Cptbjorn's 3g DIY Pico Cube

[badfish816]

what am i looking at????

[Drift Monkey]

Obviously parts for a miniature fission reactor!

[cptbjorn]

Wow, didn't expect someone to get it right off the bat. Nuclear fission backup, because honestly if you can't afford a decent pico breeder reactor you should find a different hobby lol.

 

I'm actually making 3 things. One is a temperature probe and the other two will only be revealed if my ideas pan out and work properly. If they don't work I will edit this post and retroactively make my plan to just be for a temperature probe, pretty sure that covers all the bases

[badfish816]

nice...but i liked the fission reactor better.

[plantarms]

yeah that or a flux capacitor

[cptbjorn]

So I've been working on this and I'm kinda confused, has anybody tried this before? How many jiggawatts should I start off with since the tank is so small?

 

[Drift Monkey]

Watch out! It's gonna explode!

[HeyLookItsCaps]

wait....do you have an arduino hooked up?

[cptbjorn]

Yep. There's way too many things right now I would rather do than work on the arduino program so it is still very basic and only controls the LEDs and prints to the LCD but it's in there with an RTC and 4 buttons that I just have to drill out and code for. Eventually.

 

Also I just got word from my Sister to expect an overnight package tomorrow from Fraggle Reef!

[HeyLookItsCaps]

nice, the fraggle reef stuff is always good, i know those peeps personally. congratz!

 

so with the arduino, do you have a morning evening cycle?

[cptbjorn]

Yeah I have it running a sunrise/sunset effect. Blues fade in over a 45 minute period, then the whites come in over the next 45 and sunset is the opposite. I've had it for a couple months now but I still find myself staring at it when I'm around to see it. It's a really cool effect, you can't see anything happening but if you look away for a while you realize it has changed. You should hook one up

[HeyLookItsCaps]

do you have a write up? me and my buddy were talking bout doing something like this. can you make a parts list/skill level/how to on this for me? lol

[evilc66]

Here's what I got myself for christmas, I couldn't wait so I opened it all already

 

 

If I can find some time this could get interesting

 

I have a pretty good idea what you are doing. I have been thinking of doing the same for a little while now.

[cptbjorn]

The order from fraggle reef came and there was like 20 bags in there Including a BIG frag of the appleberry montipora I've had my eye on for a long time now that is my christmas present. Their website says 3/4" frag but this is more of a mini colony, it is encrusted halfway around a golf ball sized rock. They honestly could have fragged this into 4+ healthy chunks but they sent it all to me

 

Also I've been helping my Sister and her fiance do a tank upgrade from a 50br to a 48x24x24 120g over the last month or so and all their livestock is in bins right now and I have been selected to hold all the SPS they ordered. Besides the appleberry I have 5 other encrusting montis, a digitata, an acro and a pocillopora in my pico cube right now, it was well-packed before but now it is madness. I'll get some pics when the LEDs come on in a couple hours.

[Weetabix7]

Holy Cow, how are you gonna fit all that in there???

Nice problem to have though, can't wait to see pics!!!

[spanko]

[cptbjorn]

I thinned out my sandbed some a couple days ago so I put most of the monti frags down there and bumped up my LEDs up about 15%, hopefully they will be fine until the new tank is ready. Looks good so far though, everything has polyps out. I can tell already that the monti undata doesn't photograph well because if it did I would have wanted some before now I'm not going to want to give this stuff up, hopefully it grows fast enough that I can nab a frag or two soon

 

@caps: I don't really have a writeup on the arduino, my drivers take a 5v PWM directly so there isn't much to write about, you attach the LED dimming pins to the arduino pins and upload this sketch and you are done For the buckpucks you need the arduino to control a simple transistor switch instead of interfacing directly but it's only a couple parts and it shows you how to do it in the datasheet.

 

@evil: I think it is a good concept and that it will work but getting it reef safe, maintenance free and quiet is going to take some doing.

[evilc66]

If we are thinking the same thing, I have some designs in the works already for the mechanical end of things. Shoot me a PM if maybe you would like to team up on this.

