Cptbjorn's 3g DIY Pico Cube

[amnesiak]

Not sure what difference it makes but between my two tanks with 3 sexies each I have them from 3 different shipments/sources so they probably aren't all siblings and might start spawning at some point? Can I get a firmware to PWM some Barry White into my pump please amnesiak?

 

That's the secret mode 5.

 

I actually just looked up to see if i could find bass tab to 'cant get enough of your love' and i decided that'd be silly. I'll just make a miniature animitronic sexy shrimp band. You could try posting pictures of sexy shrimp spawning on the sides of the tank.

 

You know what your sexies just told me they want? A maxima. Check out the group buy, then we just gotta get your sister to buy two and we all get free shipping.

[cptbjorn]

I think one of the sexy shrimp might be carrying eggs, it is the largest out of the bunch and seems to be doing some fanning/rearranging every 10-15 minutes. I'm reading up on what to do with the babies should a spawning occur

 

Also the blue xenia is still working on it's offshoot, it already attached to one rock and it seems to be even looking for another place to attach past that, it's really going nuts. Right side pic:

 

[amnesiak]

I think one of the sexy shrimp might be carrying eggs, it is the largest out of the bunch and seems to be doing some fanning/rearranging every 10-15 minutes. I'm reading up on what to do with the babies should a spawning occur

 

I think I have a place for them.

 

Also the blue xenia is still working on it's offshoot, it already attached to one rock and it seems to be even looking for another place to attach past that, it's really going nuts. Right side pic:

 

 

That's amazing, that's some serious growth.

 

It might be your magnesium, too, my birdsnest seemed to grow a second coat of polyps after I added that today.

[Jacobnano]

Your tank looks amazing. I hate you

[coolwaters]

lol thats one crowded sandbed.

 

thinking about making a shroud for it?

[cptbjorn]

I think it might be the magnesium too, the red acan in the front has put in a ring of ~8-10 baby heads all around its perimeter since I got that in line and my birdsnest and candy cane finally don't look like they are ready to die anymore.

 

I'm thinking the sandbed is too crowded too and I think it's because of the massive red+purple acan, I actually have another sweet smaller-polyped green+white one I'm going to replace it with. I bought a mini colony of like 10 heads of it but it's waiting in my sister's 120g until it heals enough to cut up, it won't fit in my tanks yet.

 

The plan is for them all to kinda grow together into a mini garden kind of thing (inspired by that one ridiculous pic from m'akoyPINOY.) No idea what is going to happen at the chalice/acan boundary but I'll worry about that later. When they all fill the sandbed I'm upgrading to a drilled 10" starphire cube

 

I don't think I'm going to put a shroud on this pump, I put one on the second one I made and it turned out pretty good but it does take up quite a bit more room in the tank. Nothing can get up there but snails as long as I keep my glass clean so I'm not too worried about it, anything free-swimming would be chopped into coral food though.

 

Also I messed with my fuge light tonight and have basically zero light spillage into the display now, I think the corals will be happier with an actual night time. Pics tomorrow.

[pismo_reefer]

You Got Style Cap'n...

[cptbjorn]

Thanks pismo and jacob

 

For the fuge light I tried just a 40 degree lense on the cree LED but there was still a bit of light spillage so I made a little shield block the rest. I basically took a 1.5" long piece of 1.5" ABS, solvent welded a scrap of clear acrylic to the end with MEK and then trimmed off the excess. I used a lathe but no reason a dremel/router wouldn't work.

 

A little dremeling to clear a space for the cord and two little dabs of silicone to mount it and it was done, the whole process from concept to complete took like 30 minutes. I'm going to upgrade the light to a XP-G and do a bit cleaner job once my group buy order gets here but it is working great for now. I didn't feel like losing my white balance setting so they look like crap but here's some pics:

 

 

 

And here's a moonlight pic (blues on 1/255, whites off) with the fuge light on, it is actually quite a bit darker than this and if there are ANY other lights on in the room it overpowers the blues and the tank color turns from blue to white/yellow. There's pretty much zero light from the fuge getting in to the display

 

[cptbjorn]

I just tried one of the cree red LEDs I just got from dealextreme and lol. That is the ugliest most obnoxious effect I've seen ever. It might work better on a larger, more spread out array where it doesn't have the power to cause red shimmer but over a pico -> no freakin way.

 

I guess I don't even know why I thought it would work, I didn't think this through apparently

 

I bet they'll be good for if I ever decide to culture phyto though. Maybe chaeto too.

[evilc66]

Don't worry. Did the same thing. Looks just as horrible on a 40 breeder. For a little more red without it being so distracting, try a warm or neutral white.

