Posts Tagged ‘1 gallon AIO Pico Reef’

Hey guys. Been a while since I updated on this tank, but I must say, It is doing so well. I already have some significant growth of the yellow skirt zoanthids on the rocks, and with a 1 party cup water change every day, all parameters are in check and basically perfect. The cheato is also seeing decent growth, but I did have to remove the mangroves as my initial feeling that they were not receiving enough direct light was accurate – the mangroves have been moved to the main aquarium. I also added a really nice neon green star polyp frag and a pom pom crab (he’s shy, so no pic of him yet).

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.

All the new equipment I ordered has finally arived! Unfortunately, I didnt take many pictures of the set up because I was too excited to finally start aquascaping. Ill take it apart and show how everything goes together next time.

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 2×9w fixture – $25

total: $104

I have decided that it’s time for new tank. Over the last few months, I have been spending a lot of time of the Nano-Reef.com forums, specifically the pico reef section, which deals with mostly sub 5 gallon reef systems. Now, you might think that the smaller the tank, the easier it is to keep, right? Wrong! This is a very common misconception. Just like our large aquariums, these tiny reefs need to keep temperatures and chemical parameters very stable to thrive and grow. Because these sub 5 gallon systems are so small, it is very hard to stay on top of everything and even the slightest deviations from normal conditions can cause a fatal crash.

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