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Okay so here you go. . . one hole in the tank at what you want to be the large water change level. The height of the top T and 90 is what sets the water level in the tank. Using the T makes it so that no siphon can be created, You could also probably use two 90's and drill a hole in the top for a siphon break. Auto drip type water change and the water overflows and goes down the drain. Note: the ball valve must be closed for this. Large water change, open the valve and the tank will drain down to the level of the bulkhead fitting. This keeps all that extra pipe and stuff out of sight and out of the tank. No need to reach in the tank and rotate a pipe, etc. Pictures are just for the idea you would need to determine the actual lengths of pipe etc. Might need some trial and error on getting the water level set. But once you did one tank you should be able to do any others. Hope that make sense.

Admittedly I've slacked on water changes to about once a month. I haven't felt much pressure since the nitrates are pretty much 0 for me all the time. I only did them to help get rid of visible fish poop and because of online reading pressuring me to "always keep up on water changes!" I think the play now is to crack open the big bottle of easy green, measure out what i have been dosing, then increasing the amount and seeing what it takes to get to 20ppm. And then like Cory suggested, time how long it takes to get to 0 and then tone down the lights to try and keep it at 20. I've learned so much from everyone. Thank you!

Okay, this literally happened to me just a couple months ago. I got a trio of Betta mahachaiensis from a local hobbyist and put them in a 7 gallon tank for quarantine. A couple hours later I was down to a pair of them, I had left a small corner uncovered for feeding and one of the females made a quick departure 😔 Bettas are jumpers, especially the wild varieties. So. . . the next morning when checking on the pair there was a bubble nest and a bunch of eggs in it. I wasn't prepared for this, no infusoria cultures going, no paramecium going, no green water going, and they were in a temporary quarantine tank. This kind of puts me right where you are at now, here is what I did, and it worked out great. I left both the male and female in the tank, they don't fight like splendens do, but the male still kept the female away from the nest. In a couple days the eggs hatched and the fry hung in the nest for a few more days. Then came free swimming and how do I keep them alive without the normal microscopic food the tiny betta fry need. I chose to try finely powdered fry food, Sera Micron if you need specifics, it is like fine dust. Not like pepper but fine dust like on the top of you dresser. I fed it using a paint brush, not a big brush a little one like what comes in a kids watercolor set, or think of a brush the size of the ones in nail polish. Keeping the brush dry dip just the tip of it in the food container and then tap the brush on the side of the tank right above the fry. Just a tiny bit and you'll see the food dusting the surface of the water. I did this for a couple days and then added in a feeding of live baby brine shrimp using a dropper to place drops of it right by the surface. This was taken immediately and I was on my way to raising up the fry. Now a couple months later I have several hundred inch long Betta mahachaiensis. Hope this helps you out!

Good idea, thanks! Here are the links to those videos (This is the first time i've ever uploaded a video to youtube, so i might have messed something up. Also, sorry for the multiple comments. I got excited 😄

Once the fry were eating live baby brine shrimp I removed the fry from the parents tank. I would not put your female back in until you have separated the fry and the male. I feel like that could be a disaster as the male is now in full fry protection mode. (FFPM that's a new one for me 🙃)

I know it is a big tank, and has been set up a long time. You were dosing excel...to help control algae maybe? I wonder, were they straight up hungry, so they migrated to the filter? Are you target feeding any of the affected species? My vote is that the excel is at least part of the problem--either it is cutting down on the food that was supporting the colony, or it is toxic to them, or both. I seem to remember an ACO video that mentioned that if you don't see filter feeders opening their fan hands it can be because the water doesn't have enough particulates to feed on? Also If my khuli loaches are mid water it is because they are hungry and competing with the other fish. I think @Irene mentioned that she saw that in them too, and you said your corys were active and acting unusually. All the affected species are at least partially detritivores and all of them might be more sensitive to chemical pollutants for that reason. I know you are stopping excel, but maybe boost clean food for those guys for a bit to help them recover?

