[Custom] MLB75

[mlb75]

I've been into fishtanks for quite awhile but really got into reefkeeping about a year ago and have had a blast setting up my current 180 display. Recently I've seen a few really neat looking nano's and have wanted to try one myself. Then I heard about this contest so what the heck, I'll through my hat in here and use it as an excuse to set one up.

 

So here's my entry photo...

 

 

As noted below the original tank didn't cut it and cracked under the drill. Here is my new and improved acrilic tank with built in overflow.

 

 

Here are the dimensions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that it's official and I'm in here are some details about my plan muh ha ha

 

Tank:

 

I'm going to use 2 tanks, both ten gallon aga's (hopefully). The display will sit on my desk at home and the second tank will be useed as sump / refugium and be under my desk. The bottom tank will be devided into to sections the first being a refugium which will take up about 2/3's of the tank and the rest will hold a return pump and be simply a bare sump.

 

The display is where this will get a little tricky. My intention is to try and turn that tank into swiss cheese. Hopefully it will hold together if not I'll have to either replace a couple of the panes with thicker glass or break down and make an acrilic tank. ***if I have to make a new tank due to broken glass will that remove me from competition? If I do I'll document the build with photo's including current newspapers etc to prove it wasn't already filled with water.*** The reason for my concern is I intend to drill 3 holes in the back of the tank and another on each of the 2 sides. These holes will be explained under circulation

 

Lighting:

 

I'm going to, at least for now, use what I've got laying around. That means I'll use two 96W quad PC fixtures. One over the display using a 50/50 bulb and one over the sump / fuge with a 6700K bulb. The lights will be on a reverse photoperiod with the display being on from probably 4PM until 3AM. That's when I'm normally at my desk at home.

 

Circulation:

 

OK back to the swiss cheese. The center hole in the back will be a drain to the sump. The hole on the left will be return from the sump. The hole on the right will be a feed for a closed loop. My current intentioin will be to use 2 small mag pumps but since I dont' have them yet (hopefully picking them up this weekend) that is still a bit of a question mark. The one will obviously go from the sump back to the display, the second will exit to a squid and then return to the dsiplay from one side or the other via hydor directly connected to the bulkhead.

 

Substrate:

 

Intention is to have a decent sand bed in the refugium as well as small pieces of LR for pods and algae to grow on. In the dispaly I'll have to play with that depending on the final amount of flow through the tank. I've got a couple idea's but won't get into them quite yet. As for LR I'll probably use a combination of some stuff out of my 180, a couple new pieces and the stuff that'll come with some of the frags I put in there.

 

Stocking:

 

This is the part I'm most undecided about. I'll probably do some zoo's, a leather, a brain of some sort, a couple frag's of SPS and whatever looks neat at the LFS I go to. As far as fish go I'm not really sure about that either but one of the LFS I go to has some REALLY small blue tangs that would look adorable in there. I know, I know so no lectures about the tang please, once he's grown up a bit he'll go to the 180 as I want one to go in there now but it'l be fun too watch him grow from so small. Other than that I'm not sure but I'm sure something will jump out at me once I get to that stage.

 

I'm sure I'll start making more additions here shortly as I want to start this thing going this weekend.

 

Good luck everyone.

 

October:

 

Here it is with water in finally.

 

 

November:

 

December:

 

January:

 

February:

 

etc. etc...

[Rene]

Welcome to the competition Sounds like a plumbing fiesta!

 

You might want to post your question under a seperate thread in the main contest area so the moderators are more likely to see it.

[mlb75]

OK holding my breath I'll be drilling this weekend to hopefully have water in the system by Monday. If not it'll be a mad dash to get something ginned up in acrilic. Wish me luck making cheese

[mlb75]

Well, it didn't hold up... I got 3 of the holes drilled before crack so there goes that one. I've got an acrilic one being made now that should have been done today but hopefully tomorrow. As soon as I get it I'll post new picks with measurements and a paper to prove it's new. In the mean time I've got rock and sand beginning to cycle in another tank. If anyone thinks this will knock me out of the competition please speak up.

[mlb75]

Here are a few more pic's.

 

Lighting:

 

Here are a couple things I did to make it fit better.

 

 

 

Circulation:

 

After the first tank failed and I had to go acrlic I jsut had an overflow box built into the tank and at least for now I've got the back and side returns all coming from teh sump but I may go back to the closed loop pump for the side returns.

 

Here are a couple shots of the plumbing.

 

 

 

 

Why I had to set it up.

 

 

Here it is with water in finally.