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.

CMoN Expo

This past weekend I attended the 2015 CMoN Expo held at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta Georgia.  I missed last year's so this was a brand new experience for me.  I have to say, it was smallish, intimate, and pretty busy the whole time.  The turnout was solid with people flying in from all over the country.  Many of the demo tables were full up most of the expo.

Spending most of the expo playing games, I didnt really go out of my way to meet the game designers (plus I'm not much of a people person).  My friend and I went to Brandon Palmer's panel on his Golden Throne diorama for Warhammer 40k.  Very awesome guy from Indiana.  If you havent seen his work, check him out at gmmstudios.net and the Golden Throne here. 

We also played some of the demos.  Chaosball was fun, but after a game and discussing it we feel it's better for 1 on 1 games.  1 on 1 on 1 just resulted in a lot of killing of models and not trying to actually score with the ball...it was more worthwhile to neuter your opponent.

Xenoshyft is a fun deckbuilding game modeled off of tower defense.  It's built to be pretty challenging, but I think the price tag is a little high for what you get with this one.    Apparently the guy doing the demos was way off about the price.  It's about what you'd expect for this game (~$60) instead of the $90-$100 we were told.

I ended up picking up my Character Box 1 (wave 3) for Hadross and they had some of these guys in their CMoN store.  Limited run (100 of the Red, 50 of the White).

                                                                                                                                        

I did play in an excellent Wrath of Kings tournament on Saturday where I pitted my freshly built Carcharians against 3 opponents (one of them Hadross).  My record for that tourney was 1-1-1 and I learned quite a bit in the process.  For instance, it never dawned on me to use my sevridan's gelatinous shift when they werent engaged...

I have to say, I love the use of a sideboard in the tournament system (Option system).  We had the core list with 2 different builds using the "Option" section of the army list.  After viewing your opponent's core, you chose which option (A or B) you wanted to use against them.

The list I brought with me was evidently a very anti Hadross list.  2 Friars, 1 Frenzy Charger, 5 Sevridans, 3 Carcharians, 2 Taxi Crabs, and my options were A) Ilva and B) Orsund Cavalier.   I beat Teknes, and due to some grievous player errors on my part lost to Shael Han.  Not to say the Shael Han player wasn't skilled, but I screwed up a couple times in big ways.

Great sportsmanship all around.  It was a very fun tournament.

Hadross vs Teknes...Wow I'm outnumbered hard.

Hadross vs Shael Han...Note the location of the Orsund off to the side...yeah, that was the biggest 
mistake along with not using gelatinous shift to break up those clusters of guys.

Cards: Death Eater and Motivations

I sent off for another batch of Are You a Death Eater decks yesterday.  I also tacked on my new motivation cards for Wrath of Kings.

As in my earlier post, Are You a Death Eater is a social game based on the Are You a Werewolf game.  Just with a Harry Potter bent.  It's run at Dragoncon in Atlanta GA every year on the Young Adult Lit track, and in the last couple of years it has grown tremendously.  We've had to send groups out to the hall and even to the Hilton Game Room last year to accommodate the numbers.  8 new decks are on their way to augment our current supply for Dragoncon (plus some get given out as prizes and thank you's).

                                                                                                                

Unfortunately, the Wrath of Kings cards had an error on some of the art.  I'll have to have some of them reprinted.  But it'll work out to about $1.10 per deck to fix, so no biggie.  I have heard through the CMoN Expo that the company has plans to make Motivation Cards for their game.  These are a nice stopgap that will likely work out to be pretty inexpensive.

Samples of the layout (note that Intrigue has the wrong symbol in the corner, I'm correcting this):

Sand Spike...It's a spike in the sand.

Heading to Florida again tomorrow morning.  This time we'll be on the Atlantic coast just south of St. Augustine with a bunch of friends.

I plan on doing some surf fishing and maybe some pier fishing while I'm there.  I've purchased a non-resident license for saltwater (didnt need it for the pier I was on in Destin), and depending on how things go, may buy a new and inexpensive rod to use.

The 2 rods that I've borrowed from my friend are made for boat fishing.  They're pretty compact, clocking in a hair over 6' long.  My bass rod is also pretty short.  It'd be nice to have something I can throw out a little further.

For this trip I've built some sand spikes to put my poles in to wait on a bite.  Total cost was around $15 for 4 of them, and I found a lovely how to guide online and went to town!  I also plan on using 2 or more of these to make a lean-to from a tarp for some shade when I'm not using them for fishing.  Its just a matter of dropping a bungee cord down to catch the bolt inside and attaching it to the grommets in a tarp.  Should be about 4 feet off the ground so it'll make a nice place to sit.


The Build:

I took a 10' piece of 1.5" pvc, marked it at the halfway point and drew a sharp angle centered on the line.  This makes a nice point for each spike to penetrate the sand more easily.

I then cleaned up the sawed edges and drilled a hole 12" from the uncut end.  You'll want to put a 1/4" diameter 2.5" long bolt through here to act as a pole stop.  I used a machine screw, lock washer, and nut.  Our drill is out on loan to a friend, so I used my solder gun to melt the holes for the screws...not an ideal method, but I was determined to get this done all at once.  When working with heat and plastic, please remember to be careful and have proper ventilation.

After installing the bolt, I heated up the rod end with my gas stove (a torch works too) and pressed it down on a wine bottle (beer bottles probably have a better shape) to flare the tip.  This will make it easier to put your rod in and frankly just looks better.

