Tom aquatic mini deco 1 gallon all in one build day 4 – Aquascaping

All the new equipment I ordered has finally arived! Unfortunately, I didnt take many pictures of the set up because I was too excited to finally start aquascaping. Ill take it apart and show how everything goes together next time.

Items received:

• Hydor Hydrotherm temp controller
• Stealth mini 10 watt heater
• Clean up crew
• Bio filtration – Mangroves and Chaeto

Aquascaping, for me, is usually a fun and rewarding experience. However, when I desinged the tank, I didnt take into account the tiny amount of space that I have to work with, since I basically cut the tank in half with the false wall. This made the scaping very tough and very frustrating to do. I tried tracing the top of the tank and building the scape outside the tank with glue, but it just wasnt holding together. After, I decided to try and build it with my hands, but when I put my hand half way into the water, the tank would overflow. Finally, I resorted to having to use chop sticks to build the entire rock set up. Here’s how it came out:

Sorry for the cloudiness, but this picture was taken right as I completed the scape and I just snapped the picture quick with my phone. As you can see, the rock wall covers almost all of the innards of the built in filtration. I am hoping that once I get some corals in there, it will fill up the empty spaces where you can still see some of the build.

As I said in a previous post, I was planning to move from the picotope 9w light to the coralife 2 x 9w light that pretty much fits right on the tank. Due to the heater I had before being so large, that was not an option. Now, since I have installed the new heater and temp controller, I was able to switch and It makes the whole setup look a lot cleaner. But, this new change brought on a new problem. The light itself generates a lot of heat making the heater and temperature controller useless, and the light alone brings the temperature of the tank up to over 90 degrees . So, again we have to improvise:

Yes, I cut a case fan out of my computer, hooked it up with an old motorola phone charger, and viola, DIY fan mod. I just plug it into a timer to come on when the tank lights come on and its working perfect so far. The tank is at a steady 77-80 degrees.

Here is a cool top view of the filtration part of the tank. As you can see, there is plenty of light getting to the chaeto ball even through the aquascape. The Auto top off pump is easily hidden behind the tank, and overall, it looks pretty good to me. Also, I am trying out a few mangroves in here just to see what happens, but I don’t forsee it being a long test as they dont seem to be getting enough direct light.

Finally, I added a few corals:

Let me know what you think!

Livestock in the tank:

• Yellow skirt zoanthids – upper right
• red skirt zoanthids – Center
• Green button polyps – upper right
• Clove polyps – bottom right
• Chaeto – top left
• 3 Mangroves
• Clean up crew consisting of cerith, nerite, and nassarius snails

Future Livestock:

• Green star polyps
• Green ricordia
• More zoanthids
• Pom pom crab -or- 3 sexy shrimp

Cost of the build thus far:

• Tom aquatic mini deco 1 gallon kit – $25
• DIY Automatic Top Off (ATO) – $10
• Stealth mini heater – $13
• Hydor Hydrotherm temp controller – $25
• Acrylic sheet – $3
• Silicone – $3
• Coralife 2x9w fixture – $25

total: $104

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45 Responses to “Tom aquatic mini deco 1 gallon all in one build day 4 – Aquascaping”

1. jeffry r. johnston says:

   March 29, 2010 at 8:30 pm

   It’s amazing you were to create that beautiful aquascape in such a small space. I want one!
2. New Tank: 1 Gallon all in one reef aquarium | Reef Chronicle says:

   March 30, 2010 at 3:05 pm

   [...] Tom aquatic mini deco 1 gallon all in one build day 4 – Aquascaping [...]
3. Nathan says:

   April 9, 2010 at 2:12 am

   Amazing job! And also thank you SO much for the DIY battery powered ATO guide you made. I have been looking for a cheap auto top off system for my new 5 gallon hex dwarf seahorse tank I am just setting up. Again thank you so much!