tnyr5
Tony
Now that the boring business of cycling is out of the way, it's time to start the build thread for my side project; my "puddle", as my friends call it.
I rarely post projects before they are finished, but patience is devolving into laziness with this one, so hopefully posting here keeps me moving.
The tank is a 1.5 gallon Seapora (formerly Deep Blue) betta tank, converted into an AIO (all-in-one) (No reef-specific acronyms or initialisms in this thread without writing the longhand out, please. This is a newbie-friendly thread!)
I created this tank with two purposes in mind:
1. Make a tank that just about any member of Reef2Reef could both afford to build and be able to maintain.
2. Make an awesome aquascape without using anything difficult or expensive.
With this in mind, I set up a few rules for myself:
1. No single piece of equipment or livestock may cost more than $40, with one exception: an RODI unit (reverse osmosis with deionization), because I don't consider it optional and they cost what they cost.
2. No unproven methods, no weird additives, no fancy-pants automation.
3. No modifying in complicated ways that require major equipment, time, know-how, or expense.
With all that said:
-Tank: 12" x 6" x 6" Seapora betta tank- modified into an all-in-one through the addition of a roughly 6 x 6 piece of black acrylic serving as a false back.
-Light: Aquaticlife Reno 9in adjustable clamp-on led - modified to add more blue which I will explain in detail in a later post.
- Filtration and water movement: Ovation 210 submersible power filter, approx 60 gph, restricted to about 35 by narrowing the outlet.
- Water: RODI (reverse osmosis with deionization)
The initial fill was done with water from my thriving sps tank which can be seen here. I do not consider this cheating, because surely SOMEONE on here would be nice enough to provide a newbie with 1.5 gallons of water from their established tank! If not, I'm sure a store would happily pull 1.5 gallons from a display tank for a nominal fee.
All subsequent water changes are carried out with newly-mixed saltwater that is allowed to sit overnight. Maintaining salinity at 35ppt (parts per thousand), or, if you prefer to think in Specific Gravity, 1.026sg.
Water Changes: 1/2 gallon, once per week. I mix it up at the same time as I do water changes on my sps tank. If I only had this tank, I would probably mix up a few gallons at a time and aerate it until I needed it.
Rock: About 1 pound of live rock rubble from a semi-local fish store in Allentown, PA. Real live rock. In this case, mostly small pieces from coral bases, or branch skeletons from corals that came to them dead. In such small quantities, this is not too hard to get.
That's enough for now, I'll go into more detail later, when I am on the laptop where I can type faster.
As for the aquascape...you'll just have to wait and see. ;-)
I rarely post projects before they are finished, but patience is devolving into laziness with this one, so hopefully posting here keeps me moving.
The tank is a 1.5 gallon Seapora (formerly Deep Blue) betta tank, converted into an AIO (all-in-one) (No reef-specific acronyms or initialisms in this thread without writing the longhand out, please. This is a newbie-friendly thread!)
I created this tank with two purposes in mind:
1. Make a tank that just about any member of Reef2Reef could both afford to build and be able to maintain.
2. Make an awesome aquascape without using anything difficult or expensive.
With this in mind, I set up a few rules for myself:
1. No single piece of equipment or livestock may cost more than $40, with one exception: an RODI unit (reverse osmosis with deionization), because I don't consider it optional and they cost what they cost.
2. No unproven methods, no weird additives, no fancy-pants automation.
3. No modifying in complicated ways that require major equipment, time, know-how, or expense.
With all that said:
-Tank: 12" x 6" x 6" Seapora betta tank- modified into an all-in-one through the addition of a roughly 6 x 6 piece of black acrylic serving as a false back.
-Light: Aquaticlife Reno 9in adjustable clamp-on led - modified to add more blue which I will explain in detail in a later post.
- Filtration and water movement: Ovation 210 submersible power filter, approx 60 gph, restricted to about 35 by narrowing the outlet.
- Water: RODI (reverse osmosis with deionization)
The initial fill was done with water from my thriving sps tank which can be seen here. I do not consider this cheating, because surely SOMEONE on here would be nice enough to provide a newbie with 1.5 gallons of water from their established tank! If not, I'm sure a store would happily pull 1.5 gallons from a display tank for a nominal fee.
All subsequent water changes are carried out with newly-mixed saltwater that is allowed to sit overnight. Maintaining salinity at 35ppt (parts per thousand), or, if you prefer to think in Specific Gravity, 1.026sg.
Water Changes: 1/2 gallon, once per week. I mix it up at the same time as I do water changes on my sps tank. If I only had this tank, I would probably mix up a few gallons at a time and aerate it until I needed it.
Rock: About 1 pound of live rock rubble from a semi-local fish store in Allentown, PA. Real live rock. In this case, mostly small pieces from coral bases, or branch skeletons from corals that came to them dead. In such small quantities, this is not too hard to get.
That's enough for now, I'll go into more detail later, when I am on the laptop where I can type faster.
As for the aquascape...you'll just have to wait and see. ;-)
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