Eggplant's Desktop Garden

[eggplantparrot]

As my 14G Not a Cube is nearing 9th month since it has been up, I feel like I am needing to mess with the tank less and less, to the point where it is almost on autopilot. it is quite filled up with growing corals, and only needs daily feeding and weekly water change. this makes me feel an emptiness, the kind of emptiness that can only be filled up with the setting up of a new tank thus marks the beginning of my Desktop garden.

for the tank I have chosen the YiDing AIO series 6 gallon crystal tank. equipped with pathetically small back chambers with an equally pathetic return pump, this tank definitely needed some work.

beautiful glass work but terrible design in the back

tiny chambers with a 300l/h pump that is used in their smaller tanks too??? what were they thinking :mad:

the spot this tank is going is actually where I had a smaller of the same series tank (hence me knowing they used the same pump...) as a planted betta tank beside my computer monitor and the 14G Not a Cube. the betta tank did not work out for a couple of reasons: 1. I cannot for my life keep plants growing well without algae city, 2. i taught my bettas to jump for food, and they liked jumping a little too much...

I wanted this tank setup to be as perfect as I can make it so I took my time and planned out a bunch of modifications.

 

[eggplantparrot]

Mod 1. bigger return pump. this tank came with a derpy 300l/h pump that was in the smaller tank, which felt too weak even for the smaller tank, so I needed to beef it up especially being a reef tank. my choice was the Jebao FA-750, it is cheap and seems to work well and is the largest of that series that would fit.

Mod 2. change up the filtration chambers. the bigger pump fit into the stock return chamber, barely. this left very little room for water and even less room for other equipment while making the heater section uneccesarily large. I needed to remove the baffle and silicone in a higher one for the heater and leaving more space for the pump chamber. this part led me to also seal up all of the glass to glass contact points in the back as it was a giant leaky mess.

heater chamber made more snug with just enough room for the heater.

Mod 3. adding flow augmentation. I didn't really like the thought of a static nozzle for the return in a tank that's a bit too small for an additional powered, so I went ahead and added an AUQA Spinstream nozzle. this straightforward mod became not very straightforward when I discovered how much the Spinstream sticks out into the tank

this is cray cray
my idea was to enlargen the hole for the return and rest part of the Spinstream through the hole to minimize the amount of black plastic sticking into the tank. good thing I had purchased a set of glass hole saw bits

a bit better

 

[eggplantparrot]

during the removal of the baffle I had a little bit of an oopsie

just glad no pieces broke INSIDE my hand...

 

[eggplantparrot]

Mod 4. Mechanical filtration aid. i needed a way to hold filter floss above the bottom glass so I designed and 3d printed a filter support clip that clips onto the back glass and has a grid to support the floss while allowing maximum flow.

the only material I had was PLA so only time will tell how long it will last. even if it breaks down I can just print more, and I can try PETG if I want later on.

the actual clip part was printed as a flat sheet. I heated the sheet with a torch to soften it, and bent it around the glass, overbending it to make a clip shape. I also the bent the end back up again to give myself a handle so I can easily remove the clip to change the filter. looks really sleek and works great.

 

[eggplantparrot]

Mod 5. Adding am ATO. if i could have added a float valve I would have in a heart beat, however the chambers are too pathetically small... so I decided to go with a float switch and solenoid valve. my original thought was to drill a hole in the side of the tank to mount the float switch but it wouldn't fit anywhere (did I mention how small the chambers are?)so I had to make a mount so the whole thing sits within the return chamber.

as of this point (June 18, 2019) the ATO is not hooked up yet as I should have set up the tank first and figured out the proper running water level before gluing up the bracket...

 

[eggplantparrot]

here's a sneak peek at the future residents of the garden

 

[eggplantparrot]

i forgot to take a picture before smashing it but these are the rocks that I am using for this tank. It used to be a big singular rock but I ended up smashing it up to make pieces I could stack up. I went a little too crazy with it and ended up with way too many tiny pieces.

this is the scape I came up with. the idea was to use this rock which I had laying around from my 14G build, and not purchase any more. I kind of ran out of rock as I was gluing it together and had to glue small pieces together to make bigger ones.

not quite what I had imagined but that's all the rock I had available so I just rolled with it.

