I wanted to start this post with a shout out to fellow members on this forum. It's always appreciated to have a community like Canreef with members willing to help one another.
Seahorse_Fanatic gave me some rock to scape the tank with. The tank is pretty shallow which makes it pretty limiting to have grand rockscape so I plan to keep it simple.
KPG007 lent me his spare Kessil A160 to mock up my tank with, and to use it on my holding tank once this tank is up and running. Although it's not fully operational, it will work for my purposes.
JamRobo pulled a mangrove plant out for me to try in my new tank.
As for the tank build, I started out by hacking away at some of the return fittings. Space in the "sump" area is pretty limited and every millimeter counts when it comes to fitting as much equipment as possible. This fitting was getting in the way of the Bubble Magus QQ1 skimmer which I've decided to use.
Cutting down the fitting above gives me enough clearance from the return hoses to install the skimmer. You can also see that I've upgraded the return pump to a Tunze 1073.008 which I had lying around. It's the same turnover rate as the stock pump, but it uses half the energy and much quieter; going to assume it'll be more reliable too.
As mentioned, my skimmer of choice is the QQ1 from Bubble Magus. I thought about the HOB-1.5 from Aquamaxx, but it just wasn't in the budget and I had the QQ1 leftover from another tank. It is rated to filter a tank this size, so I figured I'll invest the funds on other things. If needed I can always upgrade. This skimmer worked great for me while I had it running.
Moving on, I picked up 2 of the MiniMax reactors from IM. I heard some bad reviews on these guys, but they were pretty inexpensive because I got a good deal from the LFS, and I feel like if tuned correctly they will work well. I will be running biopellets and GFO in the reactors. The biopellets should work fine. I have some skepticism about how well the GFO reactor will hold up after extended use.
Next I worked on filling up the caddy for the IM tanks. They are quite well made with different configurations that are possible.
Started up by crushing up some marinepure blocks. These are super easy to break apart with just your hands.
Will be using 1/4 of the block on this tank, rest I threw in my tain display.
This is the caddy configuration I settled on. Course sponge, fine sponge, marinepure blocks, fine sponge, carbon, fine sponge.
Here's what it looks like installed on one side.
Other side will have the filter sock. ATO feed line also mocked up with some cheap fittings from home depot. Will be run by a MJ1200 that I have lying around along with my old JBJ top off that I will be modifying slightly. I'm really just trying to set up this tank with old equipment I have lying around as much as possible.
For now the filter media and biopellets will be left sitting in one of my nano tanks so they can get established and I will be able to have a cycled tank pretty much immediately when I'm up and running.
Heater of choice was a titanium heater. Originally got the Eheim heater, but they ended up being too tall and I wasn't going to have enough outlets to have 2 heaters as a backup, so I decided to go with what I'm hoping is supposed to be more "reliable".
Here's what that all looks like together. It's pretty crowded back there, but everything fits well.
Some electrical components still to be installed. 2x PB4 will be connected to my RKE controller which will take care of this tank alongside my main display. ATO container is one I've been using on my 10G nano. Hopefully it's big enough that I don't need to refill too often.
SL1 and the JBJ ATO will be brought over from the nano tank. The JBJ I'm hoping to hook up an optical sensor to give it a bit of an upgrade. a floatswitch will be hooked up the the SL1 in case of overflow, and one other switch will go in the top off container to act as the dry run protection.
Whew! she's coming together nicely.
Some bonus pics of my rescue clams. Really amazing what couple days of good water parameters and sufficient lighting can do for a clam. Color is starting to come back and this Crocea is opening up nicely.
The Squamosa is opening up nicely too, but not sure if gaping further. It's always hard to tell. Still hanging in there though.
