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LED Powered 1 gal Pico


Solarflare8806

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Solarflare8806

Soooo I decided to give reefing another go. About 4 years ago I bought a small tank (14gal) and stocked it full of corals and had a couple small fishes and you know. . . well, then after a couple months it got neglected and became kinda overwhelming so I had to give it away. I was in High school and taking duel credit courses at the same time.

 

Now tho, is gonna be different. I do have to thank El Fab for his pico of awesomeness which really inspired me to get my reefing game back on! There are others to thank and they will when its appropriate.

 

The tank: an Aqueon mini-bow 1.

 

 

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Pretty much a 1 gallon bowfront style tank.

 

I plan to incorporate several little changes of my own. I wanna keep some high light corals in there and the stock lighting might just not be enough. Not sure if 7watts of incandescent light will do it for a blue tort. . . . I also plan to customize water movement, cooling, and filtration.

More to come later on.

 

Nick

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Solarflare8806

Lighting.

 

When I first started reefing pc's were what was mostly used for nano's. MH was just starting to become mainstream. There were a few people who dabbled with LED's but the were mostly looking at the HO 8mm or 5mm. I actually remember trying to figure out a way to put about hundred 8mm into my Nanocube canopy :lol:.

 

For my lighting i need to thank evilc66. Thanks for the hard work you put into spreading your extensive knowledge into LEDs.

 

I will be using HO LEDs. I'm going with Cree, just cuz i feel they make top quality leds although i can't really say for the other guys cuz i haven't used them. . . . i might be biased lol.

 

My array will be 5 mp-g CW and only 1xr-e RB. . . . . . i know there are some that might think that its not gonna be enough blue. . . . i have to agree but i kinda messed up my led order so this is whats gonna have to work for now. . . . .

 

I'm actually in the mind that it shouldn't be more than 50-50 anyways. I like it around 70-30 or 60-40 (cw-rb).

 

DSC00580.jpg

 

As you can see the heatsink is quite small. I plan to use 3 fans directly on the heatsink and one fan moving air out of the canopy.

 

Here is the array inside the canopy

 

DSC00584.jpg

 

18 watts of led lighting! yay.

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Solarflare8806
really awesome little setup - looking forward to following this one!

 

 

Looks like a good start. Glad to see you back at it.

 

 

Thanks, i appreciate it. I'm excited to see where this is going as well. I've got a lot of plans for it and hopefully it'll work out.

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Solarflare8806
very nice can't wait to follow this one!

 

:) thanks!

 

I got live rock and cheato a couple weeks ago and put it into a little aga 2.5 with a filter and lighting. I wanted the rock to cycle through a bit before i added it to my pico.

 

I got uncured LR because one of my favorite things about reefs are the little critters that potentially come from LR, good or bad. I remember when i set up my first nano, how i was convincing my parents to let me spend $90 bucks on premium rock from drs F&S. They looked puzzeled the least to say lol.

 

DSC00478.jpg

 

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Nice little asterina star.

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Solarflare8806

About a week after I added the rock, i noticed a small polyp in a crevice, after further examination i deduced that it was aiptasia, so i began searching for more.

 

I saw a couple more tentacles coming out of another rock and looked a bit closer and noticed little white balls at the end of the tentacles . . . . not aiptasia. I remember reading about some types of nonphotosynthetic mushrooms in Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman.

 

The polyps are Pseudocorynactis sp. Possible P. caribbeorum. I was very excited.

 

 

I'm pretty sure they are super common and probably an invasive species, but i think they awesome. I'll post some pics a little later. They are kinda tricky to get a good shot cause their clear and i have a POS P&S lol.

 

 

This is a pic i googled. If you want to see more Click Here

 

Pseuco%20carib.JPG

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Cool little creature!!! Cant wait to see more pictures

 

and dont feel bad all I have is a crap P&S as well....

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Solarflare8806

haha yeah i need to upgrade to DSLR. . . . but money has not been permitting especially on my student budget.

 

Here are a couple of pics of them, I've counted at least 10 polyps.

 

DSC00597.jpg

 

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In these pics there are 5 visible. . . .well, barely lol

 

 

A couple days ago i fed them. They got a free sample of betta food cuz thats all the fish food i had at the time. the pellets are like 1.25 mm and i fed about 4 or 5 of the polyps. there was one thats smaller than a dime and it ate one of the pellets. I was kinda amazed lol. This one is picture in the top left corner.

