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3 foot long Mr. Aqua 12 Gal. With Sump. (MEDIA REACTOR HELP!)


Najay343

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Middle of September 2015

Tank1

End of May 2015

5.5 months old

February 2015

1.5 months old

January 2015 (Cycled)

Cycled


January 2015

One day old - 01/08/15




Hello all,

This is the official page for my custom 3 foot long Mr. Aqua 12 Gal. With Sump.

Equipment:

Lighting: Mariene Orbit 36" LED controllable light
Flow: Rio 420 GPH return pump plus a Vortech MP10wES
Filtration: 10 gal. custom sump, Filter sock, 9-Watt UV Steralizer, 4x4x10 sponge, Nitrate reduction pad, Phosphate Reduction pad.
Heater:

Media Reactor:

UV Sterilizer:
LR: 8 LB. BRS PUKANI DRY LIVE ROCK
Substrate: 10 LB. SPECIAL GRADE ARAG-ALIVE! REEF SAND

Live Stock:

two (2) Firefish
one (1) Lawnmower Blenny
one (1) Coral Banded Shrimp
one (1) Emerald Crab
??? Assorted Hermits
??? Assorted Snails
three (3) assorted mushrooms
one (1) assorted Zoas
Frogspawn 4 heads
Hammer Coral 5 heads
Green stap polyp colony

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just to make drilling my drain and return holes easier I picked up a drill guide and a couple of clamps. Obviously i won't be drilling sideways, just showing how secure the clamps are at holding the weight of the drill guide. Hoping to drill the holes this weekend! :D
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Mr Aqua 12 gal.



drilled my drain and return holes tonight. The drill guide helped a lot in the fact I had no idea what I was doing really. Came out to be almost exact on both sides, with the little bit of movement with the bulkheads they are spot on I couldn't have asked for any better. Used a corded drill and my 2nd hole took twice as long as the first. Not sure how many holes one diamond drill bit is capable of but I would say two is the limit. For my plumbing I was trying to make the drain 1/4" bigger than the return but couldn't find the plumbing to do so, so they will both be 1/2"Hopefully I do not have any overflow issues with my 420GPH pump but if I do I will just gate it down or swap for a smaller pump through amazon. Holes are for filtration to the sump only. Water flow will be provided by MP10 powerhead. Still waiting for my stand to arrive before I really get down to business! :D
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Looks great! the drill guide is a great piece of equipment to keep from scalloping the edges. Where did you get yours?

Amazon, same brand they use in BRS youtube on drilling holes in your aquarium. its about $30. it was a bit of a challange to secure while I drilled so that it would not move, at least while i started to get a groove in the glass. Had to use two clamps as well as hold it down while I drilled.

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So today my stand arrived as well as my LR and sand. I whipped the stand together in about 20 minutes. I am very satisfied. The stand was $60 and can hold up to 450lbs. It has a nice textured waterproof finish. Just all all round great stand that fits my tank perfectly and will also snugly fit my SUMP underneath.

Stand


I purchased 8lbs of Pukani LR from BRS and it came as one nice giant rock. I sawed it in half and am pretty satisfied. I plan on putting it in 10% bleach water for 24 hours and then doing the acid treatment. Does anyone have any directions as how to do this. How much? what brand? and how long?

Pukani LR cutting


I was really planning on having 3 main separate rocks but I am satisfied with this scape I came up with. As I mentioned I was just taking a guess when figuring how much rock I needed and 8lbs will seem to do just right for this size tank.

Aqua Scape


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I dipped the rocks in muriatic acid. I may have fudged it a little. I used about a half gallon of acid in about 4 gallons of water, should have mixed it before putting the rocks in for a more even effect. I left them in for 7 minuted and then neutralized with baking soda before flooding the bucket with water. There was a TON of crud that came off of the rocks but it surprised me to find the rocks were green when i was done with a fuzzy like algae on them that i didn't notice before the dip. anyway they are now sitting dry in the tank. when the sump tank gets here hopefully on friday I will connect the plumbing and full it with water to check for leaks, overflow issues and make sure my pump won't be too strong. Hope to have it running by the first week of January.

final scape

 

 

ALSO, I purchased a new light for the aquarium. "Current USA Orbit Marine Aquarium LED Light, 36 to 48-Inch" my current light wouldn't cover the whole tank so i decided for an upgrade. that being said anyone interested in buying my AquaticLife T5 HO 24" four bulb light?

