labnjab's 10 gallon softie tank

**labnjab** · 07-06-2010, 03:49 PM

Our newest project has begun. We bought the live rock last night and its now cycling. Its going to be a 10 gallon low maintence, low budget tank.

Heres the list of what we have so far

12 lbs live rock
15 lbs or so aragonite sand
100 watt jager heater on a controller
Koralia 1 power head
10 gallon tank

We are going skimmerless since it will be a softie tank. The softies will be part of the filtration.

We are undecided on lighting. We are either going t5 or diy led, currently we are leaning towards led. We have a month or so to decide and save up

Stocking

Small cuc and possibly a small goby. We are moving almost all soft coral from our 75 gallon to this tank and also plan on adding colorful zoas, mushrooms, and other softies.

Thats it for now pics will come when it clears up. So far we only have $40 invested and plan to keep it under $150 not including stock

**labnjab** · 07-07-2010, 11:16 AM

Starting to show .25 ammonia

Hopefully it will be a short cycle since the rock was in a cycled tank when we got it and transported wet.

We've decided on lighting, DIY LED. I ordered the sockets and just need to save a little more to buy the bulbs. Were going with 5 blue and 5 white gu10 3 watt bulbs. Each light has 3, 1 watt bulbs and have a built in ballast so all I need to do is wire them to a power cord and build a mount. Someone locally built a similar LED set-up over a 5 gallon nano and sps grow very well, similar to being under halides, so it should be more then enough for softies and a few lps.

**labnjab** · 07-09-2010, 04:43 PM

We are ordering our CUC soon. Here's what I'm thinking about going with

10 blue legged hermits
3 scarlet hermits
5 small nassuris snails
5 cerith snails
5 astrea snails

Will will adjust as needed ones its running.

We just ordered everything needed to set-up our DIY led lighting. The total for the build will be $100 even not including building the housing. It should be more then enough light for the softies, and even be good enough for most sps

We went gu10 bulbs which have a built in ballast. 5 white and 5 blue

Heres the link to the bulbs

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_4742wt_996

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ht_1086wt_1137

and the sockets
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ht_1750wt_1137

I'll write a step-by-step build for them. Everything is coming from Hong Kong so we won't have it for 2-4 weeks which gives the tank plenty of time to cycle and me plenty of time to build a housing

**Spardas** · 07-09-2010, 05:29 PM

Looking good, can't wait to see if up and running.

**labnjab** · 07-12-2010, 11:25 AM

Thank you

The tank completed the cycle over the weekend. Short and sweet like I thought it would be. My next step is to order the CUC. I'm also starting to build the housing for the LED lights. A friend gave me a couple of pieces of diamond plate aluminum that I'm going to try. It should look pretty cool when done and be saltwater resistant

**R2 Ranch** · 07-12-2010, 11:47 AM

Sounds awesome. Can't wait to see updated pictures with the softies and livestock.

**labnjab** · 07-23-2010, 04:51 PM

We have the light about 75% complete. I received the last 2 sockets this afternoon so I will wire them in tonight. Then I just need to wire in the fan and wait on the bulbs.

Here's the housing and sockets. The wiring is all soldered and heat shrunk and will be cleaned up once I get the last 2 sockets installed. We are going to have 3 plugs, once for the blue and one for the white, and one for the fan.

The tank is cycled and we've adding a few hermits and snails from our 75. Hopefully the bulbs will be in soon. We also traded the koralia 1 for a koralia nano.

**BigMac** · 07-24-2010, 12:37 PM

Taggin along.. did one of your sockets get broken?

Far right on the bottom looks broken.

I hope it's an optical illusion.

**labnjab** · 07-25-2010, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by BigMac

Taggin along.. did one of your sockets get broken?

Far right on the bottom looks broken.

I hope it's an optical illusion.

Its broken but doesnt affect how the bulb fits. I took the socket to home depot to help find the correct hardware and i dropped it. Oops, lol. If it causes any problems ill order another, their only a few dollars each shipped

**labnjab** · 07-28-2010, 04:09 PM

Update

Half the bulbs came in so we installed them and moved a few of the hardier corals in. The bulbs are a little more yellow then I like, but I'll see if there is an improvement when we add the blue. If we still don't like them then I'll switch them to a higher spectrum.

Heres the fts, its more yellow in person. The lights just kicked on so the coral are still "sleeping"

and the lights

We took the optics off, which reduces par, but gets ridof the spot light look. We will have some par readings once we meet up with a friend to borrow a par meter. Hopefully the last 5 bulbs will show up soon.