Birth of the Midge

In my quest to build things I have planned a small 3ish gallon tank with a built in sump. I've cut the glass and it's not small enough.

So with the scraps I've built the Midge. Total size 5x7x7. Main tank; 5x5x7, .72 gallon, the sump 5x2x7; .29 gallon. Total tank volume 1.01 gallon.

So how the heck am I going to light this tiny tank? A 9watt PC is too big.

hahaha I was looking at the tank until I realized holy crap thats a soda can. Looks very cool so far! Are you going to seal the top to fight evap?

Clip on a book light???? Good question.

Another question...how ya gonna keep water in that thing. In Colorado, I have almost the capacity of that tank evaporated every day.

Can you post your info on your internal sump? I was thinking of doing that on a 2 gallon. Where are you putting your equipment?

Coralreefengr..... that is my old Avatar, I suggest you change it immediatly. Or else there will be trouble.

EDIT: So lizbeth.... Any plans for inhabitants when it's running?

It's going to have aquarium trim on the top and bottom. I'm going to cut a plexi top for it with just a small cut out for the power cords.

On both tanks I'm building there is going to be a plexi partition approx. 2" from the back of the tank similar to the tanks Chris builds. The heater and pump is going behind it. I haven't sat down with a beer, pen and napkin to finalize the whole thing yet. When I do I'll let you know.

As for inhabitants, I don't have a clue. A snail isn't very interesting. A couple ounces of sand and about 3/4 lb of live rock should set it up though. I'm thinking of using black sand.

cool =)

Brandon on RC has made one very similar and that thing is packed with life! He put some weather striping along the top to seal it. I think he said it can go over a week without needing to add water.

Love the name......you fly fishing mama!

wow coralreefengr, I was just kidding, there was no need to change it. Gotta love the Ryu avatars.

2D,

That's OK. I do like the purple, though. Maybe I'll take off a couple of the other changes that I made and just go with the red to purple switch. I couldn't figure out why a guy would have a cartoon girlie martial arts avatar. The one you have now makes more sense for you. I don't really know how I got my hands on this avatar. I think I got it from Reef Central somewhere and it was so long ago.

Unfortunately, you can't always tell when people are kidding on boards. I've seen some pretty threatening posts that seemed unprovoked, and they weren't kidding. You did make me brush up on my copyright law, though.

Lizbeth,

Have you decided about a heater yet or do you know which one you'd go with if you did use one? I'm having to make that choice right now. I want to do a pico frag grow out so that I can take back some real estate in my 10 gal. Really I just want some place to put frags until they attach and I can trade them. I can only have about 4 frags at a time in the 10.

The only choices for a heater are a 25 watt Hagen Thermal Compact or a Visitherm. They are each 6" long.

As for the pump I stopped by the LFS and looked at what they stocked. It's too bad the Rios have such a bad rep. They would be perfect for these smaller tanks because they come with adapters that would work great for installation. I might just try one.

coralreefengr: My old avatar was Mai from SNK's King of Fighters series, and Capcom vs SNK.

EDIT: I don't know who the new one is, I think it was a link button to a hentai site.

Is that Mr. Motaba?

I think that the smaller rios are much less prone to "burning up" Than the larger 2600's. But if you still dont want to try a rio the mini jets I think a good size for the small tanks

JJ

I bought a Rio 50. It's a nice little pump in a catchy little box, they market very well. It should work well in the 2"x4.75"x7" sump.

Here's the tank with the top trim and the sump partition. I'm building the base and hood now. It's going to be made out of red oak.

Lizbeth - Fantastic tank!! I've been running Rio since I started my tank (4-5 yr). I've gone through 2 Rio 800's, but their easy to find (when they do poop out), easy to clean, come with pretty good suction cups (which you can replace!) and are pretty quite. How did you make the trim?

Chvynva916 - It's actually Mr. Marburg! Motaba is only in the movies where they wear those cool (albiet fake) BSL-4 space suits that look like they're looking thru a glass hex tank!

onthefly, The trim is off a broken 10 gallon. I cracked a corner of it moving it around in the garage a couple of weeks ago.

It's really a pain taking a tank apart and trying not to break it more than it's already broken! The trim is pretty thin and fragile.

love the tank but i got to ask why the blue background? i just don't understand why people put a very unatural colored back ground on their tanks? just curious.

What color do you like offsprg? What would be natural? Give me a suggestion for the 3 I'm building.

I'm not fond of black backgrounds. Most people use black or Fordish blue. I was looking for a darker blue but couldn't come up with one that wasn't navy. So I used the blue I had, I figure it will get covered with coralline anyway.

Looks very good to me liz... If THAT counts for anything! Keep on DIYing... I'm learning lot's! Thanks!

i usually go clear or glue a mirror to the back. both make the tank look bigger. i like the way the mirror looks my self. as it lets me see a side to my tanks i normally wouldn't get to see. but if you want to paint it a darker blue would look better that ford tractor blue. imho. either way i love the tank. you thinking about sellign any that size? *hint hint*

Flow test.

Conclusion; If I turn the Rio 50 up to full flow water shoots over the top trim.

I'm running it at about 2/3 throttle in the pictures. I doubt I can do that with sand in the tank, but the overflow can handle it.

Top view.

Lizbeth - So did you take 2 of the 10ga corners, mider them 45 degrees at the appropriate length, and silicon?

How think is the glass?

Seem like a great way to finish the tank.....you can get those tops at LFS really cheap.....You inspired me to try my own!!