The Enchanted Tikitank! 40 gallon long AIO Project!

[bambootikigirl]

INTRODUCTION

What This Build Is:
Mixed reef with corals, macroalgae, fish and inverts.

Goals - Corals/Macroalgaes/Sponges:
My goal with this tank is to grow a mixed reef of corals and macroalgaes. If everything does well, I would like to eventually try to have a few different sponges such as photosynthetic plating sponge, bee sponge and red ball sponge.

Goals - Fish/Nems/Inverts:
My goal for livestock fish, nems, invert wise in the far future like maybe a year or two, I would like to add a Moyers/Ruby Red dragonet or Red Scooter dragonet and a trio of Tracy's damsels.

FAUNA AND FLORA COMING SOON!

Fauna (Fish and Inverts)

• 2 Black Ice Snowflake Clowns
• Wheelers Shrimp Goby
• Randall's or Tiger Pistol Shrimp
• 2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• 2 Pederson's Cleaner Shrimp
• 3-5 Rock Flower Anemones
• 4-6 Cerith Snails
• 4-6 Banded Trochus Snails
• Little Bear Conch Snail

Fauna (Corals)

• Multiple color variations of mushrooms (actinodiscus sp)
• Multiple color variations of frogspawns
• Multiple color variations of torches
• Multiple color variations of hammers
• Several duncans
• Multiple color variations of goniporia or alevapora

Flora (Macroalgaes)

• Flame/Dragons Breath
• Halimmeda
• Caulerpa prolifera

CURRENT EQUIPMENT

Water Containers

• Aqueon 40 gallon long tank (48x13x16)
• Decorative Vase ATO Reservoir (2.5 gallon)

Filtration/Life Support

• Current USA eFlux Wave Pump Kit 660 GPH + Additional Pump
• AquaticLife Internal Mini Protein Skimmer 115
• Marine Pure Biofilter 1.5" Spheres (2 Quart)
• Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 150 Watt Aquarium Heater w/ LED Display
• IceCap Dual Optical Auto Top Off (ATO) Controller
• 9W Coralife Turbo Twist UV Sterilizer
• Custom removable AIO

Substrate/Rocks

• LFS Reef Saver (50-60lbs)
• LFS Tonga Shelf/Branch Dry Live Rock (10lbs)
• CaribSea Aragalive Indopacific Black Sand x2 (20lbs)
• CaribSea Aragalive Hawaiian Black (20lbs)
• CaribSea Arag-Alive Bimini Pink Sand (20lbs)

Lights

• LedZeal Z70 LED Aquarium light x2 w/ wireless controller
• Custom Canopy

Anyways, the next few posts I'll post a bunch of progress shots of the equipment and the build itself. I'm up for suggestions on stocking my only request is please don't tell me 75635275863 times that damsels are jerks which is why I would add them at the very end in the far future. Other than that, enjoy the thread and I look forward to your comments and I hope you enjoy the journey into the Enchanted Tikitank!

Current Project - 3/7/2018 - Present

Current Photo of setup!

"Daytime"

"Nighttime" with room lights on.

"Nighttime" with room lights off.

 

[bambootikigirl]

This was when I originally bought the tank from a seller off Facebook. I had the tank for several years as a Freshwater tank but decided to convert it to Saltwater.

This is where I actually start collecting the items to make the tank into a Saltwater tank.

March 22nd 2018:

April 7th 2018:

Start of building a custom canopy with my dad.

April 9th 2018:

A friend of mine that I was speaking with on Discord suggested to me to get the brand LedZeal LED lights. He showed me his tank on how great the corals were growing for him and I just fell in love. It also had all the features I wanted like ramp up/down and weather including lightning.

April 12th 2018:

Another one of my friends from Discord was showing me how they made their own AIO section for their tank and I asked him if he could make one for my tank. We sat for several days talking about what I wanted to put in the AIO and one of the features I really wanted was the ability for me to remove it from the tank if it needed to be cleaned. My dad and I also started testing the custom canopy to make sure it fit on the tank and such.

April 15th 2018:

 

[bambootikigirl]

One of the features I wanted was for the AIO to be removable for cleaning and maintenance. So we made it an enclosed box persay. Once placed into the tank it wouldn't be going anywhere, like floating out of the tank, because of the weight of the equipment. We also left part of the tanks trim to hold it down into place. Since I was going to fill the tank with sand I had the idea of adding a "sand barrier" which would keep the sand from falling into the spot where the AIO is when I would remove it.

April 15th 2018 Continued:

I have never been a fan of seeing all kinds of equipment so one thing that was going to bother me was seeing the powerheads. Searching online I found a website that created frag pieces that you could hang on the sides of your tank with magnets. So I bought two of those to hide my powerheads which unfortunately they sent me one of the wrong ones.

April 18th 2018:

From April 23rd to May 8th I went on vacation to Walt Disney World Florida so I didn't work on the tank at all. Once I got home though, I had all kinds of things to do like clean the fishtank, level the dresser (I'll come back to this later) and buy more equipment.

