[AnotherMeuser]

After being out of the hobby for over a decade I decided to dip my toes back into the reef. I had been looking for a all glass rimless nano sized tank with integrated filter system. I stumbled upon the “glofish” brand tank (exactly the same as the marineland one) that met my criteria and it was less than $100

luckily for me I never get rid of useful things and I still have small my supplies equipment and rock from my 75 gallon that crashed and burned back in 2010…. So this tank will have all Tonga rock. It is bleach curing as we speak. It will be ready to rinse and de chlorinate this weekend. I went ahead and bleached a whole bucket full to give me plenty of options to work with. I figured may as well do a lot if I’m gonna do a little.

 

[AnotherMeuser]

While I am waiting for the Tonga to bleach out I went ahead and set it up with a few pieces of un used Marco rock I had laying around just to have something in it to look at. I also went ahead and got the water going. I added about a 1/4 bottle of fritzyme

 

[AnotherMeuser]

After letting it sit for a week with just the bacteria today I added 2 blue leg and 2 red leg hermits and the smallest clownfish I could find to kick off that nitrogen cycle.

 

[AnotherMeuser]

The game plan for this tank is a zoa and lps dominated tank with a Monti on the back wall and possibly a tiny birds nest frag up high. First order of business…. Upgrades! I have a kessil A80 BT and controller on the way along with some acrylic to add partitions to the filtration area in back to change the way it flows to allow me to add and ceramic rings to add more surface area for nitrifying bacteria. I also upgraded the return pump to a sicce nano pump (130gph).

What I am having difficulty finding is a controllable DC wave maker pump that will fit this little tank and not break the bank. Anyone have and suggestions?

 

[AnotherMeuser]

Here it is shining under the kessil A80 TB. I love this little light, it is on its lowest brightness setting in this picture and that’s still bright. The color adjustment on it is nice too!

 

[VWD]

Looking good so far.

 

[jerryclunsford]

What about going with a larger return pump and having 2 return nozzles on different sides of the tank. That should give you some turbulent flow and with adjustable nozzles control too.

 

[AnotherMeuser]

What about going with a larger return pump and having 2 return nozzles on different sides of the tank. That should give you some turbulent flow and with adjustable nozzles control too.

I have other plans for the space in the back.

 

[AnotherMeuser]

Upgrades today! Upgraded pump that doubled flow and upgraded heater.

 

[AnotherMeuser]

Now that the easy stuff is out of the way it’s time to start thinking about upgrading the filter. I had the foresight to remove a couple of the supports from the rear compartment in preparations for adding a bio media chamber. The plan is to change the way it flows and add about 40 cubic inches of bio media. This will require a bit of acrylic fabrication but that’s easy peasy. This is the layout of the rear filter section as it was out of the box.

this is my vision. Instead of the water just going through the little filter area and on to the return pump as illustrated above it will now pass through it and be channeled back up to the top where it will flow over a divider and back down through ceramic bio media. Then on to the return pump. The box holding the ceramic media will be removable for maintenance. Seems like a sound game plan? Any suggestions or anything I’m missing here?

 

[AnotherMeuser]

@Japonicus I’m tagging you in.

 

[Wiskey]

That light upgrade to the Kessel is a great move! I would actually remove the existing light though and move the Kessel up off the water a little bit. I've found that LED's tend to have allot of hotspots if they are right down on the water, but if you get them up 5-7 inches that's completely eliminated.

For my little 3 gallon I don't use any filtration, just flow and monthly 50% water changes (was weekly, but you know, work tank), but I don't have fish. I really wish I had some kind of a mechanical filter, sock, pad, foam block, something.

Whiskey