Octoman

I have done bare bottom in the past and decided to go back to sand because for me, keeping it clean was more work. It depends on how you want the bottom to look. It's much easier to clean detritus on the bottom, just suck it out, but on the other hand, there is nothing at all to hide it so it shows very quickly. If you go BB, are you going to let coralline grow on the bottom? If not, it is like having a whole other window to keep clean (that you can't use a magnet on). But if you don't mind sucking out detritus a couple times a week and don't want the build-up of organics in the sand, go for it. As you mentioned, it rules out sand dwelling animals when you are already limited by tank size. I do love my goby/pistol pair...

The kitty watched a bit in the beginning, but she's much more interested in the bird feeder now.

All I need is an MP60 and I'm ready to go! :D

Some of the residents: Tanaka's pygmy possum wrasse Yasha goby and candy cane pistol

It's been a while, past time for an update... I reconfigured the top a bit after I got my light. I decided to put the light over the glass instead of trying to cram it in over the opening and I'm happy with the way it turned out. I've got some livestock in place and things are coming along. I'm on the tail end of a HA bloom, but that is quickly dying down as my chaeto is taking off in the fuge.

Hi Jonathan, I'm a Georgia boy myself. Got my bachelors at UGA and my masters in marine science at Savannah State. We'll have to meet up some time and talk shop! I have a newish 12g, haven't updated my build thread in a while though, will have to fix that soon. Welcome!!

Shouldn't have black particles, bits of carbon maybe? I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that it is clogged

You need the waste restrictor to provide enough back pressure to push water through the ro. But if you have no flow with it in place it sounds like the restrictor may be clogged.

You should still get water out of the drain if the ro membrane is bad. Is there a flow restrictor inline on the waste side? If you try taking that off, do you get any waste flow?

It will at least help with those hard to reach liquor bottles, which I'm sure I'll need after trying to clean this thing!

So my acrylic rod wound up in the wrong city, fortunately I figured something else out. Handy fiberglass rod at home depot for $2.50, stronger than the acrylic anyway... After some drilling, maneuvering, and some foul language, I think I've settled in on an aquascape. I wanted to put more and a little higher, but I realized that if I added any more, I wouldn't be able to reach most of the places in the tank because of the tiny opening. I went a little overboard and will be taking some of the sand back out.

I had a notion to try turning the tank diagonal to the stand and loved the way it looked. I was a bit more nervous about the cantilever with corners hanging off, seemed like the stresses may be different than it was designed to tolerate. So, I opted to support the entire bottom and it looks much more stable now. I still need to finish the top, but will wait until I get my lighting figured out. I've got water and rock in now, just tossed it in for now to get it out of the bucket. I'll put it together properly when my acrylic rods come in the mail and the sand will go in afterwards. I'm also waiting on black acrylic sheeting for baffles in the sump, so for now my sump is a 5g bucket. So far so good, no leaks! I also decided to move it out of the corner and add a door that folds down to make a shelf...

That is a cool concept. My biggest concern with my 12 is the water level, so that would at least let you top off in the back. The inlet/outlet assembly scares me a bit on that. If the venturi gets clogged and the siphon breaks or if that screen gets blocked - all the water in the back is going on the floor unless I missed that it has some kind of auto shutoff safety feature - no room for error in that tiny volume of water in the lip of the tank.

They are both drains. I was concerned about having enough drain area since the 3/4 in bulkheads protrude up above the lip of the tank. Only the lip is acrylic so I won't cut them down any further into the glass. However, I am playing around with a larger bulkhead and if I can switch one out and get as much or more drainage than both, I will use the other one for the return. The final option is to cut the back part of the lip out all together and build an external overflow box onto the back, but I'd rather not do that if I can make the bulkheads work to my satisfaction.

Hi Peter, it was great meeting you today too! Just checked out your tank thread and you did some great work on that setup!! That stand is beautiful and the tank looks great too.