Matt's AIO Clear Mini 6 build

[souciemm]

This is my second saltwater tank and first build on reef2reef (also posting on another forum). I’ve been doing freshwater for 30 years or so (as long as I can remember), and started a 20 gallon nano about a year and a half ago.

I used a Waterbox Clear Mini 6 to build a custom AIO using 1/8" acrylic. The 3 chambers house media, heater, return pump, and ato. I originally planned to have this tank at work but they decided it wasn't allowed so It's going on my bedside table (It may be moving to living room). I started cycling with dry rock (I didnt end up using much of the dry rock), sand, and ceramic discs in a 5 gallon bucket in July '23. I occasionally dosed microbacter 7 and added some fish/coral food here and there.

Display: Waterbox Clear Mini 6 with custom diy AIO
Rock: US Live Rock 5# (Plus some dry rock I had been cycling to support)
Sand: CaribSea OceanDirect (left over from last build and no longer ocean direct)
Salt: Reef Crystals
Lighting: Noopsyche K7 Mini
Return Pump: 165 gph cheap amazon pump with 1/4" VCA random flow generator
Heating: 50w amazon heater with led display.
Wavemaker: None, but I may add a hygger mini when I need more flow
Filtration: Small bag of ceramic discs, filter floss, carbon/gfo as needed. Mostly relying on planned 50% water changes.
Top Off: Amazon ATO
Aquarium Lid: Some glass left over from another tank that's not in use right now. I might rig up something that fits a little nicer in the future.
Dosing: None for now but I will use All for Reef if it becomes necessary

Current clean up crew:
2 tiny hermit crabs,
1 nassarius snail,
1 trochus snail,
1 cerith snail
Multiple hitch hikin feather dusters
Jay's Reef Bugs
1 Money Cowrie
Dwarf Ceriths
1 Florida Cerith
1 Nerite
ZigZag periwinkles (they're cheap and small so why not?)

Coral:
LPS: Cyphastrea
Anemone: 5 Rock Flower Anemones

For future livestock I’m planning on having a clown goby (probably green clown goby). Maybe a pom pom crab or cleaner shrimp at some point.
Corals are mostly soft corals at least to start (that was the plan but I found a good deal on anemones and a cyphastrea). Probably ricordea, zoas, duncans. Next time I accidentally break frag the montipora digitata in my 20 gallon I’ll include some of that just to see how it does. I definitely want to add some branching corals to help a green clown goby feel at home. Maybe some more varieties of cyphastrea or other encrusting coral as well…

Initial rockwork placement. I've since moved it out from the back wall a little bit. I've also added some black vinyl around the AIO area. If I dont end up moving the tank to the living room I will add more black vinyl to the back wall so you cant see my ato container (1G distilled water jug) and lamp.


A few pictures of the RFA's right after I placed them about where I wanted them.

RFA's settling into more comfortable locations:

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank looks great! I thought the vase in the first picture was inside the tank haha

 

[souciemm]

Tank looks great! I thought the vase in the first picture was inside the tank haha

Haha, it kind of looks like it doesnt it! I would add some backing so that the lamp isnt visible but my wife wants the tank out of the bedroom! So I'm likely moving this to the living room where a peninsula style would be more appropriate.

 

[CierraBeckwith]

This is my second saltwater tank and first build on reef2reef (also posting on another forum). I’ve been doing freshwater for 30 years or so (as long as I can remember), and started a 20 gallon nano about a year and a half ago.

I used a Waterbox Clear Mini 6 to build a custom AIO using 1/8" acrylic. The 3 chambers house media, heater, return pump, and ato. I originally planned to have this tank at work but they decided it wasn't allowed so It's going on my bedside table (It may be moving to living room). I started cycling with dry rock (I didnt end up using much of the dry rock), sand, and ceramic discs in a 5 gallon bucket in July '23. I occasionally dosed microbacter 7 and added some fish/coral food here and there.

