My little piece of the ocean
 

I recently retired a 100G rimless that was a full blown sps aquarium. The entire aquarium with hardware and livestock was donated to the museum of science here locally. I then decided to get a nano aquarium to keep my sanity and this is what i came up with. This will be my build thread and aquarium log of this aquarium.

Here's the current list of the hardware as of today.

Tank- Pico Aquarium's Deep Blue 18
Lighting- AI Sol Nano
Stand- Ecoxotic 18 x 18 stand
ATO- JBJ
Dosing- Marine Magic triple dosing unit. Will be dosing 2 part


the stand
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_0864.jpg

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_0865.jpg

The aquarium. I got the aquarium from picoaquariums. I really like the filtration box that's included with the unit. I can adjust the water height in the display tank to my desire. Most other ato tanks is fixed at one height. i usually spill water over the top of the aquarium when cleaning the tank but now that it's adjustable i can avoid all that and keep the display clean and neat.

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1034.jpg

a side view of the aquarium showing the sump area

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1032.jpg

another side view with a prototype sump cover to hide the mess associated with AIO tanks

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1031.jpg

with full spectrum lights on without flash.

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1030.jpg

A FTS of the front showing aquascape

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1024.jpg

notice the sump cover hiding the mess
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1026.jpg

under the hood
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1028.jpg

i find that the AI nano is really powerful! if you go with this option make sure you aclimate the corals slowly. initally i started running the output at 25% but corals were begining to bleach. right now i'm running the output at 16% and corals seems to be fine. once i get the corals i desire i will slowly increase power of the lighting

Great Light

btw lpabsolute, love the avatar! lol

awesome update! picoaquariums made me a prototype cover for the filter area! love the look of the finish!

top before the cover

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1147.jpg

with the cover

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1146.jpg

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1145.jpg

a close up of the finish

http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_1148.jpg