Love this picAnd this one

Hope you all enjoyed the build. I know I still have to show you guys the temperature controller as well, which is working, but not very well. I had a great time building this tank and learned a ton. If your thinking about taking on a project like this, I say go for it. Its relatively cheap, looks great when its done, and its a ton of fun to put together.

Items received:

• Hydor Hydrotherm temp controller
• Stealth mini 10 watt heater
• Clean up crew
• Bio filtration – Mangroves and Chaeto

Aquascaping, for me, is usually a fun and rewarding experience. However, when I desinged the tank, I didnt take into account the tiny amount of space that I have to work with, since I basically cut the tank in half with the false wall. This made the scaping very tough and very frustrating to do. I tried tracing the top of the tank and building the scape outside the tank with glue, but it just wasnt holding together. After, I decided to try and build it with my hands, but when I put my hand half way into the water, the tank would overflow. Finally, I resorted to having to use chop sticks to build the entire rock set up. Here’s how it came out:

Sorry for the cloudiness, but this picture was taken right as I completed the scape and I just snapped the picture quick with my phone. As you can see, the rock wall covers almost all of the innards of the built in filtration. I am hoping that once I get some corals in there, it will fill up the empty spaces where you can still see some of the build.

As I said in a previous post, I was planning to move from the picotope 9w light to the coralife 2 x 9w light that pretty much fits right on the tank. Due to the heater I had before being so large, that was not an option. Now, since I have installed the new heater and temp controller, I was able to switch and It makes the whole setup look a lot cleaner. But, this new change brought on a new problem. The light itself generates a lot of heat making the heater and temperature controller useless, and the light alone brings the temperature of the tank up to over 90 degrees . So, again we have to improvise:

Yes, I cut a case fan out of my computer, hooked it up with an old motorola phone charger, and viola, DIY fan mod. I just plug it into a timer to come on when the tank lights come on and its working perfect so far. The tank is at a steady 77-80 degrees.

Here is a cool top view of the filtration part of the tank. As you can see, there is plenty of light getting to the chaeto ball even through the aquascape. The Auto top off pump is easily hidden behind the tank, and overall, it looks pretty good to me. Also, I am trying out a few mangroves in here just to see what happens, but I don’t forsee it being a long test as they dont seem to be getting enough direct light.

Finally, I added a few corals:

Let me know what you think!

Livestock in the tank:

• Yellow skirt zoanthids – upper right
• red skirt zoanthids – Center
• Green button polyps – upper right
• Clove polyps – bottom right
• Chaeto – top left
• 3 Mangroves
• Clean up crew consisting of cerith, nerite, and nassarius snails

Future Livestock:

• Green star polyps
• Green ricordia
• More zoanthids
• Pom pom crab -or- 3 sexy shrimp

Cost of the build thus far:

• Tom aquatic mini deco 1 gallon kit – $25
• DIY Automatic Top Off (ATO) – $10
• Stealth mini heater – $13
• Hydor Hydrotherm temp controller – $25
• Acrylic sheet – $3
• Silicone – $3
• Coralife 2x9w fixture – $25

total: $104

The Battery Powered ATO

The version of ATO I use is the pressure driven, battery powered air pump kind, and hopefully I will be able to show you how to build your very own right here on reefchronicles first DIY! Lets get started.

Materials

Battery powered air pump	Airline tubing
Wire caps	Float-switch
Water Reservoir	Other materials you may need: Batteries Splicing tool – scissors or a razor will work fine Electrical tape if you do not have wire caps Reservoir – Does not need to be a coke bottle, but it does have to be able to withstand some pressure.

The build

First, we take our air pump and open her up.

As you can see in the picture, I have already went ahead and cut the wire to air pumps power switch. You will want to cut a little bit of the plastic off the wire so that the bare metal is showing (pictured below). This is where you will splice in your float switch wires.

Next, you need to do the same thing to the float switch wires.

Next, we splice them together using our wire caps. If you dont have wire caps, electrical tape will work just fine.