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  • 2 weeks later...
My plumbing is mostly complete. My SUMP arrived finally but what I thought was a sump was just a bunch of cut pieces to make a sump in a 10 gal. tank. Luckily my roommate was getting rid of her 10 gal. so I picked that up. Once I got the water flowing I noticed it was draining super fast and making a slurping noise so I drilled a hole in the top of the drain elbow and added a piece of tubing with a flow regulator and I also added a valve to my drain plumbing and dialed it down so it wouldn't over flow and it wouldn't make a ton of noise. I just recently got home from a new years trip and found my already established biocube of one year had crashed unknown how exactly, killing nearly everything. It was very depressing and was hard to keep motivated about the new set-up. So now I am completely starting from scratch. May be wise to invest in a power backup system. RIP Jaques, Caveman and Ygritte :unsure:


Leak test


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Sweet Setup! Stand seems like a bargain!

Would like sell and purchase (2) Kessil A350W LED Aquarium Light Tuna Blue Wide in the future.

Two A160's would be more appropriate for you and save a ton of $$$

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Sweet Setup! Stand seems like a bargain!

Two A160's would be more appropriate for you and save a ton of $$$

I actually ended up going with the 36" Current USA LED Strip. its pretty sweet for the price.

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Day 2 - NH3 0.75ppm. I put in one piece of raw shrimp. I plan on adding BIO-SPIRA once NH3 reaches 8.0ppm. I will check Nitrite and Nitrate beforehand.

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The system is alive!!

Well I am at day 4. Before going to bed last night I checked to find my NH3/NH4 was at 8ppm and still nothing was registering for Nitrite or Nitrate. Upon waking up this morning I found the same which was unexpected considering the use of "Live Sand" so after further research I decided to go ahead and add the Bio-Spira. Within just a couple hours NH3/NH4 was at 2ppm and NO2 was at 2ppm and NO3 was at 5ppm. I am really impressed with this product. My pH was a little low at 8.0 but I got it bumped up to 8.2 now with temp of 80-80.5F

I used dry pukani and treated it in acid and rinsed it many times so to get the bacteria to build up on it I plan of keeping the system running until either the entire prawn is decomposed and NH3 and NO2 is down to 0ppm so probably at least 2-3 weeks out before adding CUC.

IT'S ALIVE

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Day 8 was a bad day, went down stairs to do a water test and found that the carbon I put in my filter sock to help with water clarity was a really really bad idea. There will little black particulates EVERYWHERE and a layer on all the rock and sand of my display tank. Long story short I ended up having to drain the sump and clean it out it was so bad. And to drain and replace about 7 gallons so still tweaking pH and salinity back to normal. Shrimp was pretty nasty but did its job so I'm gonna go ahead and buy some pure ammonia and see if the tank can do its job before adding the CUC.

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I have a 12 gallon long as we'll. great little tank!!! Here is a picpost-73220-0-97638200-1421459269_thumb.jpg

 

I have a 12 gallon long as we'll. great little tank!!! Here is a pic

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  • 3 weeks later...

Cycled



One month in, tank is going great. I ended up using a Nitrate Remover Pad purchased on Amazon and after Leaving for a one week trip with my ammonia at 3ppm and my nitrate at 100ppm I came home to find them all at 0 0 0. I took a sample to the fish store to confirm and they said water is perfect. I did end up replacing 6 gallons but I am amazed with this nitrate pad. Otherwise the CUC is in and battling the diatom bloom. Will be doubling the CUC size today which will get them the upper hand :)
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How are you liking the current usa light? thinking of getting one for my Mr aqua 7.5g bow front. the AI Nano I have is basically a spot light....

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How are you liking the current usa light? thinking of getting one for my Mr aqua 7.5g bow front. the AI Nano I have is basically a spot light....

yes sir, i am. it is the 36-48" version. $150ish on amazon with free 2 day shipping. it fits my tank perfectly without having to extend brackets at all. I really like the color and how it reaches across the entire tank. programing is challenging. Im not sure how but I ended up making it so the actinic are on for an extra 4 hours after sunset.

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Picked up three $5 frags today at a new LFS I just found close to my house. I lucked out in the fact this is the 3rd Marine aquarium store less than 5 min from my home. Waiting for the new frags to open up and then I will add pics. Planing on getting two Juvenal Clowns this weekend from a breeder I found nearby.

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