 

[eggplantparrot]

now that I'm looking at the picture with a clearer head, I realize that I glued the longer 'leg' back on at the wrong angle after breaking it off while I washed the rock. it is supposed to angle a bit more to the left, leaving more room between the 2 'legs' herp-a-derp

 

[eggplantparrot]

first tank inhabitants are in!

so far I have 2 tiny hermits, and the 14G sump shrimp. i am using Seachem Stability for bacteria left over from the 14G build.

 

[btmedic04]

Awesome build so far! Where did you order your tank from?

 

[eggplantparrot]

Awesome build so far! Where did you order your tank from?

there is a fish shop not far from my route home that has pretty much all Chinese aquarium stuff. you can search up YiDing aquariums and probably purchase them online

 

[Devaji]

there is a fish shop not far from my route home that has pretty much all Chinese aquarium stuff. you can search up YiDing aquariums and probably purchase them online

yeah nice build. funny you say that as halfway though reading I googled Yiding i did not come up with much on ordering one. the glass work look nice. good mods you did.

 

[eggplantparrot]

yeah nice build. funny you say that as halfway though reading I googled Yiding i did not come up with much on ordering one. the glass work look nice. good mods you did.

thanks. that sucks, maybe look around for a Chinese aquarium shop near you? they usually have lots of cheap aquarium products. funny YOU say good mods as I just found out how badly thought out the baffle mod was.

I cut the baffle to be the exact height as the minimum water height indicator was on the heater, and did not take into consideration the amount of water I'm pushing through the chambers would actually raise the water height about half of an inch. this doesn't sound like much but it's enough to raise the water height in the first stage to the point where water was no longer falling down, rendering the surface skimming slots ineffective

 

[eggplantparrot]

unfortunately my complacency when I designed and cut the baffle and the high GPH I was pushing lead to a running water level that was too high. this caused an unnecessarily large height difference between the heater and return chambers, causing loud running water sounds, and more importantly not enough of a water height difference between the display and first chamber. due to this, water was not cascading down through the surface skimmer slots, bypassing the function of the slots entirely, resulting in a nasty surface scum that would not dissipate.

annoyed by this but afraid of the amount of work required to fix it I ultimately got off of my butt and decided to redo the baffle.

cutting out the original stock baffle was a piece of cake compared to what I went through last night as I had used a lot more silicone, as well as put silicone on the bottom connection point. long story short, the baffle ended up coming out, albeit in pieces, and a newer one was put in, shorter, and with even more shoddy silicone work.

drained the back chambers and kept the tank running with lower water level. I was not prepared for the pain the process was... Mr Sump Shrimp was not pleased.

the silicone is drying now, and I will most likely run water through it tonight, as the acetic acid smell was already mostly gone this morning

 

[Devaji]

oh bummer that does suck. good thing you knew how to fix it.
hope it goes well for you from here on out.

 

[eggplantparrot]

oh bummer that does suck. good thing you knew how to fix it.
hope it goes well for you from here on out.

thanks. check back later to enjoy the garden ;Happy

 

[eggplantparrot]

so I purchased a firefish as I have never had one and this guy was very bright and healthy looking. I have heard of their jumpiness but didn't expect it to be that bad. found out how wrong I was when I took the bag out of the shopping bag and it was jumping non stop.

i originally wanted to leave this tank as an open top but that can no longer be the case. I quickly went downstairs and cut a piece of glass to fit and some acrylic to bend into a clip shape. quickly found out the acrylic idea is a no go so I designed and printed up 4 holding clips. the fish is being acclimated and the tank is ready for its first fishy inhabitant

 

[eggplantparrot]

the ATO is finally set up and running!

I need to figure out a more permanent mounting solution for the solenoid but it sort of clips on with gravity for now

 

[eggplantparrot]

my lfs got a batch of sexy shrimp this week and i picked one up to hopefully be hosted by the future rock flower anemones. may pick up more too if they still have them in the future.

he is acclimating in my 14G right now and will stay there in the nem basket until i am ready to transfer the nems over.

in other news, i think i may have found my shrimp goby of choice. the LFS had 2 of these guys:

they appeared to be a pair and i have got the lfs to put them on hold for a week. if by next friday they are still alive and well, then we have our fishies!

 

[eggplantparrot]