[cptbjorn]

I just put in the last 8 hours or so of work on my sister's 120g build and it is filling with RO right now. That setup is sick, I'll post a pic or two of it once the transfer is done. I want one

 

For now though here's my new appleberry and the rainbow monti that I'll be needing a frag of asap The appleberry is a little browned out but I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it come around.

 

Here's my packed sandbed, the monti undata on the left should probably be fragged for me too lol. The blue xenia took a while to get used to my tank but it is now splitting in three, you can't see it in this pic but it sent a little runner to a bare spot on the encrusting gorgonian rock next to it. They don't seem to mind that they are touching and I think they look cool next to each other Definitely click the high resolution version of this one, the colors came out surprisingly true and sharp for my point and shoot.

 

And a FTS. It's finally time to start gluing corals to the arch, I'm thinking the birdsnest should be down a bit and the appleberry should be to the right a little. If I get a chalice or two in a while does everybody think they would be happy attached to the vertical section on the left below the appleberry? And maybe a bonsai acro top center?

[Weetabix7]

Wow, that tank is jam-packed fulla frags!!!

There's some really nice ones in there though.

The Blue Xenia is def looking happy.

You'll find that once it settles in and starts growing, it continues to grow pretty well.

As you observed, it really shouldn't bother the Encrusting Gorgonian.

Looking nice!

 

My little Pico is about half Mushrooms, and they don't seem to like the LED's.

I'm thinking of moving the Mushrooms out and moving some other LPS in since it seems they handle LED's better.

[cptbjorn]

I have 4 or 5 different mushrooms (besides the ricordea) and they all pretty much have to stay in fully shaded parts of the tank because if they get unimpeded LED light they only open up half as big if not less, the plus side is they still have great coloration in the shaded light. I'm guessing you would have to turn the LEDs way down if you want mushrooms out in the open though, but it's the same deal under MH isn't it?

 

The ricordea seem to be fine on the sandbed but they were all sold as "acclimated to 250w mh". To be honest though I think I like ricordea florida colors better under CF light than any I've seen under MH or LEDs, the bright light seems to make them turn more of a pastel/milky color.

 

One more pic because the millipora is open like a colony of hair worms today

[cptbjorn]

Since I got all the SPS in the tank on short notice I decided to put the other projects on hold and get a working ATO going to keep my water more stable. I didn't want a float switch in the tank for a couple different reasons so I have been planning use an optical method with no moving parts. This would allow me to have only once small piece of airline tubing in my display tank to detect the water level which will be tucked behind the overhang of the HOB return.

 

I had been dreading it because I assumed the difference between saltwater and air between the LED and the detector would be relatively small since the cross section of the air tubing is tiny and it would be hard to detect reliably. I found this wasn't the case at all though and it all came together easily and I even got it set so that no amount of darkness or flashlights etc can throw it off even if I try. Works great

 

Now that I have a working prototype I'm planning to build a version with 3 stacked sensors that interfaces to the arduino so that I can have a high/low water level alarm and protection from overflowing.

 

Oh yeah and my sister's fiance and I went halves on the 5 acan frag pack Mr. Coral just had so I'll be putting one or two more acans in this tank in a week or two Hopefully I'll be able to clear out some of the sps by then lol.

[coolwaters]

Spent most of the day yesterday working on this little guy:

 

 

 

did u make enough for everyone

[cptbjorn]

I'm actually probably going to be making a small run of arduino boards that have circuitry built in to connect directly to meanwell drivers/buckpucks. The boards will be green though, I'd have to order 32 of them before board manufacturer will hook me up with a blue board/solder mask...

[cptbjorn]

 

Got a nano-reef mug, a gift certificate to Lucid Propagations and a nice .1g resolution 2000g benchtop scale for mixing 2-part for Christmas today The mug is sweet, has a huge handle so my banana hands can't get caught at the knuckle and spill my coffee

 

I have acans coming from Mr. Coral next week and at least 6 LPS/SPS frags coming from Lucid probably the week after and nowhere to put them... I got my 13g running a week or two ago with a 20" dual satellite and some nice rock so I'm going to start bumping some softies over, I don't really have much of a plan though besides to keep my favorite stuff in the pico since I'll see it more often.

 

We'll see what happens, the 13g needs some LEDs over it though; PC just looks gross after having my pico in the corner of my vision for so long...