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ADA 60p Soft Coral Mangrove Peninsular - Long overdue update


East1

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This isn't a hobby you can quit, many try and fail.
I learned this lesson this weekend, and I've now found myself with a small acrylic storage box with dimensions 30x15x14cm so ±1.5-1.7 gallons. It's surprisingly well made - from a Japanese home and household store in London called Muji. It looks like cell cast acrylic about 4mm thick with perfect joins and no bubbles at all, it's gorgeous and only cost me a fiver.

Stocking wise I'm thinking minimal display live rock (literally just rubble) and small colorful LPS pieces potentially with a small SPS if the system allows it. Biopellets and a skimmer are my go-to filtration and I don't see a reason to change that now, I'm thinking of running a Bubble Magus NAC QQ or a Tunze internal skimmer.

I plan to run this as an entirely clear display, drilling or figuring out another way to economically drill an overflow and use a plastic storage box as a makeshift sump on the shelf underneath. it'll be lit by a DIY 10W LED light fixture I made some time ago and has been kicking around my room.

Suggestions on drilling acrylic are much appreciated as well as input on the build in general! The sump box I've decided on has a total volume of 24 litres, and when half full will add 200% more water volume bringing the total setup to around 5 gallons of salty goodness

here's a picture of the tank because pictures

IJQ5kUS.png
59ciZzG.jpg

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So excited!

 

Just ordered the rest of my hardware including a nice glass lily pipe return which should help with gentle flow in such a small space.

I've been looking for some stocking and aquascaping ideas when I went hunting for this old site http://tidechaser.blogspot.sg/search/label/Guided%20Walks

 

It's a great resource of lots of our favourite animals in their natural surrounds (or one of, anyway)

 

Waiting game progresses and I need to find an appropriate sized sump. Digging around my room I found an old MCE300 which I intend to modify, gut and run inside the sump without using the hang on body of the skimmer at all.

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:D

 

It has water now, and looks pretty awesome if I do say so myself

 

TUzwAjy.png

 

The question in my mind now is scape and stocking, with a large sump I can go little to no live rock with ease, so I'm torn between a small-medium size (relative size would be large considering I can hold this tank in two hands) Elegance or similar LPS coral as a centrepiece coral with very selective colorful corals to support the scape, with the alternative being trying to create an illusion of size and depth within the small tank and use a collection of extremely small frags to create a scaled down naturalistic representation of something in the sea somewhere

 

Though, with that description I could just toss in an empty beer can and call it a biotope

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Ahhhh developments!

 

9kPAW9i.png

 

It's my red mangrove I've had for a few months (growing in freshwater, needs to be transitioned before I can plant it, will be probably planted into a cut out pot with some root exposed for effect.

 

I'm going to create a scaled down version of

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I think this is a magnificent idea! I can't wait to see it unfold! I'd highly recommend looking through Giga's mangrove guides, if you want to grow one, they have surprising needs. First off is a large substrate layer, rock or a sand/dirt. Incredibly high lighting (I'd consider a small halide or led lamp) but I'm not a big expert on them. LPS and softies would definitely fit in, sps would also be neat with the growing root structure of the plant.

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Yeah, I love his guides! if you look back in my posting history I talked to Giga a lot a few months ago and his tank prompted me to buy a few mangroves (they didn't do too well being shipped from the Netherlands - only the one made it, I assume because it didn't have a complex root structure when I received it, so only had to grow roots once perhaps, I pruned it for the first time a week ago and it's sprouting it's first pair of axial stems as of Monday which is exciting )

 

Currently it's being lit by an ikea LED 10w lamp that I've had it under for some time. It also gets about 3 hours of afternoon sun but being the UK I imagine that will stop soon

 

I plan to partition the tank and create a deep 4" sandbed using an acrylic baffle for the mangrove, I want to have some of it's roots exposed as the root network in the pot I've got it growing in is nice and mature and exposing a portion of the roots I feel would add to the interest of the tank.

 

unrelated, I just found this which is google street view for coral reefs! it's the absolute best thing for biotope presentations. I've never been so excited by a website damn.

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Moar pictures plz :)

 

Because you live in the uk do you know any good online retailers?

 

Coral culture live is pretty good, there are also a few decent retailers on eBay surprisingly too. Have a look round and if you get no joy I'll PM you a list

 

Wonderful idea, every day in this forum discovers people from the great plans ......... In their small size. I will follow anxious to see the final result

:D thanks!

 

Will the mangrove break the tank eventually?

I doubt it, I can see the roots trying to break through the clear plastic tub it's in now and it's not getting very far (I'm actually probably just going to trim that down rather than re planting it)

 

My pipework arrived today, but I'd forgotten to upgrade the shipping on my Dremel clone. Hopefully that'll arrive tomorrow so I can drill and get this set up and cycling. I'm really anxious to shorten the internals of my MCE300 and test it

 

Sadly as I'd planned to have a picture of shimmering water, I'll have to use this instead. It's the root structure of the mangrove that I intend to keep exposed. it's still firmly rooted in the pot so I may keep it as is and just trim down the rest of the pot, cover it with sand to help the transition. I do need some advice transitioning mangroves from fresh to salt water, though. Apologies for the poor quality, it's tough to photograph and the water is a bit murky from where I had to runse and ease away a layer of sand

 

lerzl5e.jpg

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With the way I intend to plumb/run this system (the tank is fed from a 1200lph pump as it's only water flow from the sump) I should in theory be able to connect multiple of these for an additional cost of about 50 pounds for pump/pipework/lily pipe/ tank which is pretty cool. I'm tempted to prototype and manufacture them at some point, the idea of running multiple 1gallon nano tanks with various coral/livestock combinations that wouldn't work together is really appealing to me

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With the way I intend to plumb/run this system (the tank is fed from a 1200lph pump as it's only water flow from the sump) I should in theory be able to connect multiple of these for an additional cost of about 50 pounds for pump/pipework/lily pipe/ tank which is pretty cool. I'm tempted to prototype and manufacture them at some point, the idea of running multiple 1gallon nano tanks with various coral/livestock combinations that wouldn't work together is really appealing to me

Mate, do this, it will be awesome. You could have sps tank, softies tank and lps tank.

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