Nano Frag Tank: Fluval-nator 2.0 AKA The F-500
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SaltyT
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Nice! I've been eyeing this little tank for a while it's cool to see all the mods you've done to it.
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MoshJosh
2500 Club Member
Got the “final” frag rack in the mail:
Might add a rock to the bottom rack as a sort of ladder for inverts to get to the higher racks.
Also, you can see the only inhabitant (and only planned fish), Margaret the Molly (her tail is a little right now from the fish in my other tank).
not sure about keeping her long term as 5 gallons is pretty small for a Molly.
here’s my super high tech fuge light. . . Some LEDs attached to a clipboard:
And some wire mgmt:
Might add a rock to the bottom rack as a sort of ladder for inverts to get to the higher racks.
Also, you can see the only inhabitant (and only planned fish), Margaret the Molly (her tail is a little right now from the fish in my other tank).
not sure about keeping her long term as 5 gallons is pretty small for a Molly.
here’s my super high tech fuge light. . . Some LEDs attached to a clipboard:
And some wire mgmt:
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MoshJosh
2500 Club Member
Painted the HOB fuge black using platidip. . . I’m fairly certain it is reef safe buts it’s on the outside so should be ok. . . well there might be some overspray that got in the box. . .
not only is it way more stylish, but should help with light bleed into the rest of the room.
I also added a hermit and astrea snail. Moved the rocks a bit to so the critters can crawl all the way up onto to top frag rack.
not only is it way more stylish, but should help with light bleed into the rest of the room.
I also added a hermit and astrea snail. Moved the rocks a bit to so the critters can crawl all the way up onto to top frag rack.
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MoshJosh
2500 Club Member
I had some algae issues, but manually remove the bunch and gotten the actual cleanup crew, so things are looking up. Not the best photos but wanted to share. Corals are looking happy-ish and growing:
Dude you crack me up! Today I took a IM 6g "frag tank" and made a shallow lagoon/mangrove. I got it from my LFS with a inch of dust on it. I was thinking why would anyone do a 6g frag tank... LOL.. I should’ve thought of you.
The best thing about this and your 5g bucket challenge is you are learning and doing the concepts of reefing. There is a lot of ppl. out there that think they need this or that to be successful, but do not understand why this or that works.
Congrats!
The best thing about this and your 5g bucket challenge is you are learning and doing the concepts of reefing. There is a lot of ppl. out there that think they need this or that to be successful, but do not understand why this or that works.
Congrats!
Norcoreefer
Community Member
I'd love to know exactly what you've all done, especially regarding the return pump. The flow in these tanks is so inefficient and would like to add in a random flow generator but finding a pump that fits in the back is next to impossible!Fluval Evo 5 gallon tank with a few mods/upgrades. . . to be continued.
I on adding a “real” ATO at some point, but for now this will work:
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MoshJosh
2500 Club Member
Yeah, I did a lot of searching and couldn’t really find a pump that fit in the back. I looked at repurposing a few different things and never came up with anything really good, at least nothing that was a huge flow improvement.
That said the set up I was using on this tank with the canister filter actually worked pretty good. I imagine you could use a bigger filter and get even more flow.
I’ll try to post some more details when I’m at my computer.
Norcoreefer
Community Member
I figured that was a canister. There's gotta be something. If I had waited to fill my tank I'd have ripped out the inner divider between the two chambers and given some more pump space and then imitated the "intank" media basket with some laser cut plexi welded together so that I could have used a TMC pump. Unfortunately the tank is up and running and I cannot just go and hack things apart inside the filter compartment lol. I'd like to utilize the all in one feature and have a few people looking into some pump options for me.
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