Next, you can install your batteries and test the switch to make sure everything is working properly. To do this simply turn the pump on and move the float stone up and down – the pump should come on and off.

Next, you have to make holes in the cap of your reservoir. You will want to make sure that the holes are just a tiny bit smaller than the diameter of your airline tubing so that when you put the lines through, it makes an air tight seal.

Next, you push a piece of your airline tubing through one of the holes in the cap. Make sure the piece of hose you use is long enough so that you can place reservoir somewhere in your stand or on the floor. The piece of tubing that you pull through at this step will be connected to the air pump. You should pull the airline tubing through the cap so that there is about an inch of tubing inside the bottle when the cap is put on (pictured below).

If you are building along, below is what you should be looking at:

Next, you need to take another piece of airline tubing and pull it through the second hole. This time you need to pull the airline tube through the hole long enough to reach the bottom of your reservoir. This tube will be the one that goes to your aquarium, so again, make sure that it is long enough to fit your setup.

Finally, fill the reservoir with your top off water, screw the cap on, and your good to go.

If your feeling a little adventurous, you can make a little bracket to hold your float switch and your tube to the aquarium. I just used some left over acrylic from my 1 gallon build, bent it with a lighter, and glued the hose to it.

And there you have it. Simple, effective, and easy to build. What?…you want more? Alright here’s a video of the thing working. Excuse my amateur movie making skills…Enjoy!

If you have been following along with the All in one pico build, Here is how this system is set up on the tank

AIO 1 gallon pico

AIO 1 gallon pico right side

AIO 1 gallon pico top view

AIO 1 gallon pico left side

Overall the paint job came out pretty well, but I’m still hitting myself for forgetting to paint the false wall though. I’m pretty sure that when its all said and done, the rock work should hide most of the filtration and the pump. On the positive side of not painting the back wall, I will not have to purchase a separate light for the refugium portion of the All in one as the light should just spill through and provide plenty of light for the chaeto.

Next I have come to the issue of heating. The heater I bought for this tank was a cheap sub $10 heater from my local pet store. It has a little dial on it to set the temperature, but because the volume of water in the tank is so small, the heater is over powering and heating the water to levels way above safe for a reef tank (upper 90 degrees F). So, I did a little research and it seems that heating is one of the biggest issues for these small tanks as there really arnt any that are geared specifically for sub 3 gallon systems, and if they are, they are unreliable or not adjustable. But, there is a solution:

Its called the Hydroset by Hydor. It is an analog temperature controller that is made to work with hydor’s Hydrokable, which is a specialized heating cable that goes into your tank and is easily hidden under sand or in rockwork. However, I am told that this temperature controller can work with any heater up to 300 watts. This package comes with a temperature dial so you can set an accurate temperature, a temperature probe, a plug, a place to plug your heater in, and an optional digital screen that shows the temperature of the tank (i opted for the one without the screen as I have an extra coralife digital thermometer). I ordered one of these bad boys from ebay and it should be here within a couple of days. I want to get a good test on this item before I recommend it, so stick around for a review if your interested.

Also, to go with this nice temperature controller, I have decided to get a better name brand heater for the tank as well. The one I have is pretty big for the small tank, and heater malfunction is a large problem in this hobby and I am not trying to take any chances. Here is what I ordered:

Its the marineland stealth 10watt mini heater rated for aquariums up to 3 gallons. This heater is not adjustable, but combined with the controller, should keep the pico reef at a steady 78 degrees. When this heater arrives and the controller is set up, I plan on switching back to the 18 watt coralife fixture as I really want to see some nice growth in this tank, and I just don’t think this picotope light is going to cut it.

Finally, a few teasers of whats waiting to go inside.

This rock is pre-cured from my local live fish store (LFS) bought at a premium of $8 per pund =x. It’s not so bad though when you only have to buy 1.5 lbs . I will be using sand and water from my main established reef, so I am anticipating that there will be no cycle for this tank. I also have a small clean-up crew in transit from reefcleaners.org.

