Boudster's Custom 10.4 Gallon Quad-chamber Nano Thread

[boudster]

I have been researching Nano's for quite a while.....and have been trying to decide exatly what I want. I want to do something unique, and I think I have finally come up with the design that I like the most.

Before having this tank built (www.nicksacrylicreef.com) I want to make sure I don't have any major flaws in the design. I hope you will take the time to read this thread and comments so this tank can turn out as nice as possible!

Here is the pic, followed by a more detailed explanation of how this will work.

As you can see, this is divided up into 4 chambers.....I'll start from left to right.

The rightmost chamber is the refugium.....one of my favorite things to watch is a refugium with all the crazy critters moving around. I've found that if you keep it organized and clean and keep the cheato pruned it can be a pretty attractive part of your system. I plan on adding sand from Garrick's Sand Vat (TM) , a bunch of live rock rubble, and cheato. No Caleurpa! I'll probably add some sort of cool critter that I couldn't keep in my main reef section, like maybe a small reef lobster or something like that.

This is also where one of the returns from the overflow chamber Will be. I'll explain that later in this post.

The middle chamber will be the actual nano-reef. I plan on a shallow sand bed, with a moderate amount of live rock. Notice there will also be a return from the overflow in this section to provide additional flow. I plan on keeping all types of corals from mushrooms, to softies, to SPS frags in this section of the tank. I will probably go with one small goby, as well as a nano-sized clean up crew. I'm hoping to stick some cool critters in there like a harlequin shrimp, staghorn hermit, some sort of cool looking nubranch...the list will develop over time.

The water will then flow into the third chamber, which will be a small seahorse chamber. A some rock rubble and sand will be accompanied by some red Macroalge and that Calcium Based Macroalgae...can't think of the name right now. Hopefully the critters from the fuge will make it over to this chamber with ease to feed the seahorses.

From this chamber the water will go into the overflow. Here I will keep as powerful a pump/powerhead as I can reasonable fit (any suggestions). The water will then be pumped through a bulkhead in the back of this chamber, where it will quickly tee into 2 seperate pipes (PVC running on the outside/back of the tank. Both will have their own ball valves to control flow. One will flow directly into the main reef (through another bulkhead), and once there wil probably be directed 2 different directions. The second, which will have the valve more closed than the first, will flow into the refugium (through another bulkhead). Enough flow to provide enough flow for the cheato...but not too much to disturb the fuge.

At this point I am thinking of going with High Output T5's for my lighting......does anyone know where I can get a 30" T5 setup for a decent price?

I will also invest in some moonlights, and would like to find a way to light the fuge seperately at night without disturbing the rest of the tank (any ideas?)

Anyway, I would appreciate any feedback, comments, suggestions as this is my first nano setup. I think this will be a unique design and hope this thread will provide a good read for many of you!

 

[boudster]

Ok, I have already had a few people point out a flaw in the design. The water should flow from the reef section into the overflow rather than from the seahorse chamber.....otherwise there will be too much flow for my dwarf seahorses.

Any other ideas?

 

[Agu]

Looks like an interestig layout .

The return pump chamber may be too small. All your evaporation will be shown there as it's the lowest portion of the tank. Once you add a return pump and plumbing there'll be less than a gallon of water in there. You need to either enlarge that chamber or set up an auto topoff.

The seahorse area is too small for anything but dwarf seahorses afaik. Btw, is it Halimeda (calcium based macroalgae) you're trying to think of ? Also if you ran all the flow through that chamber it would probably be too much for the seahorses. You may want to check out that part of the plan in the seahorse forum.

FWIW, you're showing 10" wide on the right side and 12" wide on the left side.

I'd personally skip the chamber on the front left and make it part of the main tank.


jmo,

 

[bennerkla]

1.2 gallons is pretty small for a seahorse I would think, especially more than 1 like you are talking about.

You are talking about 30" T-5's. The refugium needs a low kevlin rating, like 6,500, while the reef needs 10,000 with actinic supplemation. You could be a 24" light setup to light the reef and seahorse tank, and a different setup for the fuge. Are you going to build a canopy? If not, this is almost impossible without spillage. Also, mounting moonlights is much easier with a canopy. Trust me, I've been working on my 5.5 nano for 3 months now; learn from my experience.

Here is my suggestion...

You should run a closed loop to allow more room for your seahorses. 2.4 gallons is enough room for a seahorse, plus you'll have more space to look at. If you like looking at a refugium, that's cool, but a 6,500 K light will attract algae. My refugium is disgusting, I'm glad I don't have to look at it. Just my opinion and in my experience.

All in all, this is one of the coolest designs I've ever seen, hopefully it'll work out for you!!

HTH,

Bennerkla

 

[bennerkla]

BTW, if you are talking about SPS corals, I would HIGHLY recommend you get a 70 watt MH retro kit to install in your canopy. You'll thank me later.

 

[boudster]

thanks

thanks

Bennerkla,

Glad to see you're paying attention to this thread.....I have read your entire thread and that was one of my big motivations to do this.

I am definitely wanting to do a canopy, and a base similar to what you did with yours. For it to go with my office, however, I would need some sort of stainless steel look....I just wonder if this would cause more heat problem than a wood canopy would.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

I have modified the original design to lessen the flow through the seahorse chamber......although I definitely like your idea about the closed loop. Let me make sure I understand what you're saying:

So instead of dividing the chamber on the left into 2 seperate chambers, I would keep it as one (same size as the refugium), and I would run an external pump to pull water out of that chamber and pump it back into the main chamber and fuge? Is that what you're thinking.......I think that is a much better design...I don't know why I didn't think of doing that. That would also solve the problem of the water level getting low really quickly in the pump's chamber.

What does everyone thing.....should I go that way instead? I'm thinking yes.

As for the lighting......I really want to stay away from MH if possible because of heat and electricity usage. I have been inspired from the Reef Central Tank of the Month a few months back that used only T5's in an SPS dominated tank....also, I love the color that the T5's give off. I would be willing to sacrifice keeping the harder, higher light SPS corals in exchange for going with the T5s.

Lasty, I need some more advice as to the fuge lighting. Nick at nicksacrylicreef.com suggested doing black baffles to seperate each chamber....that way I could light the fuge from the side of the tank at night without bothering the other inhabitants. This seems like a good idea...as I could just run the 65K fuge light from the side at night, but do y'all think the black baffles would look funny?

Thanks for all the advice so far....keep it coming!

 

[boudster]

Just realized by not splitting the rightmost chamber into 2....I go back to the problem of having too much flow through the seahorse chamber.........any suggestions?

 

[boudster]

Looks like an interestig layout .


FWIW, you're showing 10" wide on the right side and 12" wide on the left side.

Good thing I didn't major in Math.....all the more reason to not divide that chamber into 2.....the pump chamber would only be 4" X 6"....much too small.

I really want to keep that rightmost chamber for seahorses....now the issue is not having too much flow.

Ideas?

 

[Don_Gnomio]

i would skip the seahorses altogether.....

but other than that it looks good....

 

[boudster]

i would skip the seahorses altogether.....

but other than that it looks good....

I know it complicates things.....but I really want them. What if I move the baffle that splits the leftmost chamber back so that I have 8"X8"X6" for the Seahorse chamber....and drill a minimal amount of holes so in the baffles so that it gets less flow. That would leave a 2"X6"X8" are in back of the seahorse chamber which I could leave open, as part of the main reef. That way the majority of the water would flow through that part into the external pump.

I really like things to look symmetrical, so I would really like to stick with the 2 6" end chambers with the 18" middle chamber

Think that would work?

 

[mightymouse]

make the 2.4 gallons the seahorse area and the other arera your fuge just make a kind of strainer to keep the chaeto from going down ur overflow just a thought and you may wanna skip a harlequin too much for a 6 gallon main section plus always having to have a dieing starfish in your tank isnt good for water quality

 

[bennerkla]

boudster- the black baffles is a great idea. That would not look weird at all. Why don't you just run the overflow into the refugium?

 

[boudster]

boudster- the black baffles is a great idea. That would not look weird at all. Why don't you just run the overflow into the refugium?

The reason I didn't want to run the overflow into the fuge is because I didn't want all the pods getting chopped up in the pump....with the flow going the other way the pods would get to the main section before they would ever have a chance to enter the pump.

 

[boudster]

Ok, I think I've got this figured out....I will post the new design soon

 

[bennerkla]

You could just run 3 mini powerheads.

 

[boudster]

You could just run 3 mini powerheads.

No powerheads....whenver I set up a tank the goal is to see as little equipment as possible. Here is the setup that I think will work the best....I realize that I can probably only keep 1 small seahorse.....that's ok with me.

Note, I had to change the heigth to 7.5 inches so it would fit in the area I want it to go. It is now a 9.7 gallon Nano.

The media chamber is really part of the main reef chamber, but I will add a sponge or something to keep debris out of the pump (thanks Incysor) and I can also stick some filter bags down there with carbon and phosban.

At Ben's suggestion, I have decided to go with the black Acrylic panels to separate the chambers.....I think this severs to purposes:

1) When you're looking into one of the chambers you won't see through the sides to the adjacent chamber(s).

2) I can light the fuge without disturbing the rest of the tank.

Any more tweaks before I have this thing built?

 

[dcoufal]

How about making the black acrylic on the seahorse chamber have more holes and creating 2nd duplicate divider. You could have a couple of small brackets on divider that would allow you to raise/lower the 2nd divider to allow easy flow adjustment into the seahorse chamber.

Does that make sense?? I hope so....

Dwain

 

[boudster]

How about making the black acrylic on the seahorse chamber have more holes and creating 2nd duplicate divider. You could have a couple of small brackets on divider that would allow you to raise/lower the 2nd divider to allow easy flow adjustment into the seahorse chamber.

Does that make sense?? I hope so....

Dwain

I like the idea, the only problem is that the acrylic would be twice as this in the left chamber and it would drive me crazy because I'm very symmetrical....it's an OCD thing.

Maybe I could get some small plugs for the holes so I can increase or decrease flow by adding or removing plugs....do you think that would work? I really do like your idea of being able to tweak the flow.

Anybody have any final thoughts on the tank design....I'd really like to get this thing submitted to Nick's Acrylic Reef

 

[bennerkla]

Looks good to me, just make sure you split the flow coming out of that main reef bulkhead. You don't want all the flow in one concentrated area (like my tank, but oh well).

With that many holes, the light spillage will still be a factor I think. It might not, but I would recommend more small, tiny holes rather than 10 big ones. Make them towards the top, don't have any on the bottom half of that acrylic because of the sand.

I'm really nervous about this, it seems like it might work but I don't have a good feeling about it. I'm worried that you'll get it and have something come up like I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT!!!

IMO just wait another couple of days to let more people look at it, maybe post it on the Reef Discussion board and make sure that it is going to work.

cya,

Ben

 

[dcoufal]

I like the idea, the only problem is that the acrylic would be twice as this in the left chamber and it would drive me crazy because I'm very symmetrical....it's an OCD thing.

The sliding piece could be inside the seahorse pen - made from 1/8" clear acylic.... It doesn't have to be thick as it isn't structural.

You know.... there are pills for that OCD thing.

Dwain