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14G nano reef - floating rocks...

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Fixingstill

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Picked up a 14G marin innovative nuvo peninsula tank + APS aluminum tank last week for a price I could not resist. Came with return pump, a hygger mini powerhead and a Tunze ATO.
Cleaned things all up, added a $18 grow light, $10 heater, $9 filter, a $14 bag of fine sand, a $30 smart power strip and a $9 USB reading lamp.
Added a piece of acrylic I have laying around by bending it 90 degree and silicone it on the back as so to create the floating effect.
Added a trashcan and a little powerhead in my collection for ATO reservoir.
Added a AI hydra 26 HD + kessil Mini Gooseneck to brighten up the tank.
Stole some live rocks and chaeto from the sump of my 300G and this is what I got. See pictures below.
Total cost so far is about $600. (Light is a great portion.)
Now just need to get couple nemos, a goby, a shrimp and couple snails and wait for the tank to stabilize.
I did throw in some red monti GSP frags and GSP seems to open up and monti is turning white.

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This is the violet grow light that has timer. I cut open 2 holes by removing the vinyl so that the light can shine into the chaeto at night for 12 hrs.

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U can use kessil mini gooseneck mount on the Hydra by drilling and tapping 2 4mm holes.

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The $9 50W heater is small and fit right into the 1 inch space (see the read reading) under the filter compartment that otherwise would not be used. It seems to be a dead space but since return pump is sucking, heated water should still circulate. I don't want a stick heater and risk it not submersed.

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All electricals are thrown inside. I don't like "managing" them. It feels easier when I can pick out any cord without untying or cutting cable ties.
I can use app to turn on and off six outlets of the smart power strip. That makes life easier and I can schedule things to turn on off. I can even tell google to turn on off outlets. The grow light and reading lamp are on the USB ports.

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10 Gallon trash can fits perfectly inside the stand. It should be weeks before I need to refill.
If I have to dose, I will use kalkwasser.

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This APS stand is amazing. All aluminum and no wood. Stands should never be made of wood.

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hygger mini powerhead is DC and adjustable. Right now the fine sand got blown away. I will have to adjust or put in some coarser sand at the spot.

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I will update when there is new development.
 
I am no artist. For now it looks like a pile of random rocks thrown together but I know when all are mature and covered, it should look better.
There will be ugly algae phase. I will document.
 
Floating shelf is cool. I suspect it will be difficult/impossible to clean the sand under it.

It’s fun to see how creativity plus some DIY ingenuity can get the job done without breaking the bank. Why spend $200 on an acrylic ATO reservoir when a trash can fits perfect for example (I use a Home Depot 5g bucket myself). There are some things I wouldn’t go cheap on though for the sake of the lives of your livestock, and a heater is one of them.
 
I was going for bare bottom but it was too boring and wife wants some wrasses. Now the sand I put in is too fine and got blown into a hole.
Right for the look, I would not go cheap. For something that people normally don't see. I would and I could not justify paying $200 for just a simple container.
And honestly that trash can is the only thing I have in the house that fits.
 
Fixingstill said:
I was going for bare bottom but it was too boring and wife wants some wrasses.
Click to expand...
Might want to remind the wife about minimum tank size for the wrasses she probably wants... just saying :D

I think once it passes the ugly phases, and you get some corals growing off the sides/edges of the acrylic almost like it's "dripping" you are bound to have a pretty sweet little aquascape.
 
4 months and the tank is not doing any better. Even the ugly phase was over no more hair algae (and the coralline algae is actually beginning to come out) but green star polyps still could not survive.

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It is because I was too lazy to do water change. The chaeto did not grow either. Instead it was dying off, fouling the little 14 gallon water which kills the chaeto more. Then I found out there is a dead snail inside my ATO. How it got there is mystery. It was a long path if it crawled out from the tank (it was inside) and somehow fell in there. That means the RO was fouled too.

So, I decided to fix things up and make some changes.
Cleaned up the ATO. Put in new RO. TDS is 2.
Remove all dead / dying chaeto and put in a skimmer (Macro Aqua M-50) which works great.
As I promised myself to never carry any buckets, I ran 2 tubings and added a neptune DOS to do water change. It is actually 10 gallon of water EXCHANGED with my 300G tank.
Now the water should be the same as my 300G tank and the skimmer is there as protection. I threw in frags of GSP and red monti. I will see how it grows and I will report back.

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Fixingstill said:
4 months and the tank is not doing any better. Even the ugly phase was over no more hair algae (and the coralline algae is actually beginning to come out) but green star polyps still could not survive.

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It is because I was too lazy to do water change. The chaeto did not grow either. Instead it was dying off, fouling the little 14 gallon water which kills the chaeto more. Then I found out there is a dead snail inside my ATO. How it got there is mystery. It was a long path if it crawled out from the tank (it was inside) and somehow fell in there. That means the RO was fouled too.

So, I decided to fix things up and make some changes.
Cleaned up the ATO. Put in new RO. TDS is 2.
Remove all dead / dying chaeto and put in a skimmer (Macro Aqua M-50) which works great.
As I promised myself to never carry any buckets, I running 2 tubings and added a neptune DOS to do water change. It is actually 10 gallon of water EXCHANGE with my 300G tank.
Now the water should be the same as my 300G tank and the skimmer is there as protection. I threw in frags of GSP and red monti. I will see how it grows and I will report back.

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Click to expand...
Are you gonna do continuous water exchange with your 300G? I recently connected a 10gal fiji ext to my main tank, and the 10gal barely had any ugly stage at all (main tank sump and skimmer took care of filtering the 10gal).
 
Yes, it is doing ~10G daily. Simple pvc plumbing is impossible because tank is in another room. It could be tricky to run the tubings and program the DOS and avoid the siphoning effect. If 2 pumps on DOS do not pump exactly the same amount, overflow will happen, or ATO kicks in and bring down the salinity. I ended up programming it with one hr (1 Gallon) pump#1 adding pump#2 removing, next hour pump#1 removing pump#2 adding. I am still watching how it goes today. The DOS is noisy and I want it running at night only for 10 hrs and I don't want seeing water on the floor in a morning.
 
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