564's bed side nano

[Davies564]

So I have lurked on nano reef for quite some time now, mostly to gather ideas and learn a little more about aquariums. I am an engineering student so I love tinkering with stuff. I wanted this little nano to have all of the equipment a normal tank would have but scaled down and that actually worked. So I designed and copied some stuff and this is what I got. It's a 7.5 gallon mr aqua cube that is on my dresser next to my tv.

 

 

The tank consist of 

- 7.5 mr. Aqua low iron cube

- ac70 fuge 

- jäger heater

-hydor 240 nano

- DIY led fixture

- DIY ato

- DIY gfo/ carbon reactor

- DIY protein skimmer

- DIY overflow with media rack

 

The tank has been running for 4 months now and has been doing awesome. I had a 4 gallon Nuvo setup for a little while but it was filling up too fast so thats what sort of pushed me into this tank. I wanted to keep it small yet big enough to at least have one fish. 

 

 

Live stock 

- little tank bred clown

- Pom Pom crab

-  Cleaner shrimp ( kinda annoying in a little tank tho)

- cuc

 

Coral wise the tank has a little bit of everything. I really like Z's and P's but mixed reef tanks are the best. The sps growth in this little tank has been better then expected and surprisingly everything else has been growing super fast as well.

 

 Coral live stock 

- purple stylo

- blue berry fields acro

- green birdsnest 

- green acro

- some acro I bought bleached out but is coloring up nicely 

- purple torch

- green torch 

- duncan

- red blasto 

- neon green leather

- orange and green acan echinata

- GAW chalice

- rics

 

Z 's and P's

- rasta 

- red hornets 

- purple hornets

- wow

- lake placid

- utter kaos

- sunny d

- scarface

- black magic

- blondies

- ring of fire 

- magicians

-panama blues 

- orange bang

- other random ones

 

I wanted to start this thread not only to show off my tank but to help give ideas to other members. I know I spent allot of time combing threw this website, when I decide to set up this little tank. So if I can help somebody similarly to how I was helped that would be rewarding. This tank has been a great little set up. The only thing I would have done differently is the fake sand bed. It is kind of a love/hate relationship though, it is easy to clean, no sand storms and no weird algae blooms but what bugs me is it no longer has that nice white pop to it.

 

Unfortunately, I can not get a decent picture of the tank to save my life but here are some from my phone. If you guys or girls have any questions about my set up just ask away. I have many other aqurium projects going on now too, so I'll probly  post some pictures of that stuff as well as updates of this nano in the future.

 

 

 

 

[nano_tank]

Please show us more detail on your DIY Skimmer! Quite interested for such a small setup, does it skim well?

[GalaThoun]

nice job. the 7.5g is gonna be my next project hopefully.

[Davies564]

The skimmer is super simple and works very good. The skimmer plan is not really mind but it's a fairly popular design I think. It's just an acrylic 2.5 inch tube with 45 degree cuts on the top and bottom. The top cut is cover with Acylic. At the top of the skimmer I drilled a hole and glued on a little acrylic tube so that I could attach flexible tubing to carry the skimate to a container. Then it's just a wooden air stone at the bottom of the chamber that makes bubble, the bubble catch all the crap in the water and carry the crap up and out the hole to the container.I have had the skimmer on since day one and once the skimmer broke in it has pulled a consistent 25 cc of skimate a week allot more if I skim wet. I use a gen x air pump so coarse adjustment can be made easily and fine ones can be made by adjusting the height of the skimmer. The skimmer works well enough that I feel in about a year once all the soft corals have filled in the rocks and the tank has matured, I could dose vodka to get the sps to really take off and color up.

 

 

All dirtied up needs to be cleaned.

 

 

Dry

 

 

Wet

 

 

Thanks GalaThoun

[gabe3eb]

Looking really sharp man. Second FTS is leaps and bounds better than the initial .

[Davies564]

Thanks gabe3eb. I agree the first fts is not that rad it's not even the one I wanted to add but uploading everything on an iPad is kinda tricky and I'm way to lazy to switch it. The lighting of the tank makes taking picture border line impossible any suggestion to get better pics?

[mad28gnc]

Look like now you no longer need the tv.

[Davies564]

Yeah I definatly turn the tv on less after adding this tank.

[mad28gnc]

How did did you like how your 7.5 came when you got it? I saw some not too good reviews before I bought mine..... But I couldn't be happier with it!

[Davies564]

The tank came built perfectly.

[funkehouse]

can you show your ATO? i dont see it in any pics, im always interested to see how people set up an ATO when there is no Sump. I need to get one, but am afraid of snails and i dont want something that is so huge it takes up half the tank either.... so any info you can provide is awesome !

[Spirofucci]

That's such a nice set up! I like all those DIY things in there, great job!

[Davies564]

I put an overflow wall in the tank so this made it easier to hook up an ato. The wall worked out awesome though it surface skims, acts as a place to hide the heater and there is a chamber that the water level changes in. The ato is just a float switch and a 12 volt relay hooked up to an aqua lifter. It has never messed up yet. Here's a picture of the ato and the reactor.

 

 

 

Covered with filter floss to protect from snails and polish the water up.

 

 

Here is the reactor

 

[cactuspat]

Can u give some details about your reactor and how it is fed

[Davies564]

The reactor I made with 2" thin walled arylic tube and glued a base piece of 1/4" arylic . The lid is a number 11 chem stopper, I punched holes through the stopper and fed airline into the stopper. Inside the reactor I have a piece of rigid air line to the bottom of the reactor on the intake side and on the exhaust side the air line is flush with the bottom of the stopper. I made sponge disks to hold the media. It is built exactly like a normal reactor except it is about 1/3 the size. It is fed totally by gravity, the pick up is in the ac70 and the exhaust is into the over flow wall. The height difference is about 3.5 inches from the ac70 to the water level in the overflow so I get considerable flow. Once the reactor is all ready to go i put a syringe in the end of the hose and pull out the air and the siphon starts. I have made some with bigger tubing but they flow to much for such a little reactor. I have ran gfo, carbon, and purigen all perfectly in this little reactor and it is a plus that it doesn't need an extra pump. I am planning on modifying one slightly to use as a Kalk reactor.

[Davies564]

Couple days ago I re did the wiring on my tank it looks soo much safer now. Lol

 

 

Here is a pic of the Pom Pom crab I hardly ever see him.

 

 

And here is a teaser of the frag room my brother and I have been working on.