RM's HalfMoon Mantis Palace R.I.P CARNICERA

Alright since most of you guessed what I was going to put in the Tetra Nano anyway and then I went and broke it, I decided to just show off the new one and start it's thread now.
First off let me give props to the people at Tetra and especially to one officer that made it possible for me to replace just the tank w/o buying an entire new kit.

The build is sumped with dual AGA 5 gallon's. The overflow spills into the the tank on the left so that the crabs/snail/shrimp will get some extra food before they become food themselves. There's a 1# chunk of base rock in there to give them a place to chill while waiting to die. A 2.5" DIY U-tube flows the water into the sump tank on the right. I used a 525gph Odyssea pump I had laying around for the return. It's tee'd and actually only sends about 175gph to the mantis tank. The rest is re-circ'd thru the 'food' tank. A small power filter provides chemical filtration and there's a 50w heater in there as well.


The tank itself is a new Tetra HalfMoon 10g Nano. I painted the back black because I hate looking thru a tank at the plumbing, wires and wall behind it. The overflow and return are DIY PVC. The bottom of the tank is thin looking plastic so I reinforced this with a cut to fit 1/2" thick piece of acrylic and egg-crate. The egg crate is more to equaliz the rocks wieght than anything. A pvc pipe makes the mantis' prefab burrow. When the other tank got broke I scrapped all of the sand and the diy rock. Since it would take longer than I wanted to make and leach more rock I just bought 15#'s of Florida base rock from BRS. I really wanted to get my rock from John but since he is moving into his new biz and I have 0 patience it didn't work out that way. SORRY JOHN! GET U ON MY NEXT BUILD! The sand is 10#'s of Black reef and 10#'s of white fiji mixed together. Some time this week 4#'s of GARF Grunge will be put on top of that.



So that's it so far. The type of mantis that I put in it is still undecided but since I can't seem to find a rare specimen I'm leaning towards a G. Smithii.

 

lol, you make it sound so romantic.

thats really an awesome setup reef. i look forward to it progressing.

also hope you arent moving any of these rocks.

 

looking good reefmonkey

it was good that you had the practice run with the 1st tank LOL?

Steve

 

NO SIR! Like it or not that scape is final! LOL
My 4 year old son is into this hobby almost as bad as me. He asks what's going in what tank. It sounds mean but I can't wait to see him when I drop that first food item from the holding tank into the mantis' home. Circle of life lesson in 30 seconds ;D

 

might be interesting to see what he might find it feed it , trying to emulate dad. lol. frogs, centipedes etc. does he have a sister? lol

 

LOL actually he understands that only dad puts stuff in the tanks. And yes he does actually have 5 sisters, a brother and 2 nephews.

 

Yeah now I know not to combine hard items with tempered glass! I've seen a windshield shatter before...wish tempered tanks had 2 sheets with the protective film to hold them together. LOL;D

 

wow , 7 children reefmonkey
Can we have a full house shot?

Steve

 

3 of the girls are grown and on thier own. 2 of those have babies of thier own. All that's left at home are my 2 son's and 2 daughters.

 

Alright, starting again!! I hope this time it is more successful.