While getting my rock, I couldn’t pass up a few nice frags – 2 different color zoa’s and a star polyp

I’m pretty excited to get all the equipment and to start putting some livestock into this little tank. Thanks for checking in!

]]> http://reefchronicle.com/tom-aquatic-mini-deco-1-gallon-all-in-one-build-day-3/feed/ 100 http://reefchronicle.com/tom-aquatic-mini-deco-1-gallon-all-in-one-build-day-2/ http://reefchronicle.com/tom-aquatic-mini-deco-1-gallon-all-in-one-build-day-2/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:09:57 +0000 admin http://reefchronicle.com/?p=1551 Alright so all the silicone dried and I was pretty happy with the results, so I decided to leak test, test the heater I bought, and test the fitment of my light. (You can click on any picture for a larger version)

Then, I realized I used the wrong silicone I used GE silicone II, which says clear, 100% silicone, but if you read the label on the back it says that it does include mold inhibitors. These mold inhibitors will slowly release toxins into your reef water over time that will be poisonous to your live stock, so its imperative to find a reef safe brand.

as stated in another post here:

Common brands of reef safe silicone are:

• Silicone that you find at your local fish store
• DAP 100% silicone
• GE silicone 1 – window and door ONLY. There are many debates of whether or not this aquarium silicone is indeed reef safe, but this is the kind that I have used, and it doesnt seem to be causing any problems.

GE Silicone I said to be reef safe

Alright, since I messed up on the silicone, I had to take the whole tank apart and redo it using the above pictured silicone. I decided that since I have to take it apart, Ill cut totally new baffles and try to come up with a way to make my silicone work as clean as possible, as it is very hard to work in such a small place. Here is how round 2 came out:

Tom aquatic 1 gallon AIO round 2

As you can see, the silicone lines are a lot cleaner this time around. Because these spaces are so small, the silicone gun can not fit in to make the clean lines like you see on larger tanks. So, on the first build, I did most of the silicone work with my finger which was obviously very messy as you can see above. This time around, I wanted it to be cleaner, so I got to think how can I reach into these small spaces and get clean lines? The answer was a Mc Donalds straw. I went to the restaurant and took about 5-6 straws. Mc Donalds straws are the best for this because they have the widest diameter and are the easiest to work with since they are larger than normal straws. What I did was fill the straw with silicone from end to end, then aim the straw where I wanted the silicone, pinch the top of the straw, and pull the straw through my fingers so that a line of silicone is left where the straw was pulled through. I know it sounds confusing and unfortunately I dont ave any pictures of this step, but I’ll try to make a quick youtube video to show you what I’m talking about. This method really made a world of difference and made the project A LOT easier.

This picture shows really how little room there is to work with inside the display of this tank. here you can see a small container of dry pellets that has about a 2 inch diameter and it just barely fits. Aquascaping is going to be fun

And now were back to where we were before. I can’t stress enough the importance of being meticulous with your equipment and building materials selections because if you attempt a build like this, and over look that one step just like I did, it can end up costing you a lot of money in the long run. Lucky for me, I was also posting this on a local forum for suggestions, and someone else caught the fact that I used the wrong silicone.

Next step: Painting

Since I once again forgot to spray paint the false wall, I can’t show you that step. However, here is what the tank looked like when it was ready for paint.

As you can see, only the outside back of the tank will be spray painted black. I’m doing this to hide the silicone work in the back as well as the sides. The false wall that should hide the filtration, is still clear, so all of that will still be visible.

Also, I ran into a problem with my light fitment and the heater. As you can see in the pics above, the heater has a large top on it that houses the dial to set the temperature. Unfortunately, because its so large, it ruined my idea of just setting the coralife light right on top. The stands I tried to build to make the coralife fixture work just didnt cut it, so I found another option – the light fixture from the 3 gallon Picotope. I believe its only a 9 watt light, but it will work for the softies I have planned for this tank.

