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Since I know that I will be moving my rock work and coral into a 5.5 gallon AGA aquarium after the contest, I decided to show the diy aio build in this thread.  It truly will be a shrimp chalet for my feeder shrimp.

 

Today I siliconed the partitions in for a pump and media chambers.  Honestly I am a disaster with silicon.  My diy sumps have been so messy in the past.  Although not perfect this was my best effort to date.

20180109_104222

 

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I hope to grow gsp on the false back wall anyway so the fact that the silicon isn't perfect should not matter.

 

In the good news column is there was a sighting of Cheerleader this morning, or at least his legs. ?  I have not seen anything of him for about 2 weeks and although I know that is common, one still begins to wonder if he is ok. It was good to get a confirmation.

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So I have some sad news from the reef jar this morning...I found Cheerleader, the pom pom crab stuck to the pump intake ?.  RIP little guy.  My guess would be he did not get enough to eat in his hole that he chose but who knows.

Other than that the reef jar is doing well.  The orange monti is definitely growing and reclaiming the skeleton that died.  Killer frogspawn seems contained at least for now. All the acans and blastos have hungry feeding tentacles out most of the time.  Since I moved the light up higher, the tiny mushroom opened back up.  In general, things look good.

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I did a water test on the 5.5 and it does not leak behind the false back.  I ran the pump and now I am wondering if I should have planned for a bigger pump?  Although I don't want to blast the feeder shrimp all over the tank ?. I can drill a small hole in the false wall for airline tubing for surface agitation up through the coco worm tube.  That will be good for the coral and the shrimp.

 

Speaking of the coco worm tube... I moved the gsp up on it right near the water line.  I got worried that I would not be able to control it near the bottom.  It is pretty much contained on the coco worm tube because I have the purple sythetic sponge growing where the tube connects to the rock.  The gsp likes its new spot and looks great there.

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7 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Sorry about cheerleader. I think when you tell us how some thing looks great you need to show us. Please 

You are right, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  You decide for yourself.

2018-01-15_05-25-19

 

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2018-01-15_05-27-48

This is not as pretty of a view as the top down, (this is kind of a worm's eye view) but it shows how the gsp wraps all the way around the coco worm tube.

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Here is a video to give you a little taste of what the feeder shrimp chalet will look like after the contest.  I am kind of proud of myself for just guessing on how big to make the chambers, and how deep and how many teeth so that the pump gphs would not overflow the display part of the tank.  I am going to use the dremel to just make the teeth of the overflow a tiny bit deeper so the display portion does not run quite as high.

 

The shrimp will have plenty of room so that I can scoop them up without knocking coral off.  All in all this will really suit my purpose and should look good to boot!

 

A pic after the jar was scrubbed and the coral and rock returned into it.

Jan 16th after cleaning

 

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1 hour ago, Lula_Mae said:

That frogspawn looks like it's plotting its escape! :lol:

? I know, it is such a problem child.  I adore frogspawn however so I am going to make this work, even if it turns out to be a specie specific reef jar!  

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I hear everyone talking about the magnification and distortion of the glass with their jar reefs and how challenging it is to get good pics.  I too have noticed that but in some places it is actually an advantage as it makes things more easily seen.  I have been thinking on that and a thought came to me...

 

I wonder how this 3 gallon jar would be for a dwarf seahorse tank?  The fact that it magnifies might actually make the minature sized ponies more viewable, at least when they are in the right places.  That could be encouraged by placing the best hitching posts in those areas.  3 gallons is a good size for a small herd of 8-15.  

 

Just for fun I epoxied some of my dry rock together so that it could surround a diy filter sponge.  I learned my lesson with the reef jar for this contest, so my rockwork is only half the size so that the jar can be more easily cleaned.  Right now the epoxied rockwork is in my 30 gallon tank that I always have up and cycled in case of an emergency.

 

I am not committing to start a dwarf seahorse jar yet.  I am very interested in (@pj86) unique feeding station for dwarf seahorses.  That could definitely be what would help me commit.  The rigors of daily hatching bbs and enriching is what has kept me from moving to dwarfs thus far.  Anyway, its really fun to think about!?

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2 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

isn't the grand prize for this contest the new PJreefs dwarf seahorse tank?

It is one of the 3 prizes!  I would never assume that I could win it, but I would love to see how whoever does win it makes out.

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Today my local reef club meets at a lfs.  I hope to look for 1 or 2 more nice frags for the pico and a bumble bee shrimp.  If I don't see a bumble bee shrimp I will consider a different invert.  I already ordered a new rio+ 200 for the 5.5 and I will be getting it wet this weekend with some LR, so that I can place an order of feeder shrimp.  Of course it will not have a light or any coral in it.

 

I also hope to buy 2 or 3 more large peppermint shrimp for the seahorse tank.  The (2) I have are doing an excellant job of keeping trapped mysis cleaned up.  I used to have trouble with peppermints getting into the ponies' food bowl and eating their food, but that has not been a problem since the food bowl is now up high on the side glass of the tank.

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I looked and considered every shrimp the lfs had but none were really right for the reef jar, especially for cheap.  I did not want to spend $30 for an invert.  In the end I came home with a red fiddler crab for $6.99.  Maybe I should rename the jar the crab chalet?  Dave said his name is Fiddlesticks!

Meet Fiddlesticks!

Here he is temperature acclimating.

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