ninjafish's new custom build

[ninjafish]

Hello everyone,
I posted pics of my nano's in the other forum, but thought I would share the progress on my current build- a 30"x18"x18" starfire with external overflow.


This is gonna go pretty fast so please stop me if you want to know details :gcool .

First, here is a comparison of the conceptual sketches I did before I started the project - you can judge how close I came to my plans :

 

[ninjafish]

I started with a metal stand that I stripped and repainted, then came up with the idea to use eggcrate for the sides:

I painted the eggcrate black - way cheaper than buying black eggcrate (and I think stronger too.

I started to go a little crazy waiting for the tank to be built so I polished up my ugly green Iwaki pump:

 

[ninjafish]

I drilled holes in the bottom piece of my stand to route the electrical cords for my sump equipment:

Then I painted everything and glued the powerbar, in a tubberware container to the underside of the stand - making it impossible for spilled water to get to the electrical:

Added gfi plug in the rafters for my lighting and in the wall for the sump power:

Tank arrived:

I chopped down my closed loop filter screen so it didn't protrude into the tank so far:

 

[ninjafish]

T5HO lighting arrived:

I assembled the pvc plumbing:

Then glued it:

Then hit it with some krylon fusion spray piant:

 

[ninjafish]

Then added a few other pieces of equipment:

Thermometer and Stealth Heater

Laboratory grade metering pump for auto topoff

And a peacock mantis shrimp named Mac:

And that brings us pretty much up to date! :razz:

Thanks for looking,

- Chad

 

[reefman23]

You do some awesome work on your setups... I read through your other thread on nr.com... great stuff. Keep us updated on this tank's progress!

Jesse

 

[ninjafish]

Thanks Jesse!

 

[drty811]

yeah great looking set-up. very clean and organized. definitly will enjoy updates of this system.

 

[dynamic21]

So where's the updates? :moonin

 

[ninjafish]

Ok ok, here we go with some updates:

I took this one to show my topoff return line. The tubing comes up through one of the holes that I drilled for electrical cords and injects FW into the first chamber of my sump 8 times/ minute.

Here are a couple zoanthid colonies that I picked up. The photos are under the T5HO actinics. With the daylight bulbs they don't look nearly as nice:

Hope you like,

- Chad

 

[ninjafish]

I also added 20lbs of rock to the tank. You can't see it all in the photos because I put a big piece in the sump because it had some gsp on it and I want to keep the gsp in the display on the bottom glass and off of the rockwork.
Hope you enjoy:

- Chad

 

[drty811]

nice lookin zoa's

 

[ninjafish]

Thanks Erik!

 

[johnanddawn]

yep def nice work

 

[aquemeni5110]

:shock: WOW. Nice work indeed!

 

[thellamaaquarist]

How's Mac doing? How is his behavior without any substrate to dig in? My peacock used to dig and clean out his burrow basically all the time (except during feeding or if someone was standing right next to the tank). Tank looks great btw.

 

[dcook]

Any updates????

 

[TimSchmidt]

2007 as well. :cool1: