playing w/ an old 30 gallon hex...

[Ram_Puppy]

So.. heres the deal...

I am wanting to do a smallish tank w/ a Antennarus Maculatus Frogfish in it.

I don't want to invest in a new tank, but am willing to invest in a little bit of good equipment.

I want it on my computer desk, and i want the footprint to be as tiny as possible.

so, my choices of aquariums I have just sitting aroun, are a 180, 120, and a 30.

obviously the 30 hex is the only one that fits the bill, but I feel it's too tall, and there is a serious design flaw in the stand, i.e. you can't fit ANY filter under it. lol

In addition, I want to push my skills, develop some new ones, and do an aquarium that is truly unique and interesting to look at.

So.. here's some of the wierd stuff I am thinking about.

1) only the front 3 panels of the tank will be visible. everything else will be encased in wood.

2) the tank will have a 6" deep sand bed, and to cover that, the 'stand' will come up 5" on the glass, essentially shortening the tank, and hiding 5 inches of the 6" bed. The stand itself will be barely there, just large enough to hold a drawer to conceal a feeding stick.

3) At the top of the tank, I want to put in 2 acrylic sheets, 1 verticle bisecting the tank from left to right, the other horizontal, forming a base. i know that's not a good description, but the intended effect will be to cut out about 1/6 of the tank and isolate it as a refugium. It will be drilled on the verticle piece for water to escape, and the horizontal piece will have one hole, and a rectangle cut into the back of it for....

4) Inserting a remora pro... so the skimmer will be INSIDE the tank. The pump will be below the refugium, pumping water into the skimmer, the skimmer return will go into the refugium, and then be returned out of the refugium into the main tank. This will accomplish I hope a major feat, keeping those notorious micro bubbles from the remora pro out of the main display.

5) The canopy will be similar to the stand, hiding the refugium from view, though this water area will be swimmable and open, it will not be visible. I don't think the frogfish will venture up there much since they are lethargic bottom dwelling creatures unless food is about. So, the tank if I remember right, is 29" tall, so 6 inches or so off the top, 6 inches or so off the bottom, leaves me w/ a middle viewing area of about 18" which is about what I want.

6) Covering up all that unsightly mess inside...

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/article...background.php

I have been wanting to do a styrofoam sculpted background for ages now. this is a good chance! I will slightly change the recipie though, after i have impregnated the styrofoam w/ it's first layer of concrete, I am going to put an aragocrete slurry over the top instead of going through all the finishing steps mentioned in the article. (this is the very porous styrofoam w/ lots of open holes) in addition to hiding all the equipment (which will probably include two small hydor koralias (2's) the styrofoam will sever as a support buttress for the acrylic/glass bond which I know is not as good as if i went w/ glass (but acrylic is easier to drill and cut and I can pay ACE to do it instead of some glass company that will mess it up anyhow!) the styrofoam should give it a lot of added strength.

aquascaping wise, I will cover the back 3 panels, and work it thicker and thicker towards the top, where it will come up past the halfway point of the tank and hide the entire refugium structure as well. think of it like an inverted hill...

This is going to create a dark tank, to light it, I am going to put either a coralive advanced 150 watt, or a Viper 2 150 watt MH on it. The one light will support the refugium and the tank. I want the visual effect to be as if you were diving, and there was a reef overhand and your looking into a small portion of it.

Light loving corals will be higher up, closer to the light, and there will only be a few of them. everything else will be non-photosynthetic - like sponges, sun polyps, and candy cane coral.

I know it's hard to imagine, and my descriptions aren't all that great, but what do you think?

My plan is to take it slow and do it right. I have made to many compromises in my aquariums to date either because of money, or just pure impatience. This tank is as much an exercise in defeating that as it is just to have a neat little home for a frog fish.

the only additional residents I might contemplate, assuming I can find them of a suitable size, wouldbe a fu-man-chu lion, and a dwarf fuzzy lion.. both of which get much larger than maculatus, and if introduced at the right size, should be to large for him to even consider eating. (thse fish are notorious for trying to eat things larger than they are as well!)

but, since all these fish like putting things in their mouths, that mix may be out the door.

anyhow, opinions, feedback - design improvements welcome!

[Ram_Puppy]

oh, and almost all the rock in the tank will be arago-crete, I will only put a little bit of uncured liverock in to seed the tank, and a rubble in the refugium w/ the cheato.

The reason I am not going w/ a HIATT on this is because I believe that a tank that is to lightly stocked is actualyl incapable of sustaining the hiatt, and of course, the hiatt would have to be outside the tank, and I want my filter inside it... nothing outside the footprint of the hex!

[erikharrison]

dude, i picture every bit of it in my head, your descriptions were great! Sounds like a great idea, but how is the light going to shine through the refugium and inverted hill?

[Ram_Puppy]

the light will be positioned over the forward half of the tank, which will be open all the way tot he top... the refugium section will only be on the back half of the tank.

but, you make me think of a neat thought... that perhaps putting the refugium on the forward half of the tank would be more visually interesting?

I think it might... I will have to think on this!

[Ram_Puppy]

the thought just occured to me that if it was on the front half it wouldn't hide the skimmer very well. lol

but... that being said... I am thinking since I will be using a styrofoam/concrete combination.. I could actually just not use the acrylic at all... i think the styro will be strong enough on it's own. I may just leave a slit open at the top, and put a structure on the front as well, and let the light peek through in just one spot... that could be very frickin cool!

[erikharrison]

it would be!

[Ram_Puppy]

ok.. I have been sketching out ideas since i last posted and I think it would be a visually stunning effect, however one problem I forsee is access to the tank.

Problem solved! While the refugium and foam/rock in the back will be siliconed in, there is no reason to do that in the front. So I make the rock work in front w/ some type of hook or reciever that grabs the lip of the tank... this might require some acrylic work from ace... essentially though, when I need into the tank I just un latch it and take it out... it should be small enough to fit into a bucket, so hopefully nothing on it will die... otherwise, as long as it's loose and floats I shouldn't have a problem w/ just working around it. and, if it doesn't work, I can just take it out.

I am getting very excited about this... it will essentially look like your looking into a cave w/ a hole in the roof that lets in sunlight. If I put a hydor koralia up close to the top I should get a lot of surface agitation, and that could work out to some fantastic glitter lines enhancing the 'effect'.

[Ram_Puppy]

what do you guys think about drilling the tank in the back, installing a bulkhead & a 2" PVC pipe running up and out of the tank so I can put a power strip in the canopy and then run a single cable down and out the back of the tank.