Driceftw
Community Member
I had wanted to set up a tank for my bedside viewing pleasures and originally intended to go with something simple such as a standard 10g with an aquaclear HOB. I set out on a shopping trip and came across an open box 3.7 petco special for 35 bucks and decided to go a little bit more minimalist and let's be honest.... it is a great little tank for the money. My main goal for this tank is to keep everything as stress free as possible... no testing.. no chasing numbers.. and simply go by what my eyes tell me and make necessary changes from those observations. This tank is at the bedside so at the end of the day I want to clear my mind, not look over and constantly and worry what number is what. Weekly water changes are in order and I will be manually dosing a slight amount of AFR between changes. So let the journey begin.
I knew right off the bat I would be ditching the stock filtration and quickly fashioned a removable shelf from some left over black egg crate to hold some floss in chamber one. This chamber currently holds a bag of seeded marine pure gems that I removed from my 25g peninsula and floss. Time to get this thing wet!
I decided that I didn't want to use live sand on this build and opted for some of the coarse/crushed dry aragonite. I thoroughly rinsed the aragonite and went for roughly an inch in depth.
Holy condensation and low display level batman! While the included glass lid was a nice touch and really eliminated alot of evaporation the condensation was hideous. This thing held in some heat too! Just from pumps only the pico was hovering around 82 which was not acceptable and would need to be remedied later. I was fine with the increased temperature for now, it will help BB colonize and get this little thing rolling. I definitely did not like the inherently low waterline in the display which could not be brought up without raising the level in the sump and ruining any surface skimming. I fix this later with a piece of cut acrylic glued to the rear side of the weir (it can be slightly seen in picture 1).
I got some rocks!!!! A friend of mine has a load of dry rock that is pre cycled and he graciously donated a couple pieces to the cause. He even threw in a piece that had been in his 28JBJ for 6+ years that was already covered in coraline and a couple polyps.
The above picture is after fixing the water level in the display, tank has been up and running for about a month and a half at that point. I didn't talk about lighting or the nifty bottle ATO peeking through in the picture up above either.
The stock lighting was far from ideal for my goals, but I would say it could probably keep a few softies alive. I went for a 30w Nicrew HyperReef on amazon in conjunction with their 2 channel timer (nice light for the money)! The bottle ATO attachment was also purchased from amazon and I do have to say, it looks pretty clean setup on this little tank!
I have yet to test the parameters on this tank (spoiler I still havent). I continued ghost feedings after initially dosing fritz ammonium chloride to +/- 2ppm. During cycle time I performed no water changes and blasted the tank with light, waiting for the ugly stage to hit. About a month in the brown out had arrived and I backed off the heavy ghost feeding. I continued to dose MB7 and Stability alternatively in conjunction with a load of pods and phyto bi weekly (some purple helix was also added during this time). After about a week of the brown out it started receding. I removed any residual from the glass and back wall and performed a 100 percent water change then chucked in two snails from one of my other tanks.
I monitored the pico for a couple weeks watching... waiting... anticipating the brown to return but due to the diversity it never did rear its ugly head again. The whole time during cycle there were some nuclear green palys attached to the rock that came from my friends JBJ (yea I know they can be a nuisance and Ill have to keep them at bay) and they have been thriving. I'll let this thing roll for a couple weeks and keep an eye on it before I add anything else.
My return pump has been a sicce syncra nano and I knew that I might need a little more flow. The return chamber could accommodate a much larger pump, but I'm not sure I want to blast so much from a single return in a smaller tank like this. I decided to take the stock 40 gph return the tank came with and affix a duck bill. I originally toyed with the idea of gluing rock to the modified pump to disguise it as a rock shelf but it became too bulky and would have looked a bit off as well as cause some shadowing. I may drill another hole in the center of the back wall of the sump to completely hide the pump later, but for now it can reside in the display.
Time ticked on... two month mark goes by and I feel it's time for a couple goodies. I picked out a slight mix.. a couple softies (a shroom, a zoa, a toadstool, and some gsp for the back wall), a couple acans, and two easier sticks (green birdsnest and a forest fire digi). The bags arrive.