I am glad you are getting help here. You got thrown into the deep end and I am sorry that happened to you. Fish are wonderful pets, but the tank cycle is a necessary part of the process and it trips up new people a lot. Your fish store should have helped you with this, there was no way for you to have guessed this by yourself. I know it seems very complicated right now, but it is actually something that is harder to explain than to show or do. When you set up a new tank you need bacteria to grow in the tank that will help keep the water clean. That is this "cycle" everyone is talking about. That cloudy bloom in the water that you see is a good sign that the bacteria are getting started, and will be helping you in the long run. The store just sold you way too many fish at the start--it is a gradual process and setting up a tank takes a little time and patience while the bacteria grow in. There are ways to hurry that process along, but they can be complicated and confusing. Given that you are new, I think your safest bet is exactly what you have planned, return most of the fish. Then get some Seachem Prime OR a similar water conditioner that will both dechlorinate water and bind ammonia, and a test kit or test strips that measure ammonia and nitrite (which is different than nitrate). You will dose the tank with Prime every day for a while, until the bacteria are able to handle all the fish waste. Your test kit will tell you when the ammonia/nitrite is gone and then you can stop using the Prime every day. Then add new fish just a few at a time, and keep learning about how to keep an aquarium healthy. This forum and the aquarium co-op videos are a great place to start. You can go to the youtube channel and search through the videos for almost any question you have, or ask them on the forum. Good luck and welcome to the forum!

What's your plant quantity/density? Got a pic? Yes, it sounds like your plants are really consuming it all. Cory has suggested in the livestreams to aim for 20 or so ppm nitrates in the tank at all times. You can slow down the consumption by reducing the light.

I HAVE FISH! And I have the crappy photos to prove it. I have very specific species in mind, so I decided to stock these nano-ponds strictly with mail order choices (lousy LFS options in North San Diego County). I made my selections based on these criteria, 1. A variety of color themes 2. A variety of small fish types to fit the small size of the nano-ponds 3. Not prohibitively difficult to breed 4. Fish I've never kept or rarely kept Love opinions/observations on the choices, because they're pretty new to me. I started sprinkling in some greenery as well, but I have more coming. So sorry for the poor quality of the photos; I will try to get better ones soon! Nano Pond #1 (RED): These are 12 cherry barbs, with a water hyacinth and some duckweed for cover. There's also a dwarf lily bulb in there. Nano Pond #2 (YELLOW): These are 12 leopard danios, also with a water hyacinth and a few stems of moneywort. And a dwarf lily bulb inside. More greenery to be added! Nano Pond #3 (GREEN): These are 12 green kubotai rasboras, also with a water hyacinth and the beginnings of some errant water lettuce that appeared out of nowhere. Dwarf lily bulb as well. Again, more greenery coming next week! Nano Pond #4 (BLUE): These are three MFF trios (plus one extra, total 13) Hawaiian blue Moscow guppies. The females are nice and robust! This pond also has a water hyacinth, a dwarf lily bulb, and some moneywort stems. Hope those moneywort spreads and starts growing upward! Nano Pond #5 (RAINBOW) These are 10 very young clown killies. Also with a water hyacinth (no lily) in here, with more greens coming next week. I wonder if I'll need to think about lowering my water level much to allow for jumping...maybe duckweed or water lettuce in here as well? What do you think? Nano Pond #6 (LIVE FOOD) I have a large culture of daphnia magna arriving tomorrow, so I hope to keep it alive in here with a large supply of green water I've already prepared. Greenery coming next week: Guppy Grass, Subwassertang, Water Lettuce, and Salvinia! Which of these would you suggest for the clown killies to mitigate jumping? Anyway, let's see how this goes. I will try to get some better pictures in direct sunlight soon, and I'll be feeding them twice a day, with Aquarium Co-Op Easy Fry Food in the morning, and live/frozen baby brine shrimp or small daphnia in the evening. Any thoughts, concerns, advice, please feel free. Most of these fish are new to me! Thanks for looking! Bill

I still use the brine shrimp hatchery kit made by San Francisco Bay Brand. I'm only feeding BBS to 1 fry grow-out tank, so I use a 1-liter bottle and hatch 1/4-1/2 tsp of eggs at a time. The temperature can be adjusted by raising or lowering the lamp. Brine shrimp is harvested by shining the lamp at the bottom of the bottle (usually in the morning when there's less ambient lighting) and then draining the BBS from airline tubing at the base of the hatchery into a small Tupperware container. I don't bother straining out the salt water because I store the BBS in the fridge and pour a little out to my fry 4-6 times throughout the day. It's definitely a perk of working from home!

