Eden’s Eshopps Deskmate

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Hi there! A few weeks ago my 4 year old decided she wanted to turn my scratched up, secondhand Eshopps Deskmate into “her” tank. It was just being ran as temporary housing for two 3 stripe damsels from a tank breakdown I did back in June, with some macro algae. I gave away the damsels and macros, and purchased a yellow watchman goby and tiger pistol shrimp for her, which she respectably named them Lollipop and Building lol. I also started collecting coral in the colors she wanted for the tank: pink, purple, and yellow. Her 3 favorite colors.

Right around that time, I also happened to win a $250 gift card to Premium Aquatics on here which worked out perfectly. I was able to buy a brand new Deskmate that we can actually see through, and transfer everything over from the old one.

The new Deskmate was delivered last week, in the rain. Everything was in working order though!

I had to wait until this past Tuesday to do the transfer, as my daughter wanted to help be a part of it. Everything went as smooth as it could, transferring such a small tank with the “help” of a 4 year old.

Equipment: I have a 3D printed filter floss cup instead of the sock it comes with. Currently using the stock return pump, although it’s very loud compared to the used aftermarket one the old Deskmate came with. Heater is just a 50w preset one. Light is currently a Kessil a80 Tuna Blue. I’m working on trading it for an AI Prime 16 HD though, to match the other 2 and Hydra 64 HD on my other 2 tanks. Having all 3 tanks on one app and the same lighting would just simplify things and make moving coral from tank to tank easier.

Now that everything has settled in, things look SO much better not looking through years of scratched up acrylic. A few coral are already in here. She stole the kryptonite candy cane from my 40b lol. I also bought a pink stylo for her with some of the $250 gift card I won to Corals.com the week before the other gift card. I traded a local reefer for some coral and he gave me a rock with some Superman discos for free as well.

I’m waiting for the pink zoas I picked up to grow out a bit so that I can frag them and put frags of roughly the same amount in at the same time. Not sure of the first ones, but also grabbed pink zippers and pink diamonds from local reefers

I also picked up a few heads of pink and yellow/gold hammers for her that I traded for. Since they were freshly cut, I wanted to let them heal a bit in my 40b and also move them over after the tank transfer, to reduce stress. They will be added in sometime this weekend on the flat spots to the left of the stylo.

I’m working on trading for some purple monster zoas, and hopefully some golden kiwi zoas soon. Does anyone have any suggestions on other easier to care for coral I could be on the lookout for in pink, purple, or yellow?

 

[smitten with ocean life]

i love it!! it looks fabulous and will be such a pretty tank! what a special thing to do with your daughter!

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Added in the hammers yesterday. Had to change the scape up a bit to make it work, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

And here are Lollipop and Building, I’m glad they chose the front of the tank again after the transfer and rescape.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Did a water change and cleaned the acrylic earlier today. Here are some top-down shots with my phone. My camera has been acting up and not working lately unfortunately.

 

[nickscorals]

Simple yet elegant, following along!

 

[TX_REEF]

looks lovely! Excellent choice on the kessil, and I like the simple, bulletproof ATO

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Last Friday I ran by the same LfS I picked up Lollipop and Building from, and got the final addition to this tank. A tailspot blenny my daughter appropriately named “Spotty”. Spotty spent the first few days hiding in the caves Building has dug out, but was finally out and about today. After quite a few attempts, I was finally able to snap a good shot of it. Hopefully it gets used to my shiny red camera soon, Lollipop is a pro at this point lol.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

I forgot I snagged a picture of Building yesterday as well!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I forgot I snagged a picture of Building yesterday as well!

Amazing photo!

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Amazing photo!

Much appreciated

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Eden with her tank

And Pixel enjoying it

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Finally added some zoas to this little tank.

And some of the inhabitants

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

This tank has been doing exceptionally well for how small it is, aside from a few things. The tailspot blenny and pistol shrimp died at separate times. I found the entire body of the pistol shrimp in the filter floss cup, which is pretty odd since it wasn’t just molt that could float away and still had mass. Not sure what could’ve caused that. Really unsure about the tailspot, since it had been doing well for months. Other than that, I had to pull the frag of pink zipper zoas since they were slowly melting away.

