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Cultivated Reef

3g Office Build


drewgrano

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Since I sit at work all day and think about my tank at home, I thought I should start a tank in my office. Aesthetically, I have one of the most boring offices in existence, so I'm hoping I can liven it up a bit.

 

I'm still trying to establish my tank at home (which is priority numero uno) so this tank will hopefully be low cost/low maintenance. Well, not necessarily low maintenance I suppose, but mess free. Low mess maintenance.

 

I built a stand for the tank that basically serves two purposes: to hide all the cords that run along the top of my desk, and to hold my diy gravity top off. I'm using a hamster water bottle, we'll see how well it works. I modded the media basket in the AC30 just a bit. I cut about 3/4' out of the bottom and reconnected the two pieces. Now I have room to put a piece of filter floss outside of the media basket that the water will have to flow through before it even reaches the basket. I then covered up the holes in the media basket and drilled some new holes near the bottom so the water will be forced to enter the basket at the bottom and flow up through my media. I plan on sticking a bag of Chemipure Elite at the bottom and a ball of chaeto on top of that. The heater is a perfect fit for the AC30, so that will be in there too. I plan on running this tank bare bottom, so I painted the bottom to give a fake sand look (copied rocksmom!).

 

I have some rock that has been cycling in a bucket for a few weeks now. I plan on setting everything up tomorrow. I ordered the acan, rhodactis, blasto, and torch from Exotic Reef Creations and they should be here Thursday, so I'll have an update after I get them in!

 

Equipment

  • 3G Zen Cad Lights Tank
  • AquaClear 30 filter with a slightly modified stock media basket
  • BoostLED PAR30
  • Hagen 50w heater
  • Rio 50 powerhead
  • DIY auto top off and stand

 

Corals

  • Teal Acan

Screenshot_2014-12-02-10-39-41.png

  • Superman Rhodactis

Screenshot_2014-12-02-10-39-59.png

  • Green Ring Blastos

Screenshot_2014-12-02-10-40-26.png

  • Torch

Screenshot_2014-12-02-10-40-45.png

  • Duncan
  • Green Hairy Mushroom
  • Pom Pom Xenia (??)

Inverts

?

 

Fish

??

 

Current state of office

IMG_20141202_100804254.jpg

 

Modded media basket - filter floss will go in the gap between the pump and the basket

IMG_20141123_161445614.jpg

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IMG_20141204_082253937.jpg

 

Corals and my light get here tomorrow. Only problem so far is that the Rio 50 is LOOUUDD. It's right next to my chair so that doesn't help. Any suggestions on an alternative pump that is quieter?

 

I also made a slight miscalculation with the height of my ATO lol. But that should be an easy fix.

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IMG_20141204_082253937.jpg

 

Corals and my light get here tomorrow. Only problem so far is that the Rio 50 is LOOUUDD. It's right next to my chair so that doesn't help. Any suggestions on an alternative pump that is quieter?

 

I also made a slight miscalculation with the height of my ATO lol. But that should be an easy fix.

bigger HOB instead?

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bigger HOB instead?

 

Yea that's a good idea. Think the HOB would keep crap off the bottom by itself? I'm not worried about flow the whole purpose of the Rio was to keep stuff from settling on the bottom.

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Yea that's a good idea. Think the HOB would keep crap off the bottom by itself? I'm not worried about flow the whole purpose of the Rio was to keep stuff from settling on the bottom.

If not a turkey baster would suspend it off the bottom and allow the filter to do it's thing. Probably on sale after the holidays too... haha.

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Well shucks... my ato doesn't work lol. I added that piece of vinyl pipe which fits perfect inside the metal part of the bottle but now the hole is too small to allow any air in/water out. I glued the vinyl in so I have to go back to Petco and grab a new bottle and see if I can find a piece of pipe that fits on the outside of the metal part. Or just take my stand home and cut about a half inch off the top so that the bottle fits without any modification, but that sounds like too much work to me lol.

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IMG_20141208_115950468.jpg

 

Moved my hammer from my 7 gallon to this tank. Most likely will be moving more from the 7 gallon into this tank so I can convert it to bare bottom too. Loving no sand. I just siphoned the bottom - spotless in literally 2 minutes = awesome.

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That's awesome. Good looking tank. I might ask my boss to bring my pico to work.

 

Couple of questions for you:

1. Where did you get the tank? I was just looking for one recently.

2. What are the specs of your LED light? How many bulbs? What color? I think they have different types.

3. Are you running a skimmer?

Thanks

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Nice! I wanna do something similar for my desk haha.

 

Where did you put the ATO sensor/float?

Thanks! No sensor/float, I'm just using a diy gravity ATO. Here it is.

 

IMG_20141209_090702150.jpg

IMG_20141209_090711850_HDR.jpg

 

 

 

That's awesome. Good looking tank. I might ask my boss to bring my pico to work.

 

Couple of questions for you:

1. Where did you get the tank? I was just looking for one recently.

2. What are the specs of your LED light? How many bulbs? What color? I think they have different types.

3. Are you running a skimmer?

Thanks

Thanks!

1. It's a 3G Cadlights Zen Series tank. I also have their 7G tank, both look great. I recommend them, especially at their price.

2. Its a BoostLED par 30 with 3 RB, 1 NW, and 1 CW. I'm happy with it but honestly the colors don't quite pop as much as I would like. If this tank does as well as I hope it does I'll probably invest in another Nano Box.

3. No skimmer, just 1 gallon weekly water changes. Still trying to come up with a siphon that works well to vacuum up the stuff that piles up at the bottom.

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