You have to love a sale.
So when Petco had that $1 a gallon sale last year I bought myself a 33g Oceanic cube. It was going to be a holding tank for my 75...a QT tank... but definitely not a 2nd SW tank.
Yeah right.
It sat empty for the first few months and then a friend had to get rid of a CBS and a Hawkfish that he'd inherited (he's a FW breeder) and asked me if I'd take them. Sure...I'll pop them in the empty cube and then acclimate them to my 75g..
Yeah right.
He gave me a few phosphate laden rocks along with the fish. I added some water from my tank and filled it up to about 10" deep and there it sat on my office floor for the next month or so. Feeling guilty, I added a few extra rocks & some more water and grew the most amazing algae in there! lol
I finally decided they needed to live better than they were and not willing to have the CBS have a dual to the death with my Fire Shrimp Krusty, I caved and started building them a stand (they were still on the floor at that point. The fellow who'd built my first fuge built me a second out of a 20L and off I went.
Proud to say I personally built the stand & the canopy and did all the plumbing myself. Like my other tank the top off & skimmer are behind the tank/wall in a walk in closet.
Though I pitched the phosphate rocks a long while ago, I'm still not happy with the aquascaping and will be rearranging it over the next few weeks, so you won't see a FTS yet, but here are some pics from the start of the build to now.
BTW- The tank has been up since December 06..
The lowdown: 33G Oceanic Cube w/20L fuge. 250W MH pendant (still need to hook up an actinic), OFB w/Mag 5, Mag 5 running the Terminator skimmer. Skimmer changing to the ETSS sometime this week. Seio 820 for flow along with a SCWD & spray bar for circulation.
Livestock: CBS, Coral Hawkfish, Coral Beauty Angelfish, Lawnmower Blenny, Lubbocks Wrasse & a Red Linkia and a bunch of scarlett hermits & snails
Corals: RBTA, Hammer, Frogspawn, shrooms, some rics, Coco Worm, a bunch of Feather Dusters, Yumas, Acans, Chalices, and my Ricordia Collection....
From the beginning...
I intentionally made the stand long enough to accomodate the fuge I wanted and the space I had available. The cube measures 18 1/2 x 20", not enough space for a decent sized fuge IMO, so I also needed to frame the stand to hold the tank & a side area that I thought should be storage for equipment.
I liked the idea of having a side door to get the fuge in & out (if I ever had to remove it). The front 'double door' makes it easy to access as I keep my frags in there to acclimate.
This is how the tank stayed for a couple of months..I knew what I wanted the canopy to look like but hadn't decided on a lighting plan. When I finally did, I had to work out a way that I could handle getting the canopy on & off and the shape of the stand posed some challenges.
It still had the originally crappy rocks with the algae issues at this point. I kept the water level low and did biweekly water changes since I had no skimmer on it yet.
to be continued...
So when Petco had that $1 a gallon sale last year I bought myself a 33g Oceanic cube. It was going to be a holding tank for my 75...a QT tank... but definitely not a 2nd SW tank.
Yeah right.
It sat empty for the first few months and then a friend had to get rid of a CBS and a Hawkfish that he'd inherited (he's a FW breeder) and asked me if I'd take them. Sure...I'll pop them in the empty cube and then acclimate them to my 75g..
Yeah right.
He gave me a few phosphate laden rocks along with the fish. I added some water from my tank and filled it up to about 10" deep and there it sat on my office floor for the next month or so. Feeling guilty, I added a few extra rocks & some more water and grew the most amazing algae in there! lol
I finally decided they needed to live better than they were and not willing to have the CBS have a dual to the death with my Fire Shrimp Krusty, I caved and started building them a stand (they were still on the floor at that point. The fellow who'd built my first fuge built me a second out of a 20L and off I went.
Proud to say I personally built the stand & the canopy and did all the plumbing myself. Like my other tank the top off & skimmer are behind the tank/wall in a walk in closet.
Though I pitched the phosphate rocks a long while ago, I'm still not happy with the aquascaping and will be rearranging it over the next few weeks, so you won't see a FTS yet, but here are some pics from the start of the build to now.
BTW- The tank has been up since December 06..
The lowdown: 33G Oceanic Cube w/20L fuge. 250W MH pendant (still need to hook up an actinic), OFB w/Mag 5, Mag 5 running the Terminator skimmer. Skimmer changing to the ETSS sometime this week. Seio 820 for flow along with a SCWD & spray bar for circulation.
Livestock: CBS, Coral Hawkfish, Coral Beauty Angelfish, Lawnmower Blenny, Lubbocks Wrasse & a Red Linkia and a bunch of scarlett hermits & snails
Corals: RBTA, Hammer, Frogspawn, shrooms, some rics, Coco Worm, a bunch of Feather Dusters, Yumas, Acans, Chalices, and my Ricordia Collection....
From the beginning...
I intentionally made the stand long enough to accomodate the fuge I wanted and the space I had available. The cube measures 18 1/2 x 20", not enough space for a decent sized fuge IMO, so I also needed to frame the stand to hold the tank & a side area that I thought should be storage for equipment.
I liked the idea of having a side door to get the fuge in & out (if I ever had to remove it). The front 'double door' makes it easy to access as I keep my frags in there to acclimate.
This is how the tank stayed for a couple of months..I knew what I wanted the canopy to look like but hadn't decided on a lighting plan. When I finally did, I had to work out a way that I could handle getting the canopy on & off and the shape of the stand posed some challenges.
It still had the originally crappy rocks with the algae issues at this point. I kept the water level low and did biweekly water changes since I had no skimmer on it yet.
to be continued...
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