Display: Waterbox Clear Mini 6 with custom diy AIO
Rock: US Live Rock 5# (Plus some dry rock I had been cycling to support)
Sand: CaribSea OceanDirect (left over from last build and no longer ocean direct)
Salt: Reef Crystals
Lighting: Noopsyche K7 Mini
Return Pump: 165 gph cheap amazon pump with 1/4" VCA random flow generator
Heating: 50w amazon heater with led display.
Wavemaker: None, but I may add a hygger mini when I need more flow
Filtration: Small bag of ceramic discs, filter floss, carbon/gfo as needed. Mostly relying on planned 50% water changes.
Top Off: Amazon ATO
Aquarium Lid: Some glass left over from another tank that's not in use right now. I might rig up something that fits a little nicer in the future.
Dosing: None for now but I will use All for Reef if it becomes necessary

Current clean up crew:
2 tiny hermit crabs,
1 nassarius snail,
1 trochus snail,
1 cerith snail
Multiple hitch hikin feather dusters
Jay's Reef Bugs
1 Money Cowrie
Dwarf Ceriths
1 Florida Cerith
1 Nerite
ZigZag periwinkles (they're cheap and small so why not?)

Coral:
LPS: Cyphastrea
Anemone: 5 Rock Flower Anemones

For future livestock I’m planning on having a clown goby (probably green clown goby). Maybe a pom pom crab or cleaner shrimp at some point.
Corals are mostly soft corals at least to start (that was the plan but I found a good deal on anemones and a cyphastrea). Probably ricordea, zoas, duncans. Next time I accidentally break frag the montipora digitata in my 20 gallon I’ll include some of that just to see how it does. I definitely want to add some branching corals to help a green clown goby feel at home. Maybe some more varieties of cyphastrea or other encrusting coral as well…

Initial rockwork placement. I've since moved it out from the back wall a little bit. I've also added some black vinyl around the AIO area. If I dont end up moving the tank to the living room I will add more black vinyl to the back wall so you cant see my ato container (1G distilled water jug) and lamp.


A few pictures of the RFA's right after I placed them about where I wanted them.

RFA's settling into more comfortable locations:

I love the nems! Where did you get them?

 

[CierraBeckwith]

This is my second saltwater tank and first build on reef2reef (also posting on another forum). I’ve been doing freshwater for 30 years or so (as long as I can remember), and started a 20 gallon nano about a year and a half ago.

I used a Waterbox Clear Mini 6 to build a custom AIO using 1/8" acrylic. The 3 chambers house media, heater, return pump, and ato. I originally planned to have this tank at work but they decided it wasn't allowed so It's going on my bedside table (It may be moving to living room). I started cycling with dry rock (I didnt end up using much of the dry rock), sand, and ceramic discs in a 5 gallon bucket in July '23. I occasionally dosed microbacter 7 and added some fish/coral food here and there.

Display: Waterbox Clear Mini 6 with custom diy AIO
Rock: US Live Rock 5# (Plus some dry rock I had been cycling to support)
Sand: CaribSea OceanDirect (left over from last build and no longer ocean direct)
Salt: Reef Crystals
Lighting: Noopsyche K7 Mini
Return Pump: 165 gph cheap amazon pump with 1/4" VCA random flow generator
Heating: 50w amazon heater with led display.
Wavemaker: None, but I may add a hygger mini when I need more flow
Filtration: Small bag of ceramic discs, filter floss, carbon/gfo as needed. Mostly relying on planned 50% water changes.
Top Off: Amazon ATO
Aquarium Lid: Some glass left over from another tank that's not in use right now. I might rig up something that fits a little nicer in the future.
Dosing: None for now but I will use All for Reef if it becomes necessary

Current clean up crew:
2 tiny hermit crabs,
1 nassarius snail,
1 trochus snail,
1 cerith snail
Multiple hitch hikin feather dusters
Jay's Reef Bugs
1 Money Cowrie
Dwarf Ceriths
1 Florida Cerith
1 Nerite
ZigZag periwinkles (they're cheap and small so why not?)

