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.6 gallon LED-powered Acro forest


varanus37

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Glad to hear it. That 9.5 looks sick. One of your pics made me think of a different way to go on the back wall. Maybe a monti or two to encrust on one side and maybe a cyphastrea on the other? Could be kewl.

 

Bill

 

 

thx. :D

 

 

and I'd go w/ the monti's, as cyphastrea's grow hella slow.... (like 3/4" a year)

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Thanx Weet.

 

Yes, the sump/fuge tank will be just a bit under 10x the size of the display. Odd, I know.

 

 

Good call on the cyphastrea growing crazy slow. Really though with the tank being this small I could still roll one or two montis and then place a cyphastrea for good measure. If the montis grow to cover then I still get what I want and I'll also have a nook or corner with a nice cyphastrea in it. 3/4-1" a year wouldn't be too bad for this little tank. 3 years or so and I'd have a nice cyphastrea half-wall.

 

Bill

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I have this exact tank sitting behind me right now. I was going to put a beta in there but now... I need to gin up a way to have the sump under the tank as a part of the stand... I see the drain but what about the return?

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I always wanted to do a zero edge with that tank.

 

Unfortunately I took down my little 0.5G 0-edge FW pico < ... :tears: ... It had a couple of design issues that made it rather high maintenance. Also my wife kept freaking out & unplugging everything when the ATO air pump starting going ... I have to admit the ATO air pump was pretty loud! } :eek: {

 

Bill, I like your idea of running a fuge 10X the size of the display. I'm really looking forward to more updates.

 

-Rick

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I've added what I think are the last of the shells.

With the dining room lights.

DSC_0295.jpg

 

CSC_0296.jpg

 

With the LED's.

CSC_0297.jpg

 

Milana showing my wife Teresa where she helped.

DSC_0293.jpg

 

The front pane is still grubby and I need to clean things up but I wanted to get pics up of the wall so there you have it.

 

My return is fairly shabby looking but kinda neat IMO. You know the angled nozzle heads that fit on the end of pumps? I wanted to cut a slot in the side of the tank that would match that nozzle and have the water coming in from there. So really you'd never see anything in the tank but coral, no plumbing at all. I may still make the cuts, I just haven't decided if I'm brave enough to screw it up. Right now I've got the nozzle angled so that it lays across the top of the shells and points down into the tank. I haven't permanently placed it there but I set things up to check the fit and it sits how I intended. I'd really like to make the cuts though and have it so you can't see anything. An idea along those lines was to make my own stand that enclosed the tank more and hide the return line in there leading to the wall of the tank and the cut opening to the nozzle. That way you wouldn't see anything looking through the front pane or just passing by the tank.. That view through the front pane is really my concern here. I want to take pics through the front pane and be able to see what I see in my head now. If you look above the tank and around it and see equipment I don't really care, it would just be nice to pull it off all sleek. If not, oh well.

 

Hope some of that made sense.

 

Bill

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So the epoxy held just fine and all of the shells are still in place and look good this morning. Planning to do a WC on the 75 after work tonight or first thing tomorrow morning and may get some water going in here as well. Need to get the panes cleaned up and scrape some epoxy here and there first.

 

Bill

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Ugh, got off work way too late for a WC or anything but Nyquil and a hot shower. I think there's a brick growing inside my face.

 

1000+ views though so thanks for checking out the thread all.

 

Bill

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spankyleatherlips

Great job on the shells Milana :happy:

I have enjoyed this thread. Keep up the good work and best of luck.

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Absolutely. Coral have certain needs depending on their species and so long as you meet their needs they'll live here just like anywhere else. Water quality, temp, light source, etc. All I'm doing is making it harder for myself to maintain those stable levels really, haha. I'm doing this tank for the neat factor but also for the personal challenge.

 

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I think I know how I'm going to set the tank up. We have a bookshelf in our dining room that has been in disarray since we moved and I think the tank is going in there. My other idea was in one of my entertainment center cubbies but they're too short to accomodate the lights. The bookshelf has the moveable shelves so fitting things up shouldn't be too difficult. I mocked it up and things look alright. I'll get some pics up when I drill for the plumbing to come through the shelf.

 

Bill

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Looking good!

 

Glad to see I am not the only one using this betta tank as a reef tank.....

 

You can check out my thread I just started on mine... you are a bit further on yours so far though....

 

Best of luck... keep it up....

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I think it's a great tank for it. It was cheap and it has nice dimensions for what I want to do. Best of luck with yours.

 

Bill

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This has some amazing potential. Makes me want to plumb a tiny little tank to my 24g!

 

I really hope it works out to be an awesome little SPS forest, that would be really cool.

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Thank you both. Since you mentioned plumbing a tiny tank to your larger one it sparked a memory. Over on RC there was a guy with a monster reef and he had a little cube over the top of his fuge/sump. I would imagine bigger than mine but same idea. He used a small pump and ran water up to this thing and I think had just a little pvc return like I have. He kept his sun coral and stuff in there. That way it's all contained and separate and you can feed it all you want. I thought it was a pretty neat idea. If you did shelves beneath your tank you could put windows in your stand and show off smaller specific critters. Sun coral is one idea and I thought about a mantis shrimp being another. That way you can have your sweet reef and some things that don't always go well in that sweet reef.

 

Bill

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Hey, 2000 views! Thanks for tagging along everyone. My little blurb in my last post about keeping little tanks below your display may have given me an interesting idea.

 

Bill

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  • 1 month later...

If you're anywhere near the south side of Chicago you are invited to the-store-formerly-known-as Go Fish in Orland Park. The Joliet Area Reef Club is having a membership drive! We'd love to see you all out there. I'll be there around 6 PM tonight along with a good chunk of the rest of the club. If you want to come out earlier in the day and check out the store feel free. It's a great place...birds, reptiles and reef all in one shot. Hope you can all come!

 

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you.

 

Sorry about the lack of updates. Our 3rd baby, and 1st boy, is due any day now so reefing is sort of on autopilot right now. Just maintenance on the main tanks and this project is chilling out. I should have 2 solid weeks off for the holidays and baby leave so the plan is to work on this tank more during that time.

 

Thanks for tagging along.

 

Bill

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Congrats... I am looking forward to some updates on it... I will be updating mine soon also....

 

Good luck with the newborn and the tank both ;)

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