I've been out of the reef scene for a couple of years, sadly. My new job pulled me from home, and I had a lot of other issues to deal with. I had to drastically downsize my aquarium hobby (both FW and SW), which was probably for the best.
I've been settled in my current place for almost a year, and in the last couple years I've started up a few smaller FW tanks. (I've only got one 9g fish tank, one 10g turtle tank, one 30g frog tank, and one 33g hermit crab tank -- I'm under control compared to the old days. Of course, a 50g for the turtle is in order when it gets bigger, ha ha ha.)
The reef bug hit me recently, so this weekend I rooted through all my old equipment that I'd left at my mom's. (Seeing all the tank stuff I had made me remember why I chose the name Flusher, and why my avatar is a toilet flushing money away. Eugh...) Most of my old equipment is in sad shape and destined for the trash, but my old 13 gallon nano was still intact. I'm bringing it back to life, but I've decided to go simple.
In 2006 I'd upgraded my 13g to a 24g nano that I never much liked, and had planned to return to the 13g. I'd drilled it to attach the original small sump to eliminate the siphon. I had also made some DIY concrete rock designed specifically to fit in the tank and around the plumbing; it had been curing at my mom's for several months.
This weekend I pulled off the sump altogether and will be replacing it with a Filstar xP1, with an inline heater (both are in the mail). The lid is going to get a reduction since the sump is gone. I'm skipping live rock and live sand, and will be doing a fishless cycle using ammonia.
So far, I'm water-testing the tank to make sure it still holds true, and I'm making sure the concrete is done curing. Hopefully I'll find a suitable table this week to get it out of my kitchen, and hopefully I'll get my hands on some tools to fix up the lid.
Here's a collection of all sorts of old aquarium projects I'd built. Most are long gone. Some were recycled into new projects.
http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/Flusher/?
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LovelyWendie