I had the rocks from the very beginning and wanted to mockscape while we bought materials. One of the biggest things I wanted was to make sure it looked as natural as possible, made the inhabitants happy and I could sit in the room and enjoy the little piece of the ocean I created. This of course took several late nights and attempts to be completely happy with something.

May 10th 2018:

May 16th 2018:

Construction on the custom canopy has progressed slowly because we had some bumps along the way. I had plenty of other things to do during this time like test out the AIO with water so it was okay!

May 25th 2018:

 

[bambootikigirl]

Things were finally picking up and I was able to work more on the tank. The original pumps I bought from Amazon came to me defective. It was my fault though, I thought I would save some money and buy used. The controller wasn't responding to the two pumps and the remote looked to me like someone chewed on it. As heartbreaking as it was, I returned the items and got my money back. I still wanted to have the same pumps but I wasn't going to buy them used or from Amazon. I decided to buy them from an actual aquarium fish company and what made it even better was, the site was offering 5% off future purchases to Veterans during Memorial Day weekend. So after Memorial Day I could continue to buy more products and they would take off 5% every order in the future!

Growing up in this house, my family has always had "themes" going on in every room of the house. This also meant that almost every inch of the house is covered top to bottom with stuff. Our house is literally a mini museum, every which way you turn, something new to look at. This came to a bit of a challenge when starting up the saltwater tank. The room its in is small and also houses a huge 4ftx3ft birdcage with several cockatiels in it. The tank sits on top of a dresser I found off craigslist that matched the room perfectly. Before we even placed a fishtank onto it, we added supports on the inside of it so there was no way of warping and collapsing. This isn't your typical Ikea particle board dresser, this was made with real pine wood in the early 50's by a small business up north.

Anyways, space was limited and unless I somehow was able to disguise equipment, I wasn't gonna be able to have this fishtank. I wanted to get an ATO to help me add water when it needed it but I didn't want to have some bulky box next to the dresser. R2R sent out an email and it featured a person disguising their ATO which was exactly how I was trying to do! So we went out and bought a decorative vase to attempt to do the same idea.

May 30th 2018:

The tall clear vase didn't work out very well because the neck of it was too small for the ATO pump to fit down into. We opted for the shorter larger vase, did a few test runs and it worked out great! I didn't have any water in the fishtank yet so we had to just test it without it.

After receiving the new powerheads and a few other supplies, I started placing the rockscape into the tank. I didn't want to forget how I set everything up so I used some 2-part putty and stuck the rocks together in sections. This worked out nicely because if I did have to break down the tank for some reason or another, I was still able to put the rockscape back and in tact.

June 3rd 2018:

During this process I also siliconed down the "sand barrier" so that I could test to make sure it was in the right place next to the AIO.

One thing I did notice was the AIO wasn't level in the tank because of the siliconed seams. I had to think of a way to make it atleast semi-level or it was going to drive me bonkers seeing it crooked. So before I put the sand barrier in, I put about a cm thick layer of silicone at the bottom of the tank. This would lift the AIO up but also level it with the tanks original siliconed seams.

Once everything looked good, I placed the rest of the rocks into the tank and put the AIO in.

Once the tank was filled and the sand settled I tested all the equipment once again. The heater, return pump, powerheads, everything worked great. The skimmer was giving me some issues so I had to do some heavy modifications that I found online for it. Once the cycling process is done I'll be turning it back on and hopefully it will break in and become practically silent.

June 16th 2018:

During this time we started to finish up the canopy. We painted the entire thing with water resistant sealant and then placed the faux wood grain onto it. I wanted the canopy to match the dresser so we bought contact paper that matches the dresser almost exactly. The top drawers of the dresser also had faux bamboo which I wanted to somehow incorporate. When we made the room years ago, we used bamboo fencing for on the walls. I thought this would be perfect once painted to match.

June 28th 2018:

To be continued in future posts...

 

[Zeal]

Very curious what a Macroalgae garden is. And that's quite a bit of rock you have for a 40g.

Edit: Followed.

 

[bambootikigirl]

Very curious what a Macroalgae garden is. And that's quite a bit of rock you have for a 40g.

Edit: Followed.

Thanks for the follow. I am trying to upload attachments but they aren't showing up. Is there a reason?

 

[NY_Caveman]

Thanks for the follow. I am trying to upload attachments but they aren't showing up. Is there a reason?

Weird. There are no limitations on newer users posting pictures. If you can still edit your post, go to more options and see if you see the pictures listed as attachments. If so, delete them and try attaching them again.

 

[bambootikigirl]

Weird. There are no limitations on newer users posting pictures. If you can still edit your post, go to more options and see if you see the pictures listed as attachments. If so, delete them and try attaching them again.

Nevermind I got it to work, it's being super weird for me. Oh well

 

[Zeal]

Mind explaining what a Macroalgae garden is

 

[bambootikigirl]

Mind explaining what a Macroalgae garden is

It incorporates having macroalgae in the main display tank instead of being in a refuge. A lot of people normally do this with seahorse tanks.

