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Flusher · #1 04-20-2009, 06:56 AM

I've been out of the reef scene for a couple of years, sadly. My new job pulled me from home, and I had a lot of other issues to deal with. I had to drastically downsize my aquarium hobby (both FW and SW), which was probably for the best.

I've been settled in my current place for almost a year, and in the last couple years I've started up a few smaller FW tanks. (I've only got one 9g fish tank, one 10g turtle tank, one 30g frog tank, and one 33g hermit crab tank -- I'm under control compared to the old days. Of course, a 50g for the turtle is in order when it gets bigger, ha ha ha.)

The reef bug hit me recently, so this weekend I rooted through all my old equipment that I'd left at my mom's. (Seeing all the tank stuff I had made me remember why I chose the name Flusher, and why my avatar is a toilet flushing money away. Eugh...) Most of my old equipment is in sad shape and destined for the trash, but my old 13 gallon nano was still intact. I'm bringing it back to life, but I've decided to go simple.

In 2006 I'd upgraded my 13g to a 24g nano that I never much liked, and had planned to return to the 13g. I'd drilled it to attach the original small sump to eliminate the siphon. I had also made some DIY concrete rock designed specifically to fit in the tank and around the plumbing; it had been curing at my mom's for several months.

This weekend I pulled off the sump altogether and will be replacing it with a Filstar xP1, with an inline heater (both are in the mail). The lid is going to get a reduction since the sump is gone. I'm skipping live rock and live sand, and will be doing a fishless cycle using ammonia.

So far, I'm water-testing the tank to make sure it still holds true, and I'm making sure the concrete is done curing. Hopefully I'll find a suitable table this week to get it out of my kitchen, and hopefully I'll get my hands on some tools to fix up the lid.

Here's a collection of all sorts of old aquarium projects I'd built. Most are long gone. Some were recycled into new projects.

http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/Flusher/?
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Snaz · #2 04-20-2009, 12:42 PM

The DIY concrete rock sure is interesting. These current rocks were they ever "alive" did they support a tank once they got going?

raisemyrent · #3 04-20-2009, 04:41 PM

maybe I read it wrong, but if theere is no live rock or snd or anything else, and you're adding a dead shrimp, how will the bacteria form? don't you need at least one source of life, so to speak?

Flusher · #4 04-20-2009, 05:33 PM

Live rock and live sand have bacteria and other cool life forms, for sure. Adding them will speed up the cycling process a lot, and will add a whole lot more living organisms to the tank. Starting with dead, sterile rocks and sand won't have the extra life, but the bacteria itself basically materializes out of thin air. It just takes a lot longer for the tank to cycle this way.

I live in a small town with no SW LFS, or any other reef keepers that I know of, so I'd be limited even if I wanted LR or LS. I've got a mild touch of OCD, so my biggest issue was always trying to rearrange the LR to something sturdy and appealing aesthetically. The DIY rock works well for me.

I'm going to use pure ammonia instead of a dead shrimp. I've decided to start my tank off as clean as possible. Shutting down an established tank is messy and smelly, and my job will keep me moving around every few years. I'm really aiming for simple, portable, and hassle-free. (The less time I have my hands in the tank, the better.)

The DIY rock I have was never used in a tank before. It should do the trick, though, once its cured. It's fairly porous. Most of the bacteria will be in the lava rock I plan to put in the canister filter, though.
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Flusher · #5 05-15-2009, 03:42 AM

I found a decent table for my tank, and it just barely fits the filter.

The plumbing was finished today, so I'm testing the filter, flow, and heater.

The DIY rock is still a long way from being cured, it turns out, so I'll be doing a fishless cycle on the biomedia and substrate in a separate tank. Hopefully this concurrent activity will save me a lot of time.

I just need to finish the canopy and lower trim, and the hard work is done. Then it's just a matter of the rock curing and the media cycling before I can add livestock...

(Fortunately, I have a few freshwater tanks to play with in the meantime.)
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