Here is the last pic for this update.

Next time I’ll hopefully be ready to show you guys the DIY battery power Automatic Top Off system you can build for about $10 and I should have some livestock pics soon

Tom Aquatics 1 gallon mini deco tank

This is the start. Its a 1 gallon mini deco aquarium from tom aquatics. This aquarium comes as a package with a small light, a small foam in-tank filter with pump attached, and of course the tank. Since I am planning on building this into an all in one, I will not be using the filter, but I will use the pump. Also, the light is insufficient for coral so I will be using a 2×9 watt coralife fixture.

To make the false wall, I will use sheets of acrylic from home depot. This size and thickness sheet of acrylic is really inexpensive ($3 for a 13×10 sheet) and is very easy to work with.

My design of this tank is pretty simple. I will have the false wall going across the entire length of the tank, and I will build 3 mini chambers into the back. The first chamber will be the refugium, which will house a small clump of chaeto and maybe a mangrove or 2. The second chamber will have a small media rack and will be the place for my phosphate sponge and chemi-pure. The last section will hold the heater and the small return pump.

The false wall will come all the way to the top of the tank. On one side, it will have a small cut for the inlet of water into the refugium.

If you are planning a project like this, and you cannot locate black acrylic for your false wall, the picture above is when you are going to want to apply black spray paint so that all your filtration will be hidden from view when the all in one is complete. Because this is my first tank build, I didnt think about this before it was too late. Krylon fusion paint im told is reef safe.

Here we have the first baffle siliconed on to the false wall. When working with pieces this small, I reccomend using the smaller tubes of silicone as they are much easier to work with, however, if its your first time working with the stuff, get 2 bottles as it can get quite messy.

Here both baffles are siliconed to the false wall. The small pieces of acrylic on top of them are just there to add weight and stability while it drys.

Here you can see the baffles have been siliconed on. The first baffle goes all the way to the bottom of the false wall and will be siliconed to the bottom of the tank. This will be where the refugium is housed. Next, once the refugium is full, water will overflow into the middle section, which will be the media rack. As you can see, I cut a small square of plastic canvas that was left over from one of my scrubber builds, and created the small media rack. Here, media bags with phosphate and chemipure will be filtering water. Next, the water will go under the media rack baffle and into the right most chamber, which is the return chamber. Here, I will put the small return pump as well as the heater and auto top off float switch.

Here is what it looks like when placed into the tank

Next, I drilled the hole for the return pump. Looking back, It would be more beneficial to drill the hole before doing all the silicone work because the acrylic can crack and scratch easily.

The final step for today is to silicone the whole false wall into the tank. This is a very tricky process and you will definitely need to take you time, especially because this is such a small area to work in. Here are a few pictures of how it came out. It looks messy, but when its fully dry, I can clean the silicone work and I am also planning to paint the back of the tank black, which should hide some of it as well.

This should do it for today. Next time we will work on spray painting, leak testing, equipment installation, and some other cool DIY’s I have planned for this tank.

The aquarium I have chosen to for my 1 gallon reef is the Tom Aquatics Mini Deco aquarium, which comes with a small filter, small pump, and an inefficient for coral light. most of this will be tossed out as I am planning to make this an all in one tank, which means no hang on the back filters or external sumps. I plan to do this with sheets of acrylic from home depot, some aquarium safe silicone, and a little DIY guess and check. I have always been the type of person to buy a fully done item, but the bug has bit and I want to try some custom stuff.

Here, I will record all of my trials and tribulations concerning this tiny tank.

Pics of what I’ll be working with.

It looks a little dirty, but nothing a little vinegar and some buffing wont fix. Stay tuned!

The Build

Day 1 – Cutting acrylic and silicone baffles

Day 2 – Re-doing silicone and preping for painting

Day 3 – Reviewing the paint job and ordering new equipment

How To: Do it yourself automatic top off system

Day 4 – Aquascaping and coral additions

After the Build – Update