 

[Zeal]

Hows that light for growing all corals?

 

[NY_Caveman]

The pictures were worth the wait I love that branch rock with the shell in it. I have a piece of shelf rock like that.

 

[bambootikigirl]

Hows that light for growing all corals?

I was told by a friend of mine that they can grow most corals. Which he showed me progress shots of his tank with the lights on it. I'm still setting everything up currently because the tank is cycling.

The pictures were worth the wait I love that branch rock with the shell in it. I have a piece of shelf rock like that.

Yeah that one is my favorite and you'll love where I put it when I post the pictures! I really like the rocks I chose from my LFS. I didn't use all of the rocks I bought because I was happy with the scape I finally decided on. I'm still posting journal pictures so I'll have the scape up soon for you to see. This is taking me awhile since it's 3am and I'm getting tired.

 

[bambootikigirl]

UPDATE:

I fixed up the main post because it was brought to my attention I had a lot of rock for a 40g. I actually looked at it and realized I was counting the branches and rocks that I didn't use in the project. The new amounts should reflect how much I actually used vs. bought.

 

[Aaron-A2]

Great write up! Love the custom AIO. I'm excited to see things progress

 

[Zeal]

Like the rock structure with those Tonga branch pillers. A nice encrusting coral on that would look super nice

 

[bambootikigirl]

Great write up! Love the custom AIO. I'm excited to see things progress

<3 I will try to keep this updated.

Like the rock structure with those Tonga branch pillers. A nice encrusting coral on that would look super nice

I was suggested that but I think I would rather leave it and allow coralline to encrust it instead. I currently have two colors starting to show up so I might leave those to do their thing.

 

[bambootikigirl]

So my father and I continued to tackle our custom made canopy for the tank. Neither of us are carpenters and this was a first for us. I would look at pictures I could find on the internet and then we would try and figure out how we could make our canopy similar. The canopy had to open on the top so if I needed to clean something, I could reach in without taking it off. Another thing I wanted was to have smaller doors for simple things like feeding or checking on the lights. Sleek but simple design but something we could make match the dresser the aquarium was already on. The plans I found were for a tank longer than mine so we had to adjust a few things like the inside supports. Other than that it was exactly what I wanted.

Unfortunately, this canopy example was created with a major flaw. As you can see the front of the canopy shows hinges where two doors will go. Well this works in theory but when we followed this, the doors ran into the sides. This delayed the progress of the canopy a lot because we used smaller pieces of wood for the frame and we couldn't use hidden door hinges.

I wanted the canopy to match the dresser the aquarium was currently on so we thought of ideas of what we could do to recreate the faux bamboo. We had some leftover straw that we used for paneling around the room and it looked almost like the bamboo. I cut the straw to the length of the doors and then cut each individual straw at an angle. This made it look almost like the bamboo on the dresser drawers, I just needed to paint it to match.

July 1st 2018:

We followed the canopy plans to a T and added our own flare. The added trim, crown molding, and straw made it our own. It was perfect in every way... or we thought. As mentioned above, the doors on the front of the canopy gave us issues... LOTS OF ISSUES. After many attempts we finally figured out a method to this madness and got the doors to work.

We had to scrap the straw on the front of the canopy but instead we are going to replace them with wooden dowels. The straw was too difficult and very messy. It went well with the whole idea but in the end not so much.

July 7th 2018:

 

[bambootikigirl]

Finally the home stretch! Removing the straw was the best thing we ever did for this project. It was messy, hard to place down, just all around annoying. So we bought individual wooden dowels to try and recreate the faux bamboo. I took each dowel and hammered small indents to make it look like bamboo ridges. This was a bit of a lengthy process but the end was pretty neat.

July 11th 2018

This process unfortunately was a great idea in theory but was gonna end up frustrating us just like the straw. Each dowel was gonna be placed side by side and individually cut to fit onto the front of the canopy. I slept on the idea and thought of instead of the dowels, we could use the same crown molding we used on the sides. Lay each one side by side but this time it would have more "bamboo" than having the individual dowels.

July 13th 2018

Each "bamboo" strand I took a custom tool my dad made and tapped grooves into the molding. This made it look like the dressers bamboo. Once everything was set in place, we glued the pieces down, put a few brad nails in places that were starting to move, and put the hardware back on. I went around all angles of the canopy and electric sanded places that were rough like the new bamboo molding and all the doors.

July 17th 2018

Here is a comparison of the bamboo on the dresser and bamboo we created for the canopy. The only differences between the two is the dresser has the wood bowed out and the edges aren't fully cut only partially.

So anyways, all in all the project is going well and all we have left is to cut holes for the ventilation fans and hang the lights.

You might be wondering why half of the top is completely open. That I will explain in a future post once we get the materials. We will be putting the canopy on the tank without that because it's not completely necessary for the tank, it's more of a cosmetic thing.

 

[chefjpaul]

Great detailed build do far