IM 30G L Build

[CodyRVA]

Minor adjustments to the overflow.

 

[CodyRVA]

Not sure why I ever thought that durso was gonna work, swapped with a herbie at about 95% intake and my secondary cleaning up the other 5%. I replumbed my secondary so it drops into the sump at a 45 to reduce noise and to make room for the mangroves which I’ll post next. For the herbie I went with a straight 1 inch strainer, secondary line pipe sits about 2 inches higher in the overflow box.

 

[CodyRVA]

Planted 5 red mangroves in miracle mud, which I placed in a glass baking bread loaf pan. This actually dropped in much easier than I would have guessed, very little silt or debris got kicked around.

The mangroves came from Etsy, originally planted in soil. I broke the roots loose, freed up the dirt and replanted like this. The grow light came from Amazon, nothing too high end, clamps to the sump tank, but the chaeto is growing like crazy.

 

[CodyRVA]

Front panel is finally done. Next update should have the light shelf and brackets done. Being patient on livestock

 

[kevgib67]

Front panel is finally done. Next update should have the light shelf and brackets done. Being patient on livestock

Looks great, well done!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Very nice! Following!

 

[CodyRVA]

Ok shelf and brackets finally up. Need to do some research on how I might manage the wires. I’m currently using a 3M adhesive hook and binder clips. The issue is the wires pull the lights back, preventing them from centered over the tank. Debating adding an outlet above the shelf. Cables will be trimmed accordingly once I test the light with a par meter.

 

[CodyRVA]

Quick update:

Added an autoAqua doser, so far so good; color coded tube goes well with the dosing reservoir base/caps I ordered from Etsy. These reservoirs use Voss water bottles; so far it’s good enough considering this tank is only 30G.

Made a few sump mods. My mangroves didn’t make it. I pulled them out, added some miracle mud and more rock/filter media. I stacked my sump rocks to prevent my chaeto from escaping into my skimmer/reactor chamber.

 

[CodyRVA]

Sump rework; new Fuge light and general clean up of the rock work. Also added more media as well.