And the finished product, which I now have 4 of.  You can sink this a foot or two into the sand and angle it slightly towards the ocean so your rod/reel swivel in the right direction.  

Hadross: Wetter is Better

Played some intro level games this weekend against my friend's Nasier.  Gotta say, Sevridans are pretty potent.  Especially Sevridans riding around on a Calith Reaver.

The second game was a lot closer than the first.  It was probably his 5th or so game and I hadnt played in almost 2 months.

My list:

Gutter Friar (commander)
Deepman Kaxes

Calith Reaver
Calith Reaver

4 Deepman Guardians
4 Sevridan Gutters


His list was composed of:

Hakar
Hakar

12 Ashmen

Shadris


I've found that a list with 2 types of infantry is often better than maxing out on one type.  It really allows you to take advantage of your army's built in synergies.  In my case having my Friar give my whole army Strong Will really helps the Deepmen with resonating foes.

Positioning is key.  I really need to play with more things that can force movement.  Sevridans locking down guys so they cant go anywhere has been fantastic.  Really makes the opponent think about who he engages them with.

Assisting the Friar is a great way to demolish key models just out of range of my range 0 guys.  Got a lucky roll on Shadris and wiped him out in one go with 5 dice.

Things I want to try:
Ilva on a crab.  Mobile turret anyone?

More skirmish sized games.

Orsund Cavalier...beating face and forcing movement. I plan on running this guy along a flank.

Hopefully I can get out and play more.

Maxspect Gyre XF130

Tired of the cheap chinese circulation pumps on my current 65 gallon display tank, I ordered a Maxspect Gyre XF130 from my local fish store (Reef Shac).

The plan is to use the 130 on my current tank and maybe pick up a second one when I setup the 125.  The 125 is only 5 ft wide so 1 of the 130's wouldnt really do the job from left to right.  but put one at each end and point them at each other and they will create a nice flow when they collide in the center.

The packaging was very nice, nice heavy cardboard outer box (hard to open), then a matte black tin with the actual pump.  There was a second light duty cardboard box with the power cord beside the tin...but you can only fit and pad so much.

It came with spare parts to swap out during cleanings, rotors, cages, motor bits.  The controller has a clip on the back that you can mount to your stand and freely remove the controller to fiddle with it.  Overall very high quality stuff.

The pump itself has 2 rubber magnet mounts to completely destroy noise from vibration.  And it came with 2 spares.  The magnets are pretty potent too.  Testing it out at Reef Shac we mounted it on 3/4" glass and it held up (though it didnt take much force at that thickness to dislodge it).

From reviews on the internet, I expected to have to run it on low and not be able to crank it up any higher without blowing everything over in my tank.  Granted most reviews are for the 150.  The 130 set to 100% will blow some sand around.  70% at steady stream has a nice strong current in my tank with only the return pump as additional flow.

It has several different modes (I still need to read the manual to learn the ins and outs).  Pulse mode created waves in my tank...and the age of the tank made me uncomfortable with leaving it in that mode.  Backwards is markedly less powerful and I have no idea what the point of forward/backward is at the moment.

Overall I'm fairly pleased with my purchase, and its just another step towards getting that 125 up and running.

Vacation: Return of the Content

Was on Vacation last week...back to the grind today.

Destin/Ft Walton Beach is a fantastic area to vacation in.  Beautiful beaches...absolutely breathtaking.

After we got back, my favorite local fish store (Reef Shac), was running an anniversary sale on Tangs.  So I picked up my first tang ever, a Tomini Tang.  I originally went in for a yellow tang and some peppermint shrimp but upgraded to the Tomini.  A very beautiful fish with bright orange fins.

He'll be right at home in the 125 when I get it operational.

Right now the 125 build is stalled out.  I still need to clean it out and finish buffing it.  Seems the buffer picked up some crushed coral that was still in it and left skirl marks on the side.  So I'll be washing it out and buffing it back out then washing it out some more.  Planning on getting the cleaning and buffing done this week.

Equipment-wise I'll be stocking the following:

5' long 125 gallon acrylic tank, center overflow

Black acrylic stand and DIY wood canopy

Eshopps Sump

2x 250w Eheim Jager Heaters

Waveline DC10000ii return pump

Existing skimmer, Euro Reef...will be upgrading to a beefier Bubblemagus Curve at some point.

Maxspect Gyre XF130 circulation pump (I'm getting one for the 65 gallon this week, and that'll be used on the 125 when complete...might add a 2nd one depending on how it shakes out).

4 ft long 6 bulb T5 fixture on a timer.  2 channels and moon lights.  Cheap box, but I'll be dropping ATI bulbs in it.  For starters I'll continue using my Photon 24 in conjunction with my china blackbox LEDs until I get this fixture and bulbs.

Plumbing will have four 1/2" returns for that monstrous DC10000ii pump.  Planning on building a 1.5" diameter manifold and splitting off my returns from that.  The way the stand is built, i'll be building a small stand for the sump to keep any pressure off of the cross supports from the weight of the sump.

I've picked up about 60 lbs of nice Marco Rock a few months ago from a LFS (on sale and i got to hand pick it), so the left side will be rock pile reef.  The right side will be frags.  I intend on taking dry shelf rock and cutting into shelves, then mounting it up on some rock with rods so that I can pop off the shelves when I need to.  I'll drill rows of holes in the shelves for frag plugs.  This will look more natural looking, and be easier for my cleanup crew to navigate than egg crate.

I'll post up some pictures later (probably with the next update).  I have most of the equipment already, just being held up by the buffing and plumbing.