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Cultivated Reef

2.5G Pico Contest! Team Jank!


Lingwendil

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Hoo boy, it's been a while, hasn't it? My first successful reef was in a 2.5G AGA way back in November of 2004, and here we come full circle back to one. Paid already, picking up tonight on the way home from work. 10% off if you reserve online 🙂

 

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Plan so far is simple, but I haven't nailed anything down for equipment yet. I may go full retard on a fancy DIY LED light, with a simple sponge filter for the lulz. Who knows 🙂

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Lingwendil said:

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Got it home, temporarily next to the shrimp 2.5. Time to start collecting equipment.

WOOT! Officially GO time!

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Thanks my man! Hard to believe I've been on this forum for fifteen years! I joined my senior year of high school!

 

For reference, this is the sister tank to the contest tank.

 

IMG_20190326_170130.thumb.jpg.bee0c572eb6de2ae06f3e39d761c028f.jpg IMG_20190317_155722.thumb.jpg.ae3caa068c47aaacaebc39d00bd83864.jpgIMG_20190317_153218.thumb.jpg.f3abe9f4b76edfc3fd783aa97c2dc316.jpg IMG_20190310_152128.thumb.jpg.464b70eb60979cbf06682780ea97eafc.jpgIMG_20190310_152120.thumb.jpg.fed7e3a4f8e0d850bbf37c01df69f81b.jpgIMG_20190310_152113.thumb.jpg.a7e3740c60c8f91931cc46f4183a5617.jpg

 

All natural light, no algae issues!

 

It currently houses half a dozen cherry shrimp, a pair of Dario dario, a mess of ramshorn snails, and five Heterandria formosa fry that I pull from my other planted setup as I find them. I'm thinking planted/reef sister tanks will be neat :)

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Yeah, something similar is probably what I'll go with long term with a much smaller pump on one of the narrow sides of the tank, to go for a mini-gyre sort of effect.

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Oh boy! As I lay in bed, contemplating existence, cuddling my woman, and turning on educational shows for my son (he's almost three) I got the notification from amaon that my package was just a few stops away. Once it arrived, I immediately sprung to action (not a second before, mind you, it's my day off after all)

 

Current state of affairs, with MJ water polishing setup. I used 20% or so live sand from my 20 long, mixed with dry (Tropic Eden Tonga miniflakes)sand. I wanted circulation and a way to pull out any leftover particles that didn't wash out. (Also pictured, my son's nutella snack pack)

 

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box is nearly the size of the tank:

 

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By now you should have started prepping for bacon-

 

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Grab a nearby sharp object, as a staunch second amendment supporter I found an East German AK bayonet was the handiest knife available. You can use a bayonet or knife from any country you like.

 

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It made easy work of the box-

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Which contained two products I'd never used before... I thought size wise these would be a good fit.

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So, I decided to go with the Azoo filter for several reasons, primarily due to cost, and the smaller uptake tube that will be easier to hide. I also have plans for supplemental flow, so the reduced flow over the aquaclear filters was a non issue. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of the aquaclear setups for small tanks. I find the flow is hard to diffuse in a satisfactory manner, and then you end up adding an additional pump anyway. 

This nice thing about this Azoo filter, is that unlike the "palm" model (now called the 60) is that it has actual slots for media to slide in. This is the primary advantage of the 150 in my opinion. I have plans to make a rack for filter pad instead of the included cartridge.

 

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while I didn't even think of it until now, the heater I chose fits inside nicely too :)

 

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13 minutes ago, Lingwendil said:

So, I decided to go with the Azoo filter for several reasons, primarily due to cost, and the smaller uptake tube that will be easier to hide. I also have plans for supplemental flow, so the reduced flow over the aquaclear filters was a non issue. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of the aquaclear setups for small tanks. I find the flow is hard to diffuse in a satisfactory manner, and then you end up adding an additional pump anyway. 

This nice thing about this Azoo filter, is that unlike the "palm" model (now called the 60) is that it has actual slots for media to slide in. This is the primary advantage of the 150 in my opinion. I have plans to make a rack for filter pad instead of the included cartridge.

 

IMG_20190331_094535.thumb.jpg.0b310b9ff88259e0ed96aca7b8bfbd72.jpgIMG_20190331_094415.thumb.jpg.3fda06de8302c440b293e912f300a9f3.jpg

 

while I didn't even think of it until now, the heater I chose fits inside nicely too 🙂

 

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Yeah that heater is prime size for that azoo 150!!

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large.IMG_20190331_094915.jpg.88abca6c266724e96f5887e4eab1aac9.jpglarge.IMG_20190331_094727.jpg.67d866788c84c410f5c8fd424115985f.jpg

 

Closes up nicely and has a leveling foot too :)

 

installed it has very small impact on the tank as far as intrusive looks. Perfect fit. Very happy with $23 invested for equipment.

 

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large.IMG_20190331_135055.jpg.b318d3645ba5d73ee0ecfbcd839980a9.jpglarge.IMG_20190331_135051.jpg.7f76eb42b2c3fbf32b04042970499413.jpg

 

Grabbed a couple pounds of rock, not enough time to arrange it yet, so it's just set in there for now. It's getting there...

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49 minutes ago, Lingwendil said:

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Grabbed a couple pounds of rock, not enough time to arrange it yet, so it's just set in there for now. It's getting there...

Nice! I on;y have boulders compared to those rocks! I gotta get the hammer and chisel out 😞

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Experimenting with the lighting setup- Using one of my custom-loadout BlueAcro pucks, I like it! Going to throw a diffuser of some sort on the fixture's splash shield to reduce the color separation, and the rest of the lighting setup is currently a secret :ninja:

 

LED count- 1 channel of 3x Royal Blue, 1x420nm Violet, with an added Royal Blue, one channel of 1x Royal Blue, 1x Mint, 1x 90CRI 5700k cool white, 1x Cool Blue, with an added Cyan, all driven at 300mA. 

 

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This pic shows off some of the hitchhiker Zoas, and is a very accurate representation of the actual color of the lighting. 

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Playing with backdrop colors- this is purple construction paper. Likely using either this or a dark navy blue. It looks much better in person! The light spill throws the camera off.large.IMG_20190401_183906.jpg.705c2e8e08791f7ddbdeec484708455e.jpg

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