I bought some plecos (two groups from two different shipments) at my favorite LFS and they were sold as "New Ranger" Plecos (Pterygoplichthys sp.). Supposedly they stay under 6". First off, they are gorgeous fish and I love watching them, but I am wary about them being undescribed. It is possible they end up being P. weberi (Ranger Pleco) or worse P. punctatus (Imperial Ranger Pleco). The New Ranger, Ranger and Imperial Ranger juveniles look very similar so it could be easy to mixed them up, especially when they are wild caught. They've definitely varied in growth rate, but I believe that could be because a few had internal parasites inhibiting their absorption of nutrients. They all just finished a round of Paracleanse so hopefully the smaller babies will catch up. Also, the first group of 4 I got are smaller than the second set of 6 that I got from a different shipment, Does anyone have any insight on these plecos? I did see one Co-Op unboxing where these we part of the shipment and I've heard of them showing up on stock lists recently. My hope is that I was given correct information by my LFS who has been around for 30 years, but I'm afraid I will have 10 monsters on my hands in a year or two!

(That's the constellation, not the automaker!) After reading @Sliceofnature's barrel/mini pond build and becoming extra jealous of his 3/4 wine barrel, I went online to see what I could come up with where I could maybe maximize my money and spend a bunch of hours on new fish projects to play with! With the wife and kids out of town for a week-and-a-half starting next week, Dad needs an all-consuming project! I apologize in advance to those folks with slow connections, but this build log is going to get into gory detail and have far too many pictures! 😐 By the way, I welcome any and all suggestions, ideas, warnings, etc.: WHAT WOULD YOU KEEP IN SIX 15-GALLON NANO PONDS? Thank you! Off we go! PLANTER SELECTION After MANY HOURS of searching and searching, I came upon these low-cost 22" planters on the Costco Web site: https://www.costco.com/.product.1253881.html (non-affiliate link) They're $25 each, sold in 2-packs. I started with a single 2-pack. When they arrived, I first wanted to see how they looked in the space I had in mind. I have a walkway in my back yard along my bedroom wall that I thought would be perfect for maybe six of these planters. It faces the northwest, and gets 2-3 hours of low, direct sunlight each afternoon, right before the sun drops behind a six-foot fence. Which means I get to see them in bright sunlight when I come home from work. I live in the San Diego area, so I don't expect any temperature extremes except for a little heat a couple days a year. I placed the first two planters to see how it would look: Oh yeah, I'm sold. Imagining a row of six such tubs right there! But first, I have some serious planning to do around wiring, weatherproofing, and equipment. I placed some cables and cords and boxes behind them and walked around, trying to see how hard it would be to hide things behind them and how visible everything will be: Yep, I can make this work. ASSESSING MY OPTIONS The first thing I did with the first pair of planters was take some measurements and do some testing. The planter measures 22" in diameter across the top, 12-1/2" in diameter across the bottom, and is 14-1/2" tall. Rather than trust to my math, I filled it with water and determined the capacity to be a little over 15 gallons to the rim. Since I won't be filling to the top of the rim, I'm assuming these will hold about 13 gallons for my purposes. The material is about 5/16" thick and the plastic is admittedly a little flimsy, but at this price I wouldn't expect otherwise. Certainly sturdy enough for this project. I also tested adhesives: can I mount anything to the outer surface? After trying different tapes, I think gaffer's tape works not too poorly. Duct tape was too weak and clear packing tape was a non-starter. But hot glue adheres to this planter so well that I couldn't get it off! Great, now I know how I can stick things to it! That is actually a HUGE plus. SOME PLANNING & PREPPING In San Diego, the weather never reaches freezing, and the coldest winter periods usually last only hours and rarely drop below 45 degrees. I want to be able to run a heater in each planter, so that I can actually keep virtually any tropical fish/critter I want. Between that, a USB nano pump, and a light, I'm looking at somewhere around 4-5 cords/tubes for each planter. And it all needs a low-cost makeshift "electrical box" of some kind for each one. Each planter has a removable plug in the bottom: Even though my test of filling it with water didn't result in any leaks, I decided not to take any chances; I siliconed the plug just to be sure! So that's as far as I've gotten for one day. Next post, I'll share what I've been learning about how I want to handle equipment and electrical stuff. Also going to hot rod a Jehmco box filter for minimal mess and maintenance (I hope)! Thanks for reading! Bill

