shooterschmidty
New Member
Hello all, I'm a long-term lurker but just signed up to share my build in case it can be useful to anyone else. I've been keeping freshwater planted tanks for a while and kept a reef jar for a year or so previously, but this is my first "real" reef experiment.
I started with a Mr. Aqua 6 gallon long. This was my first planted tank and I really love the long and narrow footprint. It's 24" long, 7" wide, and 9" tall, which makes it look much larger than it really is. I wanted to keep it as self-contained as possible, so I build a DIY all-in-one conversion section. The section is 3" wide and has filter trays on one side for a filter pad and some ceramic ring biomedia. The other side holds a SICCE SYNCRA NANO 110 gph return pump and a Finnex 50 Watt Titanium heater. The pump chamber also houses an XP Aqua Duetto ATO sensor and an XP Aqua overflow protection sensor. For lighting, I'm using a Fluval Sea and Marine 3.0 with bluetooth control. It works great on this shallow tank and I really like the sunrise/sunset effect and the ability to customize the color spectrum and power. I don't care for the super blue look of most reef lighting and macros prefer a whiter spectrum so the adjustability has been working well.
My overall plan for this tank was to replicate the "planted" look by focusing on softies and macroalgae. For algae, I have Hayi Gracilaria, Red Grape, Green Grape, Caulerpa Mexican, and Caulerpa Prolifera algae and I'm hoping to get some more varieties as they come back into stock. For coral, I have some mushrooms, a ricordea, GSP, zoas, singularia, duncans, a small cat's paw, some goni's, and a piece of chalice. I'm hoping to get a few more varieties of mushrooms and zoas, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my selection.
For livestock, I have one small yellow clown goby (whom my nephew has named "Blaze"), a couple of blue legged hermit crabs, and a bunch of pods. I may eventually add one more small fish, perhaps a yellow tailed damsel, or add some sexy shrimp. Any other ideas?
So far everything seems to be going pretty well. The macroalgae is helping keep nuisance algae under control and all of the corals seem to be healthy. I'm dosing phytoplankton daily and doing minimal water changes. The only thing I'm struggling with is getting my goby to eat dry food (so I can have a feeder on a timer for when I'm away from home). She'll readily take frozen brine shrimp, but ignores or spits out dried brine shrimp and micro pellets. I'm hoping to keep the pod population high so she can graze between feedings.
I welcome any suggestions or comments. I know that I struggled to find any small Mr. Aqua builds when I was doing my research, so hopefully, this can serve as inspiration to others as well.
I started with a Mr. Aqua 6 gallon long. This was my first planted tank and I really love the long and narrow footprint. It's 24" long, 7" wide, and 9" tall, which makes it look much larger than it really is. I wanted to keep it as self-contained as possible, so I build a DIY all-in-one conversion section. The section is 3" wide and has filter trays on one side for a filter pad and some ceramic ring biomedia. The other side holds a SICCE SYNCRA NANO 110 gph return pump and a Finnex 50 Watt Titanium heater. The pump chamber also houses an XP Aqua Duetto ATO sensor and an XP Aqua overflow protection sensor. For lighting, I'm using a Fluval Sea and Marine 3.0 with bluetooth control. It works great on this shallow tank and I really like the sunrise/sunset effect and the ability to customize the color spectrum and power. I don't care for the super blue look of most reef lighting and macros prefer a whiter spectrum so the adjustability has been working well.
My overall plan for this tank was to replicate the "planted" look by focusing on softies and macroalgae. For algae, I have Hayi Gracilaria, Red Grape, Green Grape, Caulerpa Mexican, and Caulerpa Prolifera algae and I'm hoping to get some more varieties as they come back into stock. For coral, I have some mushrooms, a ricordea, GSP, zoas, singularia, duncans, a small cat's paw, some goni's, and a piece of chalice. I'm hoping to get a few more varieties of mushrooms and zoas, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my selection.
For livestock, I have one small yellow clown goby (whom my nephew has named "Blaze"), a couple of blue legged hermit crabs, and a bunch of pods. I may eventually add one more small fish, perhaps a yellow tailed damsel, or add some sexy shrimp. Any other ideas?
So far everything seems to be going pretty well. The macroalgae is helping keep nuisance algae under control and all of the corals seem to be healthy. I'm dosing phytoplankton daily and doing minimal water changes. The only thing I'm struggling with is getting my goby to eat dry food (so I can have a feeder on a timer for when I'm away from home). She'll readily take frozen brine shrimp, but ignores or spits out dried brine shrimp and micro pellets. I'm hoping to keep the pod population high so she can graze between feedings.
I welcome any suggestions or comments. I know that I struggled to find any small Mr. Aqua builds when I was doing my research, so hopefully, this can serve as inspiration to others as well.
