Project Defiance, a tale of two 6 gallon cubes

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Introduction:

 

The shifting winds and changing of leadership at where I work (we'll keep anonymity here) offered some anxiety in me. I wasn't sure what to make of the new leadership and even the new manager that will be solely responsible for how my workplace will live and breathe. At first glance, I learned of my new corporate leader through second-hand interactions. My supervisor and leaders passed along what they saw and heard. Let's just say, they're the kind of by the book, no if ands or buts, and take no prisoner approach, so I felt I had to navigate around a large personality. My previous leader said she was good. Well, said person didn't read people well...which led to some of the dysfunction I have at work. It's pretty ass when you literally hire anyone everyone... Anyway, I thought the sun would set on my vision for my own fish department. They already told me to toss a 10 gallon hospital aquarium. (Laughs in bucket transfer method)

 

I digress. A stroke of luck happened. One of the stocking people came up with an abandoned cabinet that a cat rescue used to have. It was just here in the store. The cat rescue folded due to the pandemic, so lonely furniture was offered to me. I immediately saw a golden opportunity. I asked my current store leader about creating this concept. With a yes, it's full steam ahead. This is why you sometimes leave your aquarium equipment in the trunk of your car.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and every being in between. This is Project Defiance, a two part concept.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

I.

 

What is Project Defiance? Defiance is my ostentatious middle finger to the power systems above my head. This is birthed from a singular desire to make a bold investment in my work, some skin in this game. Project Defiance is actually two aquariums of similar builds but different styles. One aquarium will be a dedicated freshwater shrimp tank. The other is basically a big flex on my competitors, naysayers, and indifferents I've come across. A true fish shop will have its display, right? Why can't my department in a generalized store do the same?

 

The first part will be assembled in rather rapid fashion. At this point, freshwater aquariums could be printed from my hands. This particular aquarium will actually carry some significant use for my work place. For some odd reason, I've struggled in keep invertebrates alive in the main commercial system. It was not until I got approval to move those snails and shrimp to a standalone system, where we keep our aquarium plants. After a two and half week test, it was successful. However, it proved to be somewhat of a logistical nightmare. Co-workers and clients were amiss of "where's you snails?" Normally people would just blaze right through my department and not carefully looking around. I guess that's Americans people for you. Well this rather large 60 gallon system with a 20-30 gallon sump couldn't be the final stop. I didn't think so. I tried those temporary critter keepers to wrangle in the shrimp and snails. It was fine, but the work got a little tedious. I wanted a separate dedicated system where I can at least have to small cherry and Amano shrimps away from disturbances. Also, I wanted their beauty to be revealed and out in the open. The purpose being twofold a module to sell and to vainly display. Not to mention a vehicle to show that most equipment is accessible.

 

Build list:

• Aqueon 6 gallon frameless cube
  • I bought some acrylic kid paint at Michaels. I'll be painting the background black.
• Aqueon Internal 20 Shrimp filter
  • Flow will be restricted through heavy use of poly-fill and biological media
• (I'm still debating on a heater as these ornamental shrimp can handle cooler water)
• MingDak progammable LED
  • I'll have this at lower setting to curtail algae growth
• 5lb bag of Aqueon Shrimp substrate
• 6" piece of Mopani wood I own from long while ago
• I need to scavenge for some java moss. I'll probably get some off eBay later.

 

Livestock:

• At least 12 cherry shrimp
• At least 6 Amanos
• One Nerite (not for sale), the vanguard of the tank.

 

Maintenance:

• Not much...less than weekly feedings...monthly(?) water changes

 

No ferts, No CO2. I have bio-media cooking in my personal systems at home.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

II.

 

The second part is something I've been craving to do for a while. At least I thought about making it into an upside-down jelly tank, but I wouldn't be able to afford the space and I didn't feel too inclined to visit a Home Depot during a pandemic. This aquarium has been roosting in the trunk of my car a while. It was supposed to have it's dry sand and dry rock and of course all those necessary parts were in my car. However, needs had to be met. The spare Aquaclear 70 had a crack in the housing and the pump was really loud...so it went to a dumpster. The dry rock I sold because I need some quick cash. I have left is a 10 pound bag of CaribSea Aragonite.

 

Build list:

• Aqueon 6 gallon frameless cube
  • Paint that background black!
• Aqueon Quietflow 10 Internal filter
  • May not actually carry anything...
• Enough aragonite to create a .25"-5" depth
• (Heater optional...I've read waters can get as low as 16.4°C)
• Nicrew 30W LED (the gooseneck one)
  • Low intensity blue settings, marginal white

Livestock:

• One decently sized elegance coral
• Maybe two hermit crabs?