I went to feed my Wild Betta Splendens (Super Reds) this evening and to my shock they had been busy and the male was tending to a an overflowing bubble nest! I've been watching and waiting for him to blow a nest but I totally missed him constructing this one along the side of the glass in their blackwater tank. Don't tell him, but his nest is kind of puny! I'm used to my domestics who blow huge nests just in case! I added a piece of bubble wrap to reinforce it for him. Also, I've removed the female because daddy has become very protective and kept chasing her away. I'm loving watching daddy tend to his nest, but TBH, I'm anxious about tending to my first betta spawn! If my Betta Smaragdina Guitar pair decides to spawn it is going to be a full house in my fish/bedroom! (Both these pairs came from Taylor of Simply Betta.) This is my first time spawning bettas of any kind, so I'd love to hear about any experiences people have had breading bettas (especially wild bettas).

Hey everyone I just had one of my favorite Dumbo Guppies pass and it made me think what is everyone else’s favorite/ most memorable/ or treasured fish you have or have kept. Excited to see what comes up!!

Hey Guys. I am looking for more people that used to hangout in the live chats on Youtube and on the COOP website. If you are here and see this leave a reply with how you are doing so I can follow you. I miss all the discussions we used to have and all the interactions with Cory, Candi and crew.

Thanks Cory for the Sponge Filter update video I redid all my tanks and its a clear improvement If you haven't seen it you should : ) P.s would love to see sum submersible filter comparisons Mark

Someone should invent a double layer pot that lets you drain out the excess water. I can picture it but I definitely can’t glass blow it. Basically a traditional pot but double walled with drainage at the inner bottom and along the rim.

If you're not worried about keeping critter in the glass box, you can use it just like a flower pot. Just give yourself about 4 inches of drainage...look up wicking beds...you really want to get cool with it..drop an earth worm or two....plants coming out the top of the tank, roots spreading in the tank...and ever now and again a worm tunneling along the glass

This is the hair algae I know. I’m not sure if it’s the same stuff that forms long hairs and forms little green cloud clumps that bubbles, but they go together for me. And it loves to engulf the guppy grass and java moss. I have just been manually removing it (hand or grab and roll with tweezers) when it get unsightly but in small amounts, I don’t mind it horribly and the guppies don’t seem to either? This tank needs tidying tomorrow.

Ghost HaHa! I was out of reactions for today!

New fish for the week of 8/10-8/16 Frogs, Inverts, and Snails African Dwarf Frog Amano Shrimp Cherry Shrimp Orange Shrimp Red Rili Shrimp (came extra nice this week!) Green Jade Shrimp Blue Velvet Shrimp Bamboo Shrimp Olive Green Nerite Snails Purple Mystery Snails (Locally Bred) Assassin Snails (Back In Stock!) Bettas (All Betta Splendens Are Male Unless Noted) Halfmoon Halfmoon Dragon Halfmoon Dumbo Ear Koi Gouramis And Other Anabantiformes Powder Blue Dwarf Female Gouramis Pearl Gouramis Cichlids Albino Pelvicachromis Pulcher (aka common Krib) Apistogramma Panduro (wild) Bolivian Ram German Blue Ram Corydoras And Other Catfish Albino Cory Corydoras Leopardus (aka Leopard Cory, new species for the shop!) Pygmy Cory (Wild and big) Corydoras Simils Julii Corydora Panda Cory Dwarf Petricola Plecos Long Fin Blue Eye Bristlenose (The blue eyes on these pop against the albino skin) Common Otocinclus Adult Bristlenose (Locally Bred) Loaches Black Kuhli Loach Burmese Rosy Loach Tetras Rummy-Nose Tetra Cardinal Tetra (Wild) Ember Tetra Neon Tetra Rasboras Brigittae Rasbora (aka Chile Rasbora) Exclamation Point Rasbora Pygmy Spotted Rasbora Barbs Cherry Barb Danios And Other Minnows Celestial Peral Danio Livebearers Assorted Male Endlers Assorted Female Fancy Guppy Assorted Fancy Male Guppy (Blue Variegated, Leopard Tuxedo, Blue Neon, Neon Red Dragon, Green Lace) Brazilian Green Moscow Guppy Pairs (Locally Bred) Red Velvet Swordtail (These look like sweedish fish candy! Insane red) Tequila Splitfin Goodied (Locally bred from Greg Sage Line, Super cool rare livebearer) Killifish Norman's Lampeye Killifish Rainbowfish Furcata Rainbow Oddballs Ornate Rainbow Goby (Gorgeous!) Pea Puffer (Tiny but still full of attitude)

Its a dwarf Synodontis species (Synodontis lucipinnis), looking at around 4" or so in size. It likes to be kept in groups or otherwise it can be a bit bossy of a fish. Though it hails from Lake Tanganyika it can be kept in South American community tanks as it can be kept it a variety of water parameters. Diet wise its considered omnivorous and care should be taken to not have too tiny of tank mates as they could be eaten. There a fun and cute looking fish that adds instant entertainment and wow to any community tank.