Coral:
LPS: Cyphastrea
Anemone: 5 Rock Flower Anemones

For future livestock I’m planning on having a clown goby (probably green clown goby). Maybe a pom pom crab or cleaner shrimp at some point.
Corals are mostly soft corals at least to start (that was the plan but I found a good deal on anemones and a cyphastrea). Probably ricordea, zoas, duncans. Next time I accidentally break frag the montipora digitata in my 20 gallon I’ll include some of that just to see how it does. I definitely want to add some branching corals to help a green clown goby feel at home. Maybe some more varieties of cyphastrea or other encrusting coral as well…

Initial rockwork placement. I've since moved it out from the back wall a little bit. I've also added some black vinyl around the AIO area. If I dont end up moving the tank to the living room I will add more black vinyl to the back wall so you cant see my ato container (1G distilled water jug) and lamp.


A few pictures of the RFA's right after I placed them about where I wanted them.

RFA's settling into more comfortable locations:

I love the nems! Where did you get them?

 

[Blottie]

This looks really good so far! Really like the RFA’s!
Best to listen to the boss and pick your battles in my experience. I hope you find a good place for it, it’s shaping up nicely so far.

 

[souciemm]

I love the nems! Where did you get them?

Thanks! I got them from Salt Critters. They had a great price on them!

 

[souciemm]

This looks really good so far! Really like the RFA’s!
Best to listen to the boss and pick your battles in my experience. I hope you find a good place for it, it’s shaping up nicely so far.

Thank you! I still haven't moved it yet, but you're right its best just to fall in line.

 

[souciemm]

I added a green clown goby last week! I asked my local fish store to order one for me and I picked it up on Halloween. The fish was even nicer than the picture's I've seen online. I was surprised by how vibrant the greens and reds were. I placed him/her? in the tank after drip acclimating and it was through the overflow and into the media chambers within half an hour. I didn't really have a solution in place to keep him out of there so I just left him in the back until the weekend.

Over the weekend I bought some black needle point plastic canvas (only $0.90!) to cover the larger overflow slots. The tiny holes restricted the flow and raised the water level to close to the top edge of the overflow slots for comfort. So I cut a rectangular hole out of the needle point plastic about the same size as the over flows. Then I cut a section of an old media bag to place over that hole. That seems to be working pretty well but I reckon I'm gonna have to swap the media bag netting portion out periodically.

I had to empty all the media and gear out of the back chambers to get the goby back into the display. I held a piece of that needle point cloth with some long tweezers and kinda nudged the goby back up through the back chambers and into the DT. He's taken up residence in a small cave and hasn't come out since. The tank is full of copepods so I'm hopeful that he's been eating. I've squirted some live BBS in front of and then into his cave as well just in case.

I didn't take any pictures of this process. I will get some at some point though. Hopefully what I wrote was detailed enough to get an idea of what I did!

 

[souciemm]

Some updated pictures! RFAs have moved around a bit. They are definitely coloring up more, though it’s hard to tell in the pictures. I wish they would come out of the rocks more and puff up larger. Maybe the lights are too bright? I was hoping if they didn’t like the lighting they’d move further away…

Where would you put the cyphastrea?

 

[souciemm]

Some updated pictures… one RFA moved across the tank. It’s hard to get a picture of my favorite one but it’s getting much darker red/orange

tentacles with greens and teals in the middle.

 

[souciemm]

Forgot the zoas!

 

[souciemm]

Love this RFA! It picked a tough spot for viewing against the glass but I took some time today trying to get a better picture. The true color is somewhere in between these too. Probably closer to the first one… It is pretty green!

 

[souciemm]

Some updated pictures. The cyphastrea has really taken off

 

[souciemm]

Added a few new corals from Queen City corals. I’m not sure if I’m happy with the placement yet. Also hoping to increase flow with a Jebao ELW-3 soon.

New corals:
Lazys Blue Zing Birdsnest
QCC Spirit Blossom Pipe Organ
RR Nauti Spiral Montipora
Icy Blue Duncan
ORA Mint Pavona Cactus
Beetlejuice Trumpet
Green Tipped Birdsnest (on sale mystery frag)
Bozos Birthday Zoa (freebie!)

I’ve not placed the trumpet, Duncan, or Zoa yet. I may move the pipe organ too.