Maintenance:

• 100% water changes. Water will be generated from home RODI.

Now, you might ask, "but you're a biotope junkie, what does this even accomplish?" I teased months ago in my main journal here that another box of water was coming, but I snidely wrote it in hiragana so it would be overlooked. We're going even more northward to mainland Japan. This sub project if you will has it's own name. Kushimoto-zero. It is named after the marine park on the Kii Peninsula and also one of the more northern latitudes of Japanese reefs. (Tsushima being about as far as you can go). We'll call this KZ for short. The distinction about KZ is that there's a solitary occurrence of Catalaphyllia jardinei separate from it's Philippine and Austronesia counterparts. I'm not fully certain how it came to be, but it's a neat little blip on the zoological radar. We find these elegance corals in the deeper reefs in pretty conspicuous and maybe solitary colonies. So imagine a patch of sand, gravel, or rubble...and you happen upon a fluffy mass of coral. Yep, that's the look.

 

This would be the system I can't argue my way out. I know definitely my superiors would abhor seeing it. Fortunately, everything here is out of my credit card. 2% cash back here I come. There's more rules to break however. If anyone reads the content from ReefBuilders, you might have chanced upon a series of tanks called EcoReefs. This is basically a copycat version. In fact, I'm reproducing mostly what EcoReef Zero will be. However I'll be adding a little bit to it. I'm a little nervous, but I'm going to have fun with this.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

It's been about a month so I should share my progress.

 

Part one has been a hit right off the bat. I had some biomedia seeding in the sump where my feeder goldfish reside so after a 2+ week cure it was probably carrying something. Pretty simple build and not much to say about it. The wrinkle I added was I put in pots of ribbon plant for actual NO3 uptake however much it'll do. My previous manager donated some java moss clippings so there's a layer of munchies for the shrimp to feed on. I only fed this system once with a homemade frozen paste. I did randomly add a couple shrimp pellets inside the filter to ghost feed bacteria. Before adding any shrimp from a shipment I added a capful of Fluval Cycle.

 

During this entire time my customers have been enamored by the raw simplicity of the shrimp tank. In fact, it can't be a shrimp tank since...they're being sold out too fast to be displayed. I guess I need to order more that I expected.

 

Anyway, pictures.

 

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Couple days later I got the light from Amazon and decided to go for a fill up.

.

This silly decal is an attempt to implicitly tell my superiors that this does have a store function and should be kept to its purposes...not broken down.

Exciting isn't it?

 

Hard lesson: rinse your aragonite.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

 

One day it'll be all pretty. No water changes yet since I haven't sensed to need for it. I snoozed hard on an elegance colony that was being sold on eBay in Stafford, VA. I could have gone to get it but I didn't want to ride in the weather we had recently. On the day I wanted to buy it...someone else did. UGH! I guess this whole time it gives the SW cube a chance to really cycle through. I didn't realize how large blue knuckle crabs were so instead I have gone with 3 red leg cortez crabs.

 

This may be the last post of the series as my district general manager, a corporate position, is visiting the store on Tuesday. I have a feeling she'll want me to break these puppies down without any level of discussion. She gives me those kind of vibes, so I have an awful feeling mostly because me or the customers won't have something fun to look at. I guess it's a good thing I didn't buy an elegance coral yet because I may have run into an orphanage situation. I'm not sure what the future holds but I'm hoping she will be okay with all this. Petco likes to run things in a certain way, but I'm always throwing curveballs and flying off the rails whenever I get the chance.

 

Pray for your boy.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Still in limbo. Apparently our corporate manager is rescheduling for another day... I love my leadership.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

So basically said #### it and decided to not waffle around. Thank you eBay.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Turns out my district manager didn't really notice, but liked the concept. Project Defiance is here to stay. She liked the shrimp tank as a talking and selling point to people.

 

We finally closed out the nitrite part of the cycle about a couple weeks ago. I think it was late March I finally hit zero after having some amount. It took a lot of <100% water changes and a couple bottles of bacteria. I think what accelerated the process was introducing a Quietflow 20 Internal and stuffing it with sponge and "c-nodes" from a Fluval C4.

 

There's plenty of flow now with the 120ish gph from the filter box and about 100 from the Aquaclear 10 pump, so our elegance colony is getting pretty big.

 

Not much care beside cleaning the glass as needed, 100% water changes, and weekly feed. The feeds are a homemade frozen food and it's suspended with the Red Sea amino acid thing.

 

A future idea is to make the tank also serve a store function. I may get a frag rack for it and put down some SPS. Of course I'll increase the intensity from 15% to maybe 20% or more.