When I was 9 years old I read a children's book about a kid who had guppies and the guppies kept multiplying like bunnies (I am looking for that book if it rings a bell with anyone). So I got together some quart jars and took my 50 cents allowance to Grant City (sort like a 1969 version of Target) and bought several guppies. I learned what the word 'gravid' meant and I could see my guppies were 'with child'. I could even see the eyeballs of the soon to be born baby guppies through the body of the pregnant females. And when my guppies had babies some were gray, but some were golden! Those golden baby guppies are a treasured memory.

Welcome to the community Kenneth. I saw you already had an advice post and learned some valuable information. Dont hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have. We are all here to help.

Hi everyone, I'm Jill from McDonough, GA and I haven't even set up my tank yet! I'm trying to learn all I can, take my time, and do it right. Also, I must say, I'm a little nervous, but a whole lot excited to get started! I'm going for a planted community tank. I have a 55 gallon tank, Eco Complete substrate, (with possibly sand on top), and an AquaClear filter. I'm going to order my sponge filter and plants from Aquarium Co-op when I'm ready to set it up. I think I have watched all of the AC videos and learned so much. I would appreciate some suggestions on a heater and a 24/7 aquarium light. I was looking at the Fluval 3.0, but that's a lot of money for something when I'm just starting out. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations? Would the money be well spent or is there something else that would work as well? So many questions!! 😂 Looking forward to learning from everyone!

Welcome to the community. It is always a good idea to do research before jumping in to a new hobby. If you have any more questions dont hesitate to reach out. There is a lot of knowledge here on this forum.

I don't know how to post a video directly and I think most forums would avoid that because it tends to be slow. What you can do is upload the video to youtube, which is designed for that, and then just put a link to the youtube video here. That will be fast to play and is how the rest of us are linking videos in.

Discus out grazing for lunch

I think it would be alright, the Guppies will probably appreciate the water hardness and minerals from that substrate.

If you really want to crank up the Nitrate I would get a bag of dry Nitrogen fertilizer and dose that too.

This is what I call 'Green Hair Algae': Grows all over everything when there is an excess of nutrients and light. Eventually the population crashes and it goes away. It is kinda slimey.

Yeah it's pretty heavily planted. I actually recently increased my lighting about 2 weeks ago (i think? Time has lost all meaning in quarantine) and ferts but have noticed algae slowly growing on the newer plants so dialed back the intensity of the lights from 100% to 70% while continuing to dose 16 pumps. Still not seeing an increase in nitrates. As im typing, I'm starting to wonder if this is an excuse i can use to add more fish to increase the bioload O_O

A topic with algae specific pics would be awesome!

If I were living in an apartment I'd keep it as simple as possible. This is how I would probably go, no air pump, no filter. Something that was easy to do water changes on. This is an early 1900's Corning Glass Works "Nonex" railroad signal battery jar. Just wish I had the ceramic lid that would have went with it. About 1.5 gallons. Some Corning Glass Works History

By "clean" I just mean that you are adding new food to the tank, rather than relying on biofilm that may or may not have been contaminated or killed off by the excel or unspecified water additives.

No clue, haven't tried it, BUT could you post a pic of the algae? even just one from the internet. I have recently learned that "hair algae" can mean several types, what I always called "hair algae" is apparently thread or string algae, or blanket weed, or Cladophora Sp. and there are about 6 other types that also go by the same common name, but look and act very different. @Daniel and @Streetwise and I were describing and discussing different "types" that we have encountered which helped me to realize we were not talking about the same thing at all. Hopefully someone can chime in with suggestions, because I am curious about this question too! I have only heard of using this as a spot treatment for black beard algae.

