ZEOvit Carpet Anemone Nano

[malx]

Hi, Everyone.

So here's my problem:



As you can see, Pancake, my Carpet Anemone, is a bit big. So, he's getting an upgrade! It's been over a year since he's been in this 10 gallon. Some fo you said that I was crazy to keep a Carpet in a tank this small with no skimmer, but after a year, I have been able to manage nutrients with 100ml ZEOlite, 50ml Carbon, 1ml of ZEOStart Daily, and bi-weekly 2 gallon water changes.

When making tanks, their aesthetic is as important to me as what is in them. This new tank is going to sit on my black granite kitchen counter top and it's going to have a custom sump hidden between the window and the edge of the counter. I'll post a picture of where it's going later, but for now, here's a shot of the tank all done and drilled.



It's 18 gallons total, 30" x 12" x 12"

It's going to house
2 Clownfish
1 Hermit Crab
1 Turbo Snail
and the Carpet

Will keep everyone posted!

I plan on building the tank this week and having info posted on the sump, stand, move, and how that's all going to work for everyone to follow.

Thanks,
Joey

[Bpb]

Looking forward to this. I am familiar with your 10 gallon from the general chat on tapatalk. I know you had some doubters but I was confident you'd be able to allow it to thrive as long as it could. I imagine there's now more anemone mass than water in that tank now ha ha. I expect the upgrade will be just as sleek and healthy as the previous

[malx]

Originally Posted by Bpb

Looking forward to this. I am familiar with your 10 gallon from the general chat on tapatalk. I know you had some doubters but I was confident you'd be able to allow it to thrive as long as it could. I imagine there's now more anemone mass than water in that tank now ha ha. I expect the upgrade will be just as sleek and healthy as the previous

Thanks dude!

[malx]

Ok, so first step is to figure out how this filtration is going to work. The tank is going to sit on my kitchen counter. The sump, will be situated on the floor, between the edge of the counter and the floor to ceiling glass wall. There's a space that's like a triangle, which has room for an 8" wide x 20" long sump. The issue is there is no room for an ATO container, and the sump needs to be almost level with the kitchen counter because I'd like to grow mangroves out of it as a backdrop to the tank. So, I needed to elevate the sump and have room for an ATO container under it.

The solution was to build a stand for the sump. I always go with T-Slot Aluminum, but to save time, I built a mockup out of poplar so I can build the sump and work on the fitment while the T-Slot stand I ordered comes.

Here's the DIY stand:



Here's the place the sump has to go:


Even though this was temporary, I painted it black because I wanted to see how noticeable it was black. Once I realized it fit nice, I created a CAD of a T-slot drawing and got it ordered. Only drawback was that I couldn't do an angle, but that just means I have to fill my ATO container another way. Here's that CAD:


While I want for the tank to arrive (it's coming tomorrow). I also got a chance to glue together the Aquascape. I wanted a simple minimal Aquascape, but I did want something in the tank that would cover the pipes that go down the back from the drilled holes. I chose Carib Sea Tonga Rock, as well as Purple Pipes so the Pipes go unnoticeable.

Here's the scape I ended up with. It's glued together with Jurassic Gel Paleo Bond. The stuff is like Cement!


I've been letting this cure for a few days now, I won't move it until I need to.

In addition to that, for the past two weeks I have been soaking the live sand in RODI water to cure it and kill the bacteria. It sounds counter-productive, but for the ZEOvit system, you have to use dry sand, and since I wanted this specific type of black sand that only came live, it needed to be treated.



Will post more details on the sump tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Joey

[malx]

Hi, All.

So another update. T-Slot stand came yesterday which I built out and then cut some plastic board to out on the floor and on the stand to hold the sump/ATO. The sump is built out of two plastic trash cans I got at The Container Store with a 2" bulkhead between them and a 1" "muffler" I made to make it quiet. Everything is ready and fits nice. Now, just waiting for the Tank to arrive so I can start plumbing!

Also, I've included a shot of my kitchen where the tank will go. I placed the Aquascape approximately where it would be if the tank were to be there and the tape measure shows the length of the tank.

Let me know what you guys think!

[malx]

And here she is! Plumbed and ready to go! Will be filing with water on Thursday:











Let me know what you guys think!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[homer1475]

I might be worried about natural sunlight creating issues with algae. I would probably have painted the back.

[malx]

Originally Posted by homer1475

I might be worried about natural sunlight creating issues with algae. I would probably have painted the back.

I'm not worried about that at all and painting the back would ruin the look of this build. All of the tanks I make are sea through. You can control algae by keeping your nutrients in check.