3 Foot Office Nano

eschulist · Jan 20, 2016

MJC said:
Another drain/return question.
I see your return is lower than your drain and was wondering how you prevent back siphon? Or does the tank drain that much when the return pump is off?
Just wondering if a up and over return might be a better option for me? again less holes to drill.

The returns are low because they provide all my water flow and I want them in the best location to get the most benefit without being too high that they splash water or too low that they back siphon TOO much. That said they do back siphon a lot already and wish they were maybe a touch higher. When I kill the power manually I close a valve thats above the pump to stop the water from dropping to the lower bulkheads. If you look at the new hard plumbing setup Im thinking about doing, there is a wye check valve right before it Tees to each side. This is to stop the water from dropping when there is no power. But I also want to have a DC pump that could slowly push a small amount of water during a feed mode that would keep the pipe full of water. Either way the lose of water wouldn't be a problem.

The wye checkvalve is expensive but is important as it must be clean to function. My current sump has lots of extra water room so a checkvalve isn't required. It would make it slightly easier for myself but there isn't a lot of barb tubing valves that are reliable.

You can do over the top returns but you'd need an airhole drilled right as the returns enter the water or you'd still back siphon a lot of water. For me this setup provided the cleanest appearance, and the appearance of the tank and no visible equipment is very high on my priorities.

MJC · Jan 21, 2016

Thank you for your help and again congrats on a great tank

Jimbo662 · Jan 21, 2016

Now that you mention it two drains may be best...you never know what those pesky little snail might do!

McGee · Jan 24, 2016

Very nice, love what you did with it!

revhtree · Jan 25, 2016

More photos!

Jimbo662 · Jan 28, 2016

Where did you get the stand / cabinet?

fishroomlady · Jan 28, 2016

what a great little tank! as others have said, it's hard to believe it's only 12 gallons! may I ask what kind of angel that is, it's so pretty!

Rookie J · Jan 28, 2016

Wow. This is amazing. Great job

eschulist · Jan 28, 2016

revhtree said:
More photos!

I took my camera to work but forgot to bring it home when I left.

Jimbo662 said:
Where did you get the stand / cabinet?

I don't remember exactly where I got it. I thought it was thesimpletvstandstore.com This is the model
Elite EL-743 36" Wide Hi-Boy TV Stand

http://salestores.com/eliteindustr11.html#.VqroChgrK5M

fishroomlady said:
what a great little tank! as others have said, it's hard to believe it's only 12 gallons! may I ask what kind of angel that is, it's so pretty!

Thank you. It is a Venustus Angelfish, or sometimes called the Purple Masked Angel.

eschulist · Feb 3, 2016

Took some photography tips/settings from Chris Kriens and blasted the tank with my camera. Probably only 5% were good but if you end up with one good one thats all that matters.

Closing the aperture on my 1.4 lens to f4 and setting the speed to 1/100-400 really helped get fish and eyeballs in focus. This meant I had to really increase my ISO to 1600+ which isn't very good for a crop sensor but a little noise removal made them decent.

First shots of just coral were using an extension tube to mimic a macro lens. The fish were just using my standard 35mm

Chrisfish · Feb 3, 2016

I don't know how you get any work done, that is a beautiful tank! I could look at it all day.

revhtree · Feb 3, 2016

Amazing!

Jimbo662 · Feb 3, 2016

I'm so jealous!!! I've been looking for a stand for the Mr Aqua 22g I ordered...this weekend I came across a Fluval M90 at one of the LFSs at a good price so now I've got two empty tanks at home!

Rsandry · Feb 3, 2016

Outstanding !!!!

bryd32 · Feb 3, 2016

What is your setup? Sump etc?

Robbs Reef · Feb 3, 2016

eschulist said:
Hey Reef2Reef

I've been lurking here for a long time but never posted a build thread. I've done so on my local forum and on nano-reef. I figured people that might not visit either of those places might like to see what I've been doing too.

The build started in the spring of 2012.

The tank is a Mr Aqua 12 gallon. 36" long x 8 wide x 9 high. It is drilled 2 times on both sides. Two 1" drains with flat screens, and two 1/2" returns going straight into the tank. This provides all of my flow. I run a small 10 gallon sump with a filter sock and 75 watt neotherm heater. My main media filtration is a tiny amount of biopellets in a BRS Dual reactor. In chamber two is Rox carbon. It used to be both carbon and gfo mixed but I was over stripping nutrients by doing both the pellets and gfo. The main return pump is an Eheim 1260 that wyes to both returns.

The light was upgraded last year. For the first 2 years I used a Chinese no brand name 50 blue : 50 white on/off style LED fixture. It was really crude but worked. I had separate timers for each channel. To control how much total blue/white I was getting I covered some of the white LEDs to be a bit more blue when both were on at once. In the summer of 2014 (same year we moved office buildings) I upgraded to a different Chinese fixture called the AquaPro made by AquaSanrise. Its 36" long and has built in ramping and dimming of 4 different channels.

Old Cubicle Shot

Fairly recent cubicle shot

FTS Archive

Blue/UV only

wow amazing great work
so awsome!!!!!

eschulist · Feb 3, 2016

Chrisfish said:
I don't know how you get any work done, that is a beautiful tank! I could look at it all day.

Some days it more tank fiddling than working on my computer but its only a super boring days when I have nothing to work on. Definitely beats browsing the internet and watching random youtube videos.

Jimbo662 said:
I'm so jealous!!! I've been looking for a stand for the Mr Aqua 22g I ordered...this weekend I came across a Fluval M90 at one of the LFSs at a good price so now I've got two empty tanks at home!

Good luck with the build! There are lots of bathroom and tv cabinet thats come in 36" lengths. Just be careful as mine has a shelf in the middle that makes it hard to access the sump. Provides a nice place to put all my power strips, maintenance/testing equipment and food though.

bryd32 said:
What is your setup? Sump etc?

AquaSanrise 36" AquaPro light from China
10 gallon sump with a filter sock
Neotherm 75w heater
BRS Dual Reactor (Biopellets in one, Rox carbon in the next)
Eheim 1260 return pump
No Skimmer
No Powerheads

MT. Reefer · Feb 3, 2016

I hear a lot of folks asking about cabinets to use as stands. Problem with buying anything premade is that it usually isn't exactly what you want or need. I recently started planning a new build and took my plans over to my local cabinet maker who actually built my kitchen and bathroom cabinets for me 20 years ago. I wanted to make sure that the mid section only of my refugium would be exposed with doors on the sides to access the rest easily and that the heights and widths would be what I need. Also, I get to choose the wood and color that I want it stained. The last factor was to make sure that it would handle the weight properly. His price for building it was about the same as buying a bathroom cabinet and he's excited about doing it for me. Just a thought for those of you that are planning a new build to get what you need and not just taking what's out there.