I've been keeping African cichlids for a long time and can't reccomend them enough, by far my favorite kind of fish. What you're describing is generally known as an all male show tank. They're very popular and in my opinion they're the best way to go for beginners. Just try to avoid getting fish that look very similar in coloring. The other popular method is to pick just a few species that can share the tank. I have a tank with Saulosi, Purple Acei, and Snow whites. Very colorful since Saulosi are different colors depending on sex and the Acei are either light or dark purple depending on sex. This is more for experienced cichlid keepers, as there are many combinations that will not do well together. Good luck and happy fish keeping

We have a Fluval Lighting thread:

I really like my 3.0 and use Bentley Pascoe’s settings on them, I have not had any algae issues using his settings.

Love your pics! I am new at this but when I get experience I would love to be an axolotl mommy!

My favorite guppy is the Boesemani Rainbowfish.

I’ve been working on getting my fish room set up here in Japan. I’ve got this garage-like room to work with. My grandfather used to work in this room fixing heavy machinery and equipment as a living. Since his passing about 10 years ago, this room hasn’t been touched except from the occasional entrance of my uncle who keeps some of his VW spare parts in there. I should mention that I’ve lived abroad in Singapore previous to this and in 2019, I moved back to my home country of Japan. So that is when I decided to try my best to convert this beat up garage room into a fish room. Here, you can see how it looked like before I started working on it. My first racking system arrived before I even started painting 😅 I really wanted to set tanks up asap but I had to be patient and clean the room up a little. I have been posting videos on my YouTube channel too. Still need to make a playlist for this fish room. Lots of painting 😰 It’s not that easy as I’m a little OCD and I like having things as close to perfect. Also notice there are windows by the tanks. We do get a little sunlight coming in but it’s really no problem at all. Some people commented in my videos that it’s a bad idea putting tanks by the window because I will get lots of algae issues. To me, it’s about balancing everything. If you have lots of sunlight, then maybe lessen the hours of artificial lighting. But I plan to put curtains up in the future so that I can control the amount of light that comes in. Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green Gecko, some Rotala sp. bangladesh, and Cryptocoryne Wendtii Brown towards the back. Cryptocoryne Wendtii Tropica and Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green towards the back. Cryptocoryne Lucens and Cryptocoryne Undulatus Red towards the back. My favorite species of Anubias on the driftwood. Anubias Coffeefolia! All these plants are still relatively new so I’ll be enjoying watching them grow and develop 😃 So this is currently where I’m at. Still a long ways to go and I’m kind of hoping that this build never ends because it’s the process that I enjoy the most. I’ve planted a variety of crypts in the tanks above and I’m planning to add more in the future. Cryptocorynes have become one of my favorite plants because of how easy they are to care for. They don’t need strong lighting, don’t require Co2, and they’ll look beautiful in a couple of months. I’m also hoping to add another rack system on the right side of the room. Not sure of what fish/plants to keep yet, but I’m sure I will find something that will excite me. Breeding small fish is something I’d also love to try. Also, some people have asked me why I didn’t fix up (renovate) the entire room first before setting the aquariums and that’s because it would be nearly impossible. As I mentioned earlier, this room is also a storage room for my uncles car parts as well as storage for some of my grandmothers stuff so I’ve just got to work with the space that I’ve been given 😅 Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that I’m also working on a smaller fish room inside the house that I call the mini studio. That room will only have 2 display aquascaped aquariums. I’m very passionate about planted/aquascaped aquariums. Maybe I can make another post talking about that room sometime. Thank you if you’ve made it this far. I hope this was interesting to some of you and I hope to learn more from this forum 🙂

She wasn't ready for a picture...

Here is my DIY set up!

At the university surplus store, where all the good used stuff goes to die. There is a brief open to the public period, if you like old equipment you should check it out. I suspect most universities have them in some capacity, try searching "(university name) surplus store" for your local institution. I have scored some amazing cool stuff, both for our lab and for me personally.

I had planned to make a small dish brine hatchery out of bits and pieces. Since I work in a lab, @Daniel's Imhoff cones were just too cool. Since I work in academia, they are also too expensive (though you can bet I will be haunting surplus). I found a hanging cone shaped vase on amazon that I hope will work, pack of 2 for $15. I will let you know if they work out. Thanks for all the fun ideas!

Built mine as a self-contained unit with everything you need. Way over-engineered, but fun. And yes, I bought a Ziss hatchery anyway. 🙂 Build log is over at Reef Central: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2694002