Zach's water garden.

[Zo0k365]

Alright, so my name is Zach. I have have kept aquariums like cichlids, community, and cold sw for some time now but i am just starting on tropical sw. I had bought a new eclipse system six at Walmart for thirty dollars awhile back and decided i would take the challenge of making it an AIO tank rather than the non-adventurous already made cube tanks. So far in the last three months i have gotten all of the materials i needed, went through some frustrations, and already gained some bit of experience.

 

Rather than words to show what i have done i will just post pictures

 

My fist concern was lighting so i installed a 2-32Watt sunpaq retrofit kit in to the hood

 

My next concern was the back chambers and overflow so i made a sketch of my plans

 

For some odd reason Home depot didnt have black acrylis so i had to cut the bottom out of a 4 dollar mixing tub i found

 

With the added acrylic baffles and areas for extra flow it looked like this before instalation

 

With the addition of silicone, pluming and pumps it looked like this

With water

 

And with live sand and rock

The back chambers

 

Thank you for viewing, i will be adding chaeto soon, and coral near in the future.

[Zo0k365]

And for a better pictures of the tank

Behind

With the hood open

[Joefish]

Wow impressive! Looks like you really planned it out well. My original tank was an Eclipse 12 and it was sweet. Good luck I'll be following your progress.

[Pickle010]

Nice job on the mod.

 

Looks more like crushed coral then LS - I'd replace it.

 

And why is your post littered with SPAM?

[Zo0k365]

Nice job on the mod.

 

Looks more like crushed coral then LS - I'd replace it.

 

And why is your post littered with SPAM?

 

Thank you, and yes it is crushed coral but i called it live because it was in an already established tank. Is there a benefit from having live sand rather than crushed coral? I hate the spam so much, i think imageshack might have been having problems with it because i never used to have that problem.

[Zo0k365]

I feel neglected

[fishboy87]

Add some corals and that feeling should go away! Looks like it'll come out nice. What are you gonna do for stocking exactly.

[Zo0k365]

A pair of small gobies, a flower anemone from Sealife, and most of the other coral from sea life. I think i might try the photosynthetic gorgonian on the site too. Anyway right now im dealing with hair algae and thinking of re-doing the scape. Thanks for looking

[JBM]

if the tank wasnt so small i would recommend a sea hare. but that would last all of 20 minutes.

 

 

I hope your using ro water & not tap water

[Zo0k365]

if the tank wasnt so small i would recommend a sea hare. but that would last all of 20 minutes.

 

 

I hope your using ro water & not tap water

 

Lol. . . . yeah i'm using tap water. But i thought it would only do good since i have a well and it would provide minerals and nutrients to the tank. What exactly is ro water anyway? I actually thought if a sea hare so thanks for the heads up. I was also thinking of putting a mexican turbo snail from my friends 75 in there for a couple of days.

And I re-did the scape because i wasnt happy with the first.

 

I actually scrubbed hair algae off of the rocks with an old tooth brush before i did the scape.

[fishboy87]

ro stand for reverse osmosis. Its usually used as a tap water filter that filters out almost everything from tap water. Almost pure h20. I've used dechlorinated tap for 1.5yrs so you shouldn't have any problems. Nice scape though. Many levels and dimensions to it. It'll be great when you add corals to it.

[jeffblly]

The crushed coral could cause future problems. Its will eventually turn into a nitrate trap. The tank looks good. The algae is a normal part of the cycle. Turbos do well with GHA.

[Reefer Al]

I'm not saying everyone is wrong about substrate, but everyone seems to throw around a lot of opinions about sand versus sugar fine sand versus crushed coral. I have never used sugar fine, but I have used crushed coral and 3-6mm sand for a very long time. Both are easy to keep clean, especially the crushed coral. I believe the notion that crushed coral generates nitrates comes from reefs of old that used UG filters. I have 10mg/L of nitrates in my 55gal and my sand is not dirty.

[Zo0k365]

Thanks for all of the opinions. Since im planing on adding a gobie and shrimp pair i think i will take some of the crushed coral out, and add aragonite for a mixed semi deep sand bed. I also will be adding a couple small photosynthetic gorgonians to the tank so i will be daily disturbing the sand not to mention what the shrimp and gobie will be doing. Im so happy with the new scape though.

 

ro stand for reverse osmosis. Its usually used as a tap water filter that filters out almost everything from tap water. Almost pure h20. I've used dechlorinated tap for 1.5yrs so you shouldn't have any problems. Nice scape though. Many levels and dimensions to it. It'll be great when you add corals to it.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. Its basically bottled water?

[Paleoreef103]

Thanks for clearing that up. Its basically bottled water?

 

No. RO is a lot more pure. A lot of time bottled water has other stuff thrown in that isn't very good for tanks. Plus bottled water is much more expensive. Go to a big grocery store, find the pure water dispenser (often culigan) and read the filtration process on it. If it says Reverse Osmosis on it, you have found your new best friend. (generally about a quarter a gallon.) Seriously, it is so much better than tap water.

 

Otherwise, nice looking tank!

 

Also. My cat growing up was named zook.

[marinebiologist]

looks sweet

[PSYS]

Not too bad! Looks pretty good....

[reeflovin22]

DUDE SWEET SET UP!!!

 

Were did you buy (and what did you pay) the Retrofit kit and what king of bulbs are they dual daylight or jest 10,000k and what kind of actinic is it.

 

Also what are those black extendo things coming out of the wall into the tank do they come with the maxi jet?

 

oh oh and what is the size of the maxi jet if its a maxi jet?

 

sorry for all the questions im jest curious

[Kellie in CA]

OMG, I am so distracted by that avitar, that I can't read this thread. I can't stop looking! My eyes!!!

[Zo0k365]

Paleoreef103: I see, that's what i was thinking because some of them say mineral enriched. I actually live like a couple minutes from the ocean so i might just end up using seawater. Idk yet.

 

Lol, my name is Zach but my screen name is zook---. I love cats, my family cat is named sundance.

 

reeflovin22:

Jeez.

http://www.reeffx.com/cu15surekit2.html

It has two bulbs. One is 10,000K and 6,700K. The other is 460nm and 420nm. 64 watts is probably overkill in a four gallon tank though.

 

They are both rio 180 pumps that i got for 10 bucks a piece. A total of 240gph. The things on the inside are lockline tubing. Its for pointing flow to certain spots but i make them face themselves for random flow.

 

Everyone else thank you for the comments.

 

OMG, I am so distracted by that avitar, that I can't read this thread. I can't stop looking! My eyes!!!

 

Haha, you should have seen the last one until i got scared i would have to pay the consequences and took it down. Just ask Prop.

[Zo0k365]

Added a small test mushroom to the tank from my friends 75g (its not open yet)

Lets see how this does then see where to go from there

[Qwank]

i would get rid of the live rock in the back. i tried it in my 12g and all it did was collect crap

[Militant Jurist]

Looks like you're off to a good start. Oh, and welcome to the "my first coral was a red mushroom" club.

[Angelo99]

I definitely like. What corals are you planning to stock it with?

[Zo0k365]

Qwank Meh, i would get rid of it but i want it for pods, besides im always running filter floss.

 

Militant Jurist Haha thank you. I feel welcomed

 

Angelo99 Thanks. My stocking plan is as follows. A pair of gobies, preferably a pair of shrimp gobies that are bonded with a shrimp. Sexy shrimp or bumblebee shrimp, and a porcelain crab. For Coral i want gsp to cover the back wall and lockline. I plan to keep some small photosynthetic gorgonians from sealife.inc, rics, zoas, palys, various shrooms, and possibly a birds nest down the line.