I did try fragging one of the hammers with just bone cutters (was being lazy and didn’t get the rotary out), which unfortunately splintered the skeleton of the frag all the way up. The main skeleton was unharmed though, and both hammers are really filled in again.

The SPS are almost doing too well. The poci/stylo is growing into the goldenrod and seems to be winning the fight. The monti has really started to encrust. I picked up a yellow submarine favia at a local frag swap that my daughter picked out for her tank and JF Freak Hair pavona, but those are the only additions in this time.

 

[stalkem]

Sorry to hear about the blenny. I recently lost an orang storm clown in my deskmate. I've got a YWG and a mocha gladiator clown in there now. Was debating another fish or not, and was thinking of a tailspot. I like your layout, nice ledges... I just had some chunks of rock from my biocube build that I just stacked in mine!

 

[annihil8ted]

I love your tank! About to start my own deskmate and am drawing lots of inspiration from yours. Could you tell me more about the ATO? I love how simple it is but can't figure out if it's something printed or shelf ready?

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

I love your tank! About to start my own deskmate and am drawing lots of inspiration from yours. Could you tell me more about the ATO? I love how simple it is but can't figure out if it's something printed or shelf ready?

Thanks! You can buy them off Amazon for ~$10. I recently switched to an electronic ATO and am running into the problem of it not being able to add that little water at a time. I’m most likely going to be switching back to the gravity fed one here soon.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Had a friend’s son 3D print a new filter floss cup for the scratched up Deskmate I setup as a QT tank, and it came with a neat little cover. So I swapped it with the one in this tank to be able to get rid of the giant rock that was sitting on top that was keeping my void kitten out. So far it’s keeping him from yanking the floss out and dragging it around my house.

Between that and an electric ATO, this tank is much more aesthetically pleasing.

The only bad things lately are that the buttmuncher zoas weren’t really growing new polyps, and the goldenrod was being stung by the faster growing SPS behind it and losing the chemical warfare. I pulled both out and moved into my 40b to bounce back. Otherwise, this little tank is chugging along fantastically.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

This little tank has been a blast, but it will be coming to an end shortly. My daughter wants a tailspot blenny, and 4.8g is just too small for 3 fish. So as a 5th birthday present, I’m upgrading her into an IM Nuvo 15g cube. Just like what I have in my bedroom. It’s also hard to beat a 15g AIO for $99.99.

I wasn’t happy with the stands available in my price range that fit this tank. I asked someone on my local club forums who had a thread about a much larger stand he was building, if I could pay him to build one for me.

He refused to let me pay him for it, but I was eventually able to talk him into taking some coral as payment. I got an incredible deal on some large pieces of crayola meltdown chalice, and gave him a decent sized piece as a thank you.

My daughter wanted her stand painted “rainbow”. She then cried when I didn’t have any pink paint, which is why the door panel is pink. It took forever, having a few family health setbacks, but I was finally able to finish painting and sealing it last week.

I got the light off of FB Marketplace brand new in the box for almost half of what it normally goes for. It’s a smatfarm 140w, and complete overkill for a 15g. I was going to put it on my 40b but can’t get the light spectrum close enough to my Hydra 64. So I plan to stock her new tank with as much high-par demanding coral and see what I can get out of it. Hoping to turn it into a box of crayons in there with a bunch of acros.

I’m just about done with piecing together the dry rock portion of the scape. I’ll be using some pieces from this tank to fill in a few spaces and to transfer over as much of the beneficial bacteria as I can to skip the cycling process.

I should have everything ready to do the transfer by this weekend hopefully. This little tank will now become my QT/extra frag tank and moved over to take the place of my scratched up Deskmate that’s doing that currently. Looking forward to what I can do with this tank now that I have a few years of experience under my belt. I’ll make a new thread for it eventually, and I’ll be sure to take a few final shots of this one before the transfer.

 

[Hunna’s Stunnas]

Did the transfer yesterday! I’m really happy with how the scape turned out. Especially since I’ll be filling this tank only with acropora from this point on, filling out the rest of the empty platform spaces.

Edit: sorry, thought I had muted the video so you didn’t have to hear Shoresy in the background. Apologies

 

[kitti-fish]

This is all so adorable