filefish949 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 as some of you know I lost most all my SPS recently. I had no way to save them and wish I did. I have received many generous offers to help restock my tank but, after recently treating red bugs, and with fear of AFEWs I decided not to do anything until I have a hospital / quarantine tank. so here goes what i started with: 10 gallon standard tank from petsmart______________$11.00 300gph return/circulation pump___________________$free it was sitting around small piece of Plexiglas from home depot___________$2.50 silicone adhesive from home depot_________________$3.00 hose and fittings________________________________$free it was sitting around 70 watt viper from dtfleming . _____________________$100 shipped lighting timer from home depot____________________$8.50 power strip from home depot_____________________$2.50 total so far____________________________________$127.50 the first step was to cut the Plexiglas to size, I did this by scoring it with a razor and a square then snapping it along the score line then I test fit the Plexiglas this required the use of a file and sandpaper... note, a $11.00 tank is not always built square and then I marked where I wanted the return I used a unibit to drill the hole, I would recommend a hole-saw, either way I had to go slow (I cracked it my first attempt ) I found a sturdy cardboard box that I could drill into so the Plexiglas would be fully supported once the hole was drilled I did a final check for fit then measured it to center and squared it... again a $11.00 tank is not all that square once it was lined up, I siliconed the Plexiglas in and installed the light. I found that when I smooth the silicone bead in place with my finger, if i lick my finger tip it keeps the silicone from sticking to my finger that is about all I can do until the silicone is dry in 12 hours. I am leaving the light on to keep the tank warm for better silicon setting the cold weather we are having I am still looking for a few things. skimmer, heater cooling fan, autotopoff and I think I will be in business Link to comment
bamackc Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 why have the display area so small? Link to comment
ram man Posted December 2, 2007 Share Posted December 2, 2007 Im guessing so he has a fuge. SPS do need clean water so I'm guessing thats the reason. Looks nice so far filefish. Are you going to have an auto top off on this tank? Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 2, 2007 Author Share Posted December 2, 2007 yea, I am going to section off a fuge and i need room for a skimmer, heater and probes I am thinking the ASM mini-G so I need a lot of room in the sump. the main reason I am building it is for quarantining new additions to my tank as far as a ATO, I am thinking of getting an ACJr. I will write the program to dose kalkwasser to maintain pH and stop once a float switch is tripped we will see how it looks once I get some things growing in it. thanks for the encouragement Link to comment
ReeFur Posted December 2, 2007 Share Posted December 2, 2007 coming out good! LMK when i can ship your frag also have a heater and small cooling fan if you want..you pay shipping Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 2, 2007 Author Share Posted December 2, 2007 oh it will be a week or two, I am going to take some live sand and rock and water from the main tank. most my rock has zoas and shrooms and the like all over it. I want to see how that stuff does first. i still need to get a skimmer any advice about a skimmer would be most welcomed and I am prety set on a ACJr. for this tank. thanks a lot for the offer refur, I will gladly pay the freight. actualy, I do need a heater, if you still have my address, pm me the freight and I will papal you A.S.A.P. Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Share Posted December 3, 2007 OK, turns out the 300 GPH is a lot for a 5 gallon tank. I ended up notching the divider with my dremel to lower the water level in the display portion I do have good surface agitation though I probably should have waited till the water cleared up to take photos. I took water sand and rock from my existing display tank. then I added the dead skeletons of some of the corrals I recently lost in my disaster, that corral will be live-rock in a few weeks the only rock I had that would fit had this hairy mushroom on it, I hope it makes it. also I think I got 3 snails in the sand I scooped up, I am thinking of adding more sand from the display tank I am off to get a heater and i could sure use some help picking out skimmer Link to comment
AcroporaLokani Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 Nice tank, Is the acropora in your tank alive or are they just dead skeletons? Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Share Posted December 3, 2007 Nice tank, Is the acropora in your tank alive or are they just dead skeletons? no, I killed all those about 2 weeks ago. I got a Visa-Therm stealth 100 Watt heater which may be a bit much for 7 gallons of water but the tank is in the garage and it gets cold out here, and Visa-Therm has a good reputation for good thermostats I also picked up a mini carbon pouch, i have the powerhead sucking through it. it was a temporary idea but it slows down the flow to a reasonable rate. I was at 60x flow and I may keep using these Visa-Therm______________$35.00 carbon pack______________$1.50 magnetic cleaner__________$6.00 stick on thermometer______$2.00 previous total_____________$127.50 running total______________$172.00 Link to comment
TheUnfocusedOne Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 thats really really cool makes me wanna try something like that Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Share Posted December 3, 2007 good news, i came out this morning and the tank was at 78 degrees, which where I set it. good thing as we are going through a cold snap right now and last night it made it down to the mid 50's also, I found some surviving xenia on my rock which is amazing because when my display tank had it's catastrophic heavy metal poisoning, the xenia was the first to go. the water is still cloudy and I am still researching a skimmer Link to comment
IceTurf Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 good news, i came out this morning and the tank was at 78 degrees, which where I set it. good thing as we are going through a cold snap right now and last night it made it down to the mid 50's also, I found some surviving xenia on my rock which is amazing because when my display tank had it's catastrophic heavy metal poisoning, the xenia was the first to go. the water is still cloudy and I am still researching a skimmer an interesting tank Link to comment
Kirin1 Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 Very cool. Could we get a wide-angle shot of the whole setup? Link to comment
holdorf333 Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 Good to see you starting again. Sux about the other one though... Link to comment
dtfleming Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Heres a decent new skimmer Link Link to comment
Sushi Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 once it clears up i'm sure it'll look nice. keep us updated when you get some corals! Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 Very cool. Could we get a wide-angle shot of the whole setup? ask and you shall receive. I looked at that PS-PC-PSNANO, freaking cool, it is definitely in the running must I need to know that it will work well. have you used it. I was looking at an ASM mini-g or something in the range of way too much overkill, it occurred to me that if I lost power to a big skimmer, it may overflow my tank things I need: a starter tort frag to test with a skimmer ATO is on it's way photo of the day: Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Looks cool. Wish I had a way to help you out on restocking, but the only sps I have is orange monti cap, blue polyp purple monti cap, and a stressed green polyp acro. You're headed in a good direction, keep it up. Link to comment
dtfleming Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Here's a link about the skimmer LInk Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 Here's a link about the skimmer LInk I am going to be keeping SPS in this tank, I am going to give it a shot... but I HATE microbubbles Link to comment
dtfleming Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Microbubbles at first, but after break in and some fine tuning, it stopped. Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 OK, next project, pico fuge I will probably build a deeper one for the other side and use this one for GAC and GFO but I like the concept, it uses main lighting source for the chato. the first step was to cut the lip so it would work as a HOB once it snapped in to place i progressively added slots in the back until I got the level I wanted. I ended up with this and finally, here is a small ball of chato happy in it's nano fuge Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 5, 2007 Author Share Posted December 5, 2007 Heres a decent new skimmer Link I just tryed to order one online but the websit took a digger right when I clicked confirm... I will give then a call in the morning... also had a great price on a ACJr. with serial port... $10 less than MD some stuff was more Link to comment
filefish949 Posted December 5, 2007 Author Share Posted December 5, 2007 just ordered the skimmer on the phone, it should be here tomorrow... also got an ACJr. for the nano. I am going to be topping off with kalkwasser and want the ATO to shut off if pH passes 8.25, when you add up the ATO control, pH monitoring, lighting timer, 2 stage temp control, and wave timer... the ACJr. @ $270 is just cheaper also I had a few acropora digitifera frags laying around so I popped this one in Link to comment
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