I've had a few questions concerning my little vase pico experiment I was working on so I thought I would post some pics. I can't take credit for the idea as I saw the Vase Pico post from peter2285 and thought I would give it a try.

Here's some of the pics I took along the way. You can see al the other pics and accompanying documentation on: picoxp.blogspot.com

I started by getting the vase and painting the back black (mostly for aesthetics




I then made a "backpack" refugium\container to hold the pump, heater, temp probe, etc.










I then painted it, added an Ice Probe chiller and tested it out.






Next came the hood and LEDs












Here's a nearly final shot of the tank with the blues turned all the way up and the whites about half way on.


So this is a pretty final shot of the tank now. The microbubbles are now gone and tank seems to be running pretty good. Overall I think this was a great project, however some of the maintenance requirements to keep the parameters in check are pretty steep. Additional information, pictures and...ahem...mistakes, can be seen on the picoxp.blogspot.com site...

Anyway, thanks to all for the recommendations along the way.

thats cool im jealous

your not putting a fish in there right?

thats a cool lookin tank tho.

Looks great. Ryeguy did you have to quote him and take up a whole page?

lmao I agree ^ that was pretty ridiculous.

Thats an awesome setup though.

What size are those LEDs?

nanoreefnate - No fish and no plans for any. I was just going to put in some softies and that one red-legged hermit.. as long as it stays stable enough long-term. Right now the big battle for me is the day-to-day maintenance. It's a bit high right now so I need to see what I can do to minimize that.

Noonan - I am using the following for lights. This is really overengineered for what I was looking for...

• 3023-D-E-700P Wired BuckPuck x2
• 3023-D-E-1000P Wired BuckPuck x2
• Cree XR-E Blue Star
• Cree X-RE Q4 Star White x2
• Cree XR-E Royal Blue Star

I was originally thinking I would use the Blue Star for a nightlight but even turning it down all the way was too bright. I also wanted ot use the extra white for a fuge light. In the end I decided to put all four for the main tank lighting. I had to tune the lights for a bit because the lighting was so bright that most of my live rick macro algae began losing its color and dying off.

Awesome

srry guys



how much did it cost to build ?

Just messing with ya.

nicewerk.

ryeguy28 - honestly WAY too much. I was (and still am) going to build out a little custom 4.5g pico and bought most of the electronics\hardware with that in mind. Unfortunately, I came across the Vase Pico post and thought I could canabalize some of it for a quick experiment. That experiment turned into this entire project and all of the electronics, plus more, were used. If you take the electronics and hardware out of the equation I can probably break out the costs as:

• PVC: $50 - that includes my mistakes and some extra parts. If I were to do it again, you could get all the parts for less than half that.
• Acrylic: $20 - TAP Plastics circular bases and some Home Depot sheets along with JB Weld #16
• Paint: $15 - a couple Krylon fusion cans and some silicon
• Vase: $24

Niiice. I'm liking the addition of the Ice Probe, good call!

this looks pretty legitamite, i really like what you have done with it.