Soapy's 2012 Nano Contest Entry
 

For this contest I am going to be working with my son. He is eleven and has his own ideas of what should go into a reef tank so it could get messy. We are going to do a multi-tank Rube Goldberg type set up. Lots of pipes and DIY gizmos. At the same time we will be trying to keep it clean and classy looking.

This should be fun, we are definitely looking forward to it.

Awesome with great son that's cool:biggrin:...sounds like an ambitious build lol

a post has been made in all the contest forumns regarding contest rules via the timeline, everyone should read this post as there seems to be some confusion.

What is a "multi-tank Rube Goldberg type set up"?

Its fun working with kids and reef tanks. Mine always ask if we can get "dory" the blue powder tang in a nano tank lol NO haha.

sweeeeeeet i cant wait to see this , i love theme tanks:)

theme tanks
 

Well speaking of themes I thought I would post some inspirational photos.

http://www.mauialmanac.com/img/algae.jpg

http://www.saveourpeninsula.org/clim...%20Graham).jpg

http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/18...lution-SPL.jpg

Nice!

Worlds Within Worlds
 

Ok so we have come up with a theme for our contest entry, it will be 'Worlds
within Worlds'. Also tanks within tanks and organisms within organisms. A metaphorical journey down the nano-tank rabbit hole. Er, Mantis hole?

Well, I happened to look and see that today is empty tank shot day, so here is a shot for that. Unfortunately this is about where we are at with this project, although we have been working steadily at it. We still need to find some kind of stand to mount all the gear into. Speaking of which here is a list of everything we have so far for this build:

NEW:
Aqueon nano tanks
Ehiem 3000 return pump
Kessil 150 LED lighting
Tunze Osmolator top off unit
gate valves, bulkheads etc.

USED:
15 gallon tank for sump (will only be partially filled)
small heater

possible DIY projects:
Mame style air driven skimmer
kalk reactor

http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...psf18226ba.jpg

Very nice start there, what size tank is that? 8G id guess or so.
I like that its sumped also :) Will give a clean look for sure.
I hope that kessel wont be too much for this tank, but sweet im glad to see Quality parts!

Yep the Kessil might be a little overkill but at least after the contest is over I will have a great little light to add my big system. The light might be powering two tanks but it remains to be seen how that is going to work out.

Super cool, Is it the dimmable light? Two tank eh, sounds like fun!!

No it is not the dimmable Kessil it is the A150W ocean blue. On my big tank I have the dimmable one, the A350W Tuna blue. It has knobs for dimming the white and blue LEDs. So you can control the spectrum to some degree. It is not controllable though, at least as far as I know.

Since this one has no controls I will have to control the amount of light the old fashioned way by moving the fixture up and down.

Pretty cool, never seen thoes lights in person. But people seem to like them.
Keep up the hard work!