Shooter7
New member
This will be the 4th renovation of my 10g tank in the past 2 1/2 years. The first came as it was when I bought it as a full setup from a local reefer. It had quite a bit of rock in it with a powerhead and HOB filter. Was loaded with xenia, frogspawn, shrooms...and bubble algae. Rolled with that for awhile, but then decided I wanted to clean things up a bit, so I pulled the rock, picked off the bubble algae and tried again. Had a canopy on it that had those screw in type PC bulbs. That was number 2. Number 3 opened things up a bit with the rockwork. I got rid of a lot of the original rock as it was still bubble algae infested. I added a 96w coralife pc fixture. Pretty soon, this tank became more of a parking area for coral frags that I had around than an actual display tank. Finally decided I wanted to try one more different look with my 10g.
So, renovation number 4 was decided to have a closed loop system for water flow to rid the powerhead in the tank, as well as adding MH lighting. First, using my minimal woodworking skills, I slapped together a canopy and managed to get it right so that it would sit on top of the tank and house my light. As you can imagine, it is rather large for a 10g and only marginally decent to look at, so no pics of it will waste space here
. I then hunted around for a pump I wanted to try and decided on the Panworld line. I ordered the smallest one that Premium Aquatics had to try it out, and quickly found on DI water test that it had almost no flow coming into the tank. I moved up a couple of sizes to a PanWorld 40PX-MD20R. Unfortunately, all the plumbing I had put together was made of half inch PVC, the new pump had 3/4" outlets. I had to do some cutting and pasting, but I got some reducers on there, so for those who would ask, this is half inch PVC it's made of. I ended up with this:
I didn't want to mess with drilling, so went with the over the top setup. The intake tube is merely a capped piece of PVC with holes drilled in it. When you look at the back, I'm sure someone will want to know what the little branch off line with the ball valve on it is for. I am looking at using that for water changes...at least the draining of water part of a water change. Close the valve to the tank returns and open the valve to the branch off line and run the pump until you fill the bucket of waste water. Probably overkill, but I thought I'd mess with it. With that idea in mind, I made sure and drilled my intake tube's holes below the halfway point of the tank so that I wouldn't be sucking air when draining waste water from the tank. Finish off the water movement system with a center mounted small HOB filter that I run carbon in sometimes, and I've been using this phosphate removal "fabric" in there as well. I cut a piece of this stuff and plop in the filter and seems to help on my previous setup.
I painted the back of the tank black, then I got some of that Krylon Fusion satin finish spray paint and painted the PVC returns and intake tube. I really like how it looks. I added in mostly new rock, not all that much so I have good flow all around it, and got things rolling. I moved corals over from a holding tank, as well as my chromis, which has been a resident of this tank for 2 years now. I had to add a small fan in my canopy as my light was jacking the temp up to around 84 - 85 degrees and that did the trick, tank stays right at 80 now. So, all in all, nothing earth shattering here, but just a view of another way to do things and hopefully it will be successful for me. I will have to continue to find corals to fill in the rock space with. I have no skimmer on this tank, rely on weekly water changes. No ATO right now, but between the light and the fan, it does some evaporating all right. Hoping that frequent water changes will avoid the need for supplements, but I'll watch test results and see what happens. Here's some more pictures:
rock first in and no white balance on the phoenix 14k, 150w MH light
My pocillipora seems to be happy in there:
Orange rics haven't opened up yet, orange monti cap looks happy:
A side view where you can see the plumbing in the tank:
That's my 120g in the background, obviously my white balance is not set for that tank's lighting. :lol:
So, renovation number 4 was decided to have a closed loop system for water flow to rid the powerhead in the tank, as well as adding MH lighting. First, using my minimal woodworking skills, I slapped together a canopy and managed to get it right so that it would sit on top of the tank and house my light. As you can imagine, it is rather large for a 10g and only marginally decent to look at, so no pics of it will waste space here
. I then hunted around for a pump I wanted to try and decided on the Panworld line. I ordered the smallest one that Premium Aquatics had to try it out, and quickly found on DI water test that it had almost no flow coming into the tank. I moved up a couple of sizes to a PanWorld 40PX-MD20R. Unfortunately, all the plumbing I had put together was made of half inch PVC, the new pump had 3/4" outlets. I had to do some cutting and pasting, but I got some reducers on there, so for those who would ask, this is half inch PVC it's made of. I ended up with this:
I didn't want to mess with drilling, so went with the over the top setup. The intake tube is merely a capped piece of PVC with holes drilled in it. When you look at the back, I'm sure someone will want to know what the little branch off line with the ball valve on it is for. I am looking at using that for water changes...at least the draining of water part of a water change. Close the valve to the tank returns and open the valve to the branch off line and run the pump until you fill the bucket of waste water. Probably overkill, but I thought I'd mess with it. With that idea in mind, I made sure and drilled my intake tube's holes below the halfway point of the tank so that I wouldn't be sucking air when draining waste water from the tank. Finish off the water movement system with a center mounted small HOB filter that I run carbon in sometimes, and I've been using this phosphate removal "fabric" in there as well. I cut a piece of this stuff and plop in the filter and seems to help on my previous setup.
I painted the back of the tank black, then I got some of that Krylon Fusion satin finish spray paint and painted the PVC returns and intake tube. I really like how it looks. I added in mostly new rock, not all that much so I have good flow all around it, and got things rolling. I moved corals over from a holding tank, as well as my chromis, which has been a resident of this tank for 2 years now. I had to add a small fan in my canopy as my light was jacking the temp up to around 84 - 85 degrees and that did the trick, tank stays right at 80 now. So, all in all, nothing earth shattering here, but just a view of another way to do things and hopefully it will be successful for me. I will have to continue to find corals to fill in the rock space with. I have no skimmer on this tank, rely on weekly water changes. No ATO right now, but between the light and the fan, it does some evaporating all right. Hoping that frequent water changes will avoid the need for supplements, but I'll watch test results and see what happens. Here's some more pictures:
rock first in and no white balance on the phoenix 14k, 150w MH light
My pocillipora seems to be happy in there:
Orange rics haven't opened up yet, orange monti cap looks happy:
A side view where you can see the plumbing in the tank:
That's my 120g in the background, obviously my white balance is not set for that tank's lighting. :lol:
Awesome project. :thumbsup:
