Building a 5.5gal with false wall for nano contest

Started this build saterday and painted today
1.The tank is a critter cage 5.5 gallon 23.00 at pet smart
2.The false wall was made with 2 8"x10" Lexan .080 thick 3.98 a piece and a blade for cutting 3.84
3.Attached with loctite aquarium silicone 3.96
4.Black fushion spray paint 3.96
5.rio 40 gph 12.99 ebay
6.1/2 lock line with connector 5.50 ebay
7.clamp on led 6500k 18 white 3 blue 19.99 ebay
8.grand total 81.00 not including tax or live stock








3-4-11

3-4-11

Dang dude, that looks awsome. Any idea of the stocking plans ?

Also remember to put the word Contest somewhere in your title is this is going to be you contest thread.

Nice job.
Where did you find the krylon fusion? I haven't looked for it yet, save me some time. Does wally world carry it?

yep its at walmart


Be sure to give it a long cure time, to make sure its safe. once the cure time is up you will be fine. I would give it ~48 hrs to be safe

You gotta remember, I live in Marshall, nough said :>) I can't even buy 5/0 fishin' hooks here, but they carry lots of big snagging hooks, Someone needs to inform them that snagging is against the law in Texas.

haha, point taken

yeah got the fushion at walmart and this will be my entry into the contest if i can wait that long lol wont get back home tell the 25th so i think i can make it

haha, it starts a week from tuesday. Hang in there it will be here before you know it



I dont even have my tank yet, so you are already ahead of me . So far its between you and donnie.

I think as for as live stock crabs and shrimp only maby a clown goby and corals- zoes,yellow poylpys,leather and hope my candy cane will spilt soon and can add that too

Donnies got it ive seen alot of his work and he is good will be fun to watch though LOL!!!! (did you see the back ground he built it was awsome)

no I havent seen the back ground yet, gonna go check that out

jmg32595
So far, you and I are going the tough route both our tanks are gonna be completely self contained, no sumps, canister filters, just whats inside the tank walls. In the display part of my tank I will have 1.5 gallons with a little less than 1 gallon in the filter compartment. I think I ordered the exact same light you got, I found mine on ebay for $19.99, has the three blue in the center, should be here Monday, I ordered it last week sometime. Yeah, its gonna be hard to not put water and rock in the tank until the first, I get to look at mine everyday. I been doing some tests today on water flow and temp, so far lowest I can keep the temp without a fan is 82, I might just run it at that temp. I have a lot of flow in mine 80 gph.

I was gonna have two returns but its gonna be so hard to plumb that I may just use one. I did tests with an overflow grate in a plastic cup to see how much higher the water level was on the output side, its more than you think with 80 gph. guess I will put an emergency overflow at the desired level just in case, you might think about that to, something get against the drain grate, it will empty the back into display, could overflow. I found this out in my 28g when a floating bag with coral in it got against the overflow and stopped it up. I have not put my false wall in yet, probably tomorrow, just trying to figure out all the variables.

I'd cut mini overflow teeth 1/4in deep all the way across the false wall. If it fills up that far it'll overflow all the way across the tank.

hope my pump will be big enough it is a 40 gph anybody got any input is this enough for this 5.5, 4.2 in display area

how much room do you have back there ?

i would try to get up around 15x turn over

4x6 for pump

Sounds like you need my 80gph and I need you 40gph :>) I just bought the same pump I am using in my media reactor, its a via aqua 80, makes no noise at all. If you have 4g in display you probably should have 60- 80gph, if you are gonna keep any sps, for all the others you don't need as much. You will be able to tell when you test run it if you have enough current or not. I know I had to cut my output in half on mine because water was pushing up to the brim on the opposite end from the output and thats without the false wall in place. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it right now, you can always up the pump if you need to. In a small tank there is always the likelyhood that you will get to much current so nothing opens up. I didn't build mine to be in this contest, the contest came after. I just wanted to build a miniature version of a large reef tank, stand and hood and see if I could make it functional.

i have even seen people use a maxi-jet 600 on them.

Not sure what kind of flow that would make but i would guess it would be a ton



http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=262279

Wow i was thinking 8x turn over would be alot

I will have around 25-27 in mine

I think i will order the pump Donnie has and try this 40 out in the mean time and have the 80 gph for back up or replacement. It would be almost 20x turn over rate

sounds like a good plan

Thinking about running live rock rubble and cheto in the overflow with the live rock rubble on bottom and maybe a piece or two in with the pump do yall think this will keep the cheto out of the pump or do i need to install egg crate

i wouldn't run anything in the pump chamber, maybe have egg crate to use as a media rack for chemi pure or some carbon. I would make a small fuge in the first chamber.