Maggie's Mini Complete Tank build

[Mhamilton0911]

Update!! So I'm a forgetful person, yep, it happens. And everytime I unplug everything, I keep forgetting to turn the heater back on. Like everytime. It keeps dipping down to 65. Whoops. Fortunately I have not added my zoas to this tank yet, I didn't think they'd like that treatment.

So to try to mitigate my low power brain, I moved the tank to my kitchen window. This will be way easier for maintenance, I can easily see the heater power whether it's on or not, and plus, I get to stare at this cutie while doing the never ending dishes. (2 adults 4 kids, zero dishwasher means never-ending washing, and the best part is, when we were re-doing the kitchen, my husband insisted we add a dishwasher and i was like, nah that's too hard now.... buahahahaha, he was so right)

 

[wonroc]

Love it

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Did a deep clean today, with most of the water changed in DT and sump.

My main tools are just qtips to clean, and an airline attached to a bbq skewer for a vacuum.

Before Pics:

Natural light really brings out the ugly

Notice the salt creep. This is my only location for creep despite changing tank locations and verifying it's level.

Top down.

My only additions were 3m hooks for cords. Was planning on adding the sump level sight mod, but haven't yet, drilling into this makes me scared.

My sump level before I turn on the pump, I have no idea what actual running level is. My first actual sump so I have no ideer what I'm doin'!

Cleaned!

 

[jgirardnrg]

Really a cool little tank

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Really a cool little tank

Thanks! It's been fun so far, being so tiny is a new challenge.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I found a tiny astrea snail in my main tank, so here you go lil guy, a little tank of your own :)

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I decided I needed to hide the cord mess so I found this cool chunk of cedar that I had, now I'm chiseling out a cavity *hopefully* big enough to hide the cords.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Well I did it. It may not be the most 'finished' piece, but I'll work on it. I do like rustic looking things too, so I might leave it raw, or sand it all down and stain it. Still haven't decided. But it works, hides all my cords.

And then I added 2 zoas. Funny they opened right up.

 

[jgirardnrg]

I like it

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Zoas are doing really good, I'm surprised! I turn on the light when my main tank turns on, and these are usually open before the rest in the main tank.

EXCEPT ONE THING, I might have a coral eater on my hands. I saw the single asterina starfish on a zoa this morning, and i knocked it off, so now waiting to see if it fully opens or it was eaten. Kinda looks eaten.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I did a cleaning and water change today, also glued the tiniest xenia baby to a tiny rock. And lastly added one more zoa. The other zoa on the right made a full recovery from the starfish so the starfish is still safe.... for now :)

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Received a flow nozzle part from @danieyella and so far you can really tell a difference. It's pushing the detritus around, and there's a lot of it. 1 hermit poops a ton.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Attempted to clean this little monster today. Definitely improved it, but there's still a bunch of green algae on the acrylic front and sides that I just couldn't scrub off. I might need to do a rip clean on it. The water I took out is gross...
Before

After

Yucky water

 

[wonroc]

start over. use some bottle bacteria please

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Did a deep clean, moved most of the rocks to the sump, glued a tiny xenia piece to a tiny rock, glued the larger xenia frag that was already on a rock to a frag plug. Rubber banded the ricordea that was attached to the bottom, I finally got the courage to scrape it off the bottom. Also added a loose zoa group that my urchin dislodged from my main tank, so I carefully rubberbanded that to a rock also. Hopefully the bands are not too tight, this was my first attempt at this.