Most likely a little in over my head but here we go anyway. I have my six gallon fluval edge, which I think is a neat tank design. Unfortunately it is mainly for freshwater fish, so that leaves me to modify things a bit to get it pico reef ready : ) Lights almost finished just waiting on a 50/50 coralife mini 20 watt bulb to be mailed. no idea what to do for a better filter, since the one it comes with is pretty horriable mini heater built for a five gallon aquarium that will hopefully work in the filter and not be an eye soar in my tank. koralia nano for just the right amount of flow Tank with stock lights LED light mods nice night lighting still seeing spots after taking this pic The filter, which I have heard o'so many horriable things about and will probably get rid of there it is so far, still waiting on the other light, and I need to deal with the filter before I start adding stuff to it, but its a start. : D
You might do something like this for the filter. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=601201&highlight=aquwa+clear+refudeium
I converted a 29 freshwater to marine and only changed the lights. I ran it that way for a full year before I added a marine filter and skimmer. I did change the filter monthly and did frequent water changes. I'm not suggesting it, just saying I did it. I am very interested to see what you come up with.
Finally got to mess with the filter a bit, and I believe I know exactly what my plan of attack is hooked everything up, and watched the filter work for a bit, and it wasn't to bad besides the fact that it took a good 10 minutes before it was able to pull enough water through the hose to actually filter anything. Thats with me having everything but the hose primed with water already, since I didn't have a way to get water in the hose other than the pump. i also discoverd my kitchen sink has dirty water From the picture above, there is a nice little area to the right above the pump, where I believe some chaetomorpha, and other such things will fit nicely. The white sponge at the bottom has been cut in half, and the plastic basket thing has been cut half an inch to place a few mini bioballs under it. While gluing the little plastic basket back together, this happened my hands now smell like silicon : ( i am currently waiting for the silicon to dry so I can put it all together and test out my "amazing" handy work. I have a feeling I over looked something as I tend to do when I start projects.
Great job so far! Those lights are a huge improvement. We're all enjoying following along with your Fluval adventure!
Got everything put back together, and have been running the pump with the modifications for about an hour now, and everything seems to work perfectly. Doesn't look like I did much, but it was a lot in my mind
got everything for the last light bulb, now all that's left is the cycle which shouldnt be bad since I am using water from my main tank. Have electrical tape for now, while I work on cutting out a piece of plastic to mount the bulb on I also coated the led bulbs in a clear coat to seal it, hopefully keeping them from getting water damage I think thats enough light, I have 15 watts of light, for a six gallon aquarium, I might need to hold back on how long they are on Next to fill it, and enjoy : )
Getting sand and live rock today, and I'm going to use water from my main tank so the cycle isn't super horriable.
Since this picture, I have added another five pounds of sand, but it hasn't settled yet. The tank has a bad problem about throwing bubbles under the top of the glass, which dont look very nice, so I have found a way to fix this problem, using some mesh and a small sponge : )
It looks nice, William. I figured a filter would cut down on the bubbles. I'm glad you figured it out.
Haha, I did that when the tank was to cloudy to see anything and it ended up being pretty sweet so I left it.
Why yes, yes I do I am still working on getting the salinity to stay at a constant, with so little water and a lot of lights really close, I have evaporation like crazy. I had a Talbot damsel in there for two weeks and he did great, so I'm ready to start stocking this thing. I also would like impute on what you guys think would be a good material to make a reflector for my lights, I can mount it to the top lid perfectly, I just don't know what to use. Thanks to the light not quite penetrating far enough, it look like the new sand is lighter than the old sand. The reflector should help this a lot though. Yasha haze and Randalli goby, very very small, which is the only reason I have them both in there, and they will eventually get a bigger home, so don't worry. Reason for the need of a good reflector, it appears most of my actinic is not hitting the tank, but instead is going straight up, due to useing a 50/50 mini coralife bulb : ( Still waiting on chaetomorpha for the the miniature version of a mini fuge I have all worked out. Other than that I am waiting on corals for a bit, I still need to do lots more research and figure out exactly what I want in terms of hard corals which I've never had before. Am planning a water change next week, still haven't decided if I want to use one gallon of new water or one gallon of water from my big tank, since there isn't much water in this tank, I dont want to add to much new water. Other than stocking and adding a reflector I am completely finished with the tank. : )