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Solarflare8806

Thanks squeaky,

 

I really like where your tank is heading too. You got some really cool frags that are gonna make for a great display!

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Solarflare8806

very observant. . . the tank is sittin at 86, I live n lubbock texas right now going to TTU, My apartment stays at about 80 degrees F during the day because i'm really cheap and don't want to put the air on. All I got in my tank is LR and Chaeto right now, i'm not gonna stock it until i move which is about a month. When the aquarium is set i'll ensure the temp is between 78-82.

 

 

not keeping the air on in my apt makes my electric bill about $20-25. lol

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c_k_kuehne
not keeping the air on in my apt makes my electric bill about $20-25. lol

 

LOL that's just a few days worth of electricity for my house.

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Solarflare8806

haha wow,

 

I rationalize that i'm saving 50 bucks a month for about 5 degrees of comfort. being a student its a lot plus i get to spend more on my pico ;)

 

besides, the air conditioners at my apt are way old and very inefficient to get 78 they have to be on constantly so i might even be saving more by not having them on.

 

I also don't run a heater during winter. . . . . that gets a little tough. I tell myself though, layers are cheaper than elec. lol

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badfish816

i like this build. the corys are pretty sweet. i have an orange one in my tank. i heard if they get really big they can be fish killers. lol

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Solarflare8806

yeah i wouldn't doubt it I touched one of thier tentacles and they were SUPER sticky. As soon as i add anything to the tank that could be indicative to food they simply swell! I feed them frozen plankton every other day, i'm also noticing new polyps almost daily... this rock is really covered in them. I hope their not a nuisance.

 

 

Thanks for every ones input. It's what makes Nano-Reef so great!

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Solarflare8806

Update!!

 

 

So things are going kinda slow right now. I'm still working at modifying my fuge while I wait for a couple parts to come in from Hong Kong.

 

When I first got this pico I was originally going to attach a cereal container to the back of the tank.

 

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It looked absolutely terrible. The pic i had in my head was way WAY better than the way it turned out lol.

 

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The problem is that my pico is curved on both the front and the back i'm not sure why aqueon did that but. . . . they should have thought about me and my pico then i wouldn''t have this problem lol jk.

 

my first solution to this problem was to take a cereal container and bend it to fit the back. It was the perfect size, just enough room for chemiFilter and chaeto and heater and pump and everything else i needed for this bad boy.

 

so i attatched it . . . . . . . . and then i detached it, I told myself that i'm not gonna do this the quick and easy way and save. So I headed to lowes to get some Plexiglas or somethin. as I looked around I noticed that thier little cutting area or box or whatever had some scrap laying around so i asked the associate if I could buy some of that. There were some decent sizes and I thought that it would work.

 

The guy said sure, I asked how much and he said fifty cents!!!!!!!!!!!! I was like. . . . . wo. He asked how much i needed and i said how much for the whole pile HE SAID FIFTY CENTS. there were $20-30 pieces in there. anyways i came home with way more plexi than i needed lol

 

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There is a AA battery there for sizing, I couldn't get the whole 6' piece in the pic but you can see that it was way worth the $.5 i spent.

 

got lucky :lol: :lol: Now i'm gonna make this fuge right.

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone go to lowes or home depot and get cheap plexi!!!! Make the pico of your dreams!!!!!!!

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Very nice score on the plexi.. I spent 30 bucks for a 24x24 piece. Guess I'll have to stop by home depot and lowes every thursday and see what scrap they have from now on. Thanks for the tip

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Solarflare8806

yeah no problem, the guy told me that they had to throw it away anyways so. . . might as well sell it cheap.

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Solarflare8806

Update

 

 

Ok so my power supply came in for my royal blue led and i plugged it in. . . . . . now i have some concerns . . .

 

 

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These LEDs are way way bright. . . . i have a feeling that 5 XPGs and 1 XRE is a bit toooooooo much for a 1gallon. especially since i'm not gonna keep a lot of sps maybe a couple. Luckily I added a potentiometer to the 5 XPGs so i can tone those down but i didn't add one to the XRE.

 

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The high power isn't really that big of a concern to me its the heat. As you can see the Heat sink is small and there are 6 LEDs on there. Now I do have 3 fans on the back of this heat sink. Do you guys think that will be enough?

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Solarflare8806

Yeah your right. Do you know if its ok if the emitter bulb gets hot? its the only part that gets hot enough where I can't touch it.

 

 

As soon as I get this light all fixed up and put into the hood, I'll be able to start cycling the tank.

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