the cieling light or something?









Any opinions?

Wow, it's as if a fish tank was meant to be there! Nice snugged fit.