Nano Tank: 20 Long

A while back I found that my frag racks were taking up too much space in my display tank.  So I picked up a brand spanking new 20 gallon long from Petco during the dollar a gallon sale, then proceeded to order everything I would need for the build.



The Build:
20 L aquarium
Hydor Slim Skim Nano Skimmer
Finnex 100W titanium heater
Eheim Compact Pump 1000
1/2" locline nozzle for return
Cheap chinese LED box, dimmable
Cheap chinese powerhead (~800gph)
Black acrylic, spray paint, plumbing, etc.

The build is an all in one system, the sump comprises the left 6 inches of the tank, so everything had to be low profile to fit this.  I'm not totally satisfied with the baffles in the sump area of the tank, if I do this again, I'll go with a different design.  I'm also not sure how effective the skimmer is.  It gets noisy and I have to take it apart and clean it after about a week.  The heater is actually in the main tank.  When located in the sump compartment it just didnt heat enough water to maintain a steady temp.  A higher output return pump might be in order.

I taped off the tank and sprayed a nice black gloss to hide the sump area.  Overall it could have come out better, but I'm happy with it.

Full of parts for the build...that is the raw stand with no modifications.

Bandsaws are my friend!

Snug as a bug in a rug.  Not a whole lot of space for hands in there.

Added a screen top for fish...which really never got added.

For the stand, I looked around for a while trying to find something used.  Nothing worked out, so I went to a local discount cabinet shop.  They set me up with a perfectly sized prebuilt short wall cabinet.  The back wall was a thin sheet of plywood, so I framed out the back with 1x4's.  The inside corners were reinforced with metal brackets as the staples and glue that held the whole thing together seemed insufficient.  Add a nice piece of birch plywood as a top, stain to taste and it worked out wonderfully.

Nothing to see here, just the raw cabinet before I started reinforcing it.

Reinforcements!

More reinforcements!

Kona Stain for that Ikea BlackBrown look to match our other furniture.

The light is mounted on a single piece of conduit, bent in a U shape then bent down.  The conduit is finished in a hammered black spraypaint.  The light grows zoas decently, maintains LPS and SPS, and grows algae like crazy.  I think it has too much yellow spectrum.

Need to finish and attach the doors.

It's been a good little system.  I'll likely break down the system itself and keep the cabinet for storing aquarium stuff.  But that's all after I get my 125 up and running.