Everything settled in fairly well, almost immediately. A week has gone by and the only thing slow to come around has been the toadstool which only seems to show pe during the rise and setting of the lighting... hes probably getting too much light. Acans are big and happy looking for food... I will oblige. PE has been great on the sticks. Birdsnest appears even fuzzier as the days go by and I have already seen noticable growth on it. Let's see what the next few weeks bring. Once I know these sticks will stay happy, I will affix their plugs to the rock work. I will keep everyone updated on their growth and any changes/additions that are made but in the meantime... enjoy a few photos of some happy corals.
I knew right off the bat I would be ditching the stock filtration and quickly fashioned a removable shelf from some left over black egg crate to hold some floss in chamber one. This chamber currently holds a bag of seeded marine pure gems that I removed from my 25g peninsula and floss. Time to get this thing wet!
I decided that I didn't want to use live sand on this build and opted for some of the coarse/crushed dry aragonite. I thoroughly rinsed the aragonite and went for roughly an inch in depth.
Holy condensation and low display level batman! While the included glass lid was a nice touch and really eliminated alot of evaporation the condensation was hideous. This thing held in some heat too! Just from pumps only the pico was hovering around 82 which was not acceptable and would need to be remedied later. I was fine with the increased temperature for now, it will help BB colonize and get this little thing rolling. I definitely did not like the inherently low waterline in the display which could not be brought up without raising the level in the sump and ruining any surface skimming. I fix this later with a piece of cut acrylic glued to the rear side of the weir (it can be slightly seen in picture 1).
I got some rocks!!!! A friend of mine has a load of dry rock that is pre cycled and he graciously donated a couple pieces to the cause. He even threw in a piece that had been in his 28JBJ for 6+ years that was already covered in coraline and a couple polyps.
The above picture is after fixing the water level in the display, tank has been up and running for about a month and a half at that point. I didn't talk about lighting or the nifty bottle ATO peeking through in the picture up above either.
The stock lighting was far from ideal for my goals, but I would say it could probably keep a few softies alive. I went for a 30w Nicrew HyperReef on amazon in conjunction with their 2 channel timer (nice light for the money)! The bottle ATO attachment was also purchased from amazon and I do have to say, it looks pretty clean setup on this little tank!
I have yet to test the parameters on this tank (spoiler I still havent). I continued ghost feedings after initially dosing fritz ammonium chloride to +/- 2ppm. During cycle time I performed no water changes and blasted the tank with light, waiting for the ugly stage to hit. About a month in the brown out had arrived and I backed off the heavy ghost feeding. I continued to dose MB7 and Stability alternatively in conjunction with a load of pods and phyto bi weekly (some purple helix was also added during this time). After about a week of the brown out it started receding. I removed any residual from the glass and back wall and performed a 100 percent water change then chucked in two snails from one of my other tanks.
I monitored the pico for a couple weeks watching... waiting... anticipating the brown to return but due to the diversity it never did rear its ugly head again. The whole time during cycle there were some nuclear green palys attached to the rock that came from my friends JBJ (yea I know they can be a nuisance and Ill have to keep them at bay) and they have been thriving. I'll let this thing roll for a couple weeks and keep an eye on it before I add anything else.
My return pump has been a sicce syncra nano and I knew that I might need a little more flow. The return chamber could accommodate a much larger pump, but I'm not sure I want to blast so much from a single return in a smaller tank like this. I decided to take the stock 40 gph return the tank came with and affix a duck bill. I originally toyed with the idea of gluing rock to the modified pump to disguise it as a rock shelf but it became too bulky and would have looked a bit off as well as cause some shadowing. I may drill another hole in the center of the back wall of the sump to completely hide the pump later, but for now it can reside in the display.
Time ticked on... two month mark goes by and I feel it's time for a couple goodies. I picked out a slight mix.. a couple softies (a shroom, a zoa, a toadstool, and some gsp for the back wall), a couple acans, and two easier sticks (green birdsnest and a forest fire digi). The bags arrive.
Everything settled in fairly well, almost immediately. A week has gone by and the only thing slow to come around has been the toadstool which only seems to show pe during the rise and setting of the lighting... hes probably getting too much light. Acans are big and happy looking for food... I will oblige. PE has been great on the sticks. Birdsnest appears even fuzzier as the days go by and I have already seen noticable growth on it. Let's see what the next few weeks bring. Once I know these sticks will stay happy, I will affix their plugs to the rock work. I will keep everyone updated on their growth and any changes/additions that are made but in the meantime... enjoy a few photos of some happy corals.