[cptbjorn]

Yeah evil, now that I've searched about red LEDs a bit I'm seeing several posts of you saying exactly why it doesn't work, I should have searched. I'll try a warm/neutral if I'm ever ordering from somewhere that has them.

[cptbjorn]

Made my temp sensor tonight, it's a DS18B20 digital temp sensor potted in a 316 stainless rod I hollowed out. I've been using similar ones attached to my computer for a bunch of different things for a couple years now and they are rock solid/stable/precise, I've had one read the exact same temp every second without going up or down 1/16th of a degree for thousands of readings in a row. Fun stuff.

 

 

Now I have to start messing with the software again to make it work though...

[cptbjorn]

I dropped by Barrier Reef yesterday and they had a baby ORA blue maxima (they've had it for over a week, I've seen it in there a couple times now) and I made the decision last night that I was going to buy it at their sale next weekend (30% off) if they still had it. When I told my mom about it though she had me call and put it on hold and we went and she got it today as my birthday present

 

Pic is mostly ambient room lighting and doesn't show the true colors, it was mostly blue under MH when I picked it out. It is acclimating in a small gladware container, it is 1-5/8" long fully extended and 3/4" across at the widest point.

 

 

I haven't really worried about any new additions yet because they all have either been easy to care for or have had no central nervous system in case I screwed up but this little clam is neither of those things, I'm a bit uncertain about how well this is going to work... It was healthy in the store for quite a while though and it is open most of the way even as I'm acclimating it so it is looking good so far

[cptbjorn]

Pics aren't getting the color very well, the spots are more of a darker electric blue and the main color is more of a purple/black.

 

 

 

[Weetabix7]

Very nice, GL, and Happy Birthday!!!

[SaltineSage]

That is a gorgeous clam man! Once again you're pushing me closer and closer to a Pico with LEDs.

 

Oh yeah, and happy birthday!

[cptbjorn]

Thanks And saltine, if you want a clam pico you better get it started because you are supposed to wait 6 months before adding one

 

I got some DT's phyto today and started a couple 2L cultures of it (using hydroponic nutrients that I grow herbs+peppers+catnip in.) I tried to remove the clam and feed it but it wouldn't open up so I put a little bit of the phyto in the tank for now. I need to figure out how to get it to eat in a separate container though, I'm going to try lighting the container a little better and see if that helps. I can use an aqualifter to get some flow going but I think that particles mess up the diaphragm... I dunno.

 

My big sexy shrimp attacked and stole a crab pellet from my hermit crab today, it was so awesome after seeing the hermit tear mysis out of my corals for so long

[cptbjorn]

Just finished a 4.5", ~22 watt titanium heater that will fit in the intake chamber of my HOB filter My tank needs about 16 watts of heat to stay at 80F with the ambient at 60F so this little guy should be plenty.

 

 

Clam still looks happy and the blue xenia is attaching to the glass now, looks like it is going to grow up the wall which sounds pretty cool I think.

[amnesiak]

your avatar is weird, but the heater, clam and temp probe are awesome.

 

Are you gonna control that sucker with arduino + ssr?

 

-a

[SaltineSage]

Just finished a 4.5", ~22 watt titanium heater that will fit in the intake chamber of my HOB filter My tank needs about 16 watts of heat to stay at 80F with the ambient at 60F so this little guy should be plenty.

 

Clam still looks happy and the blue xenia is attaching to the glass now, looks like it is going to grow up the wall which sounds pretty cool I think.

 

 

You sir, I must eat your brain to obtain your knowledge.

 

Or you can just tell me how... though the chances are that I'll blow my pico-tank up if I made a DIY heater.

[cptbjorn]

Seabass made the avatar for me after I posted it as a pic, it is weird but it's one of my favorite reaction images for some reason.

 

The heater is just some power resistors potted in a tube, nothing fancy in there. I haven't tested it yet but I think it will work kinda maybe probably. Please don't eat my brain though, I use it almost every day usually

 

Yeah that is the plan with the heater with a SSR + arduino, I'm thinking about making an analog thermostat for redundancy though. If it got stuck on it wouldn't be a big deal now but in the summer it would be bad news...

[amnesiak]

Yeah that is the plan with the heater with a SSR + arduino, I'm thinking about making an analog thermostat for redundancy though. If it got stuck on it wouldn't be a big deal now but in the summer it would be bad news...

 

Instead of an analog backup I propose an ear-piercing piezo alarm, or that radioshack chip that you can

.

[cptbjorn]

Yeah or a text message

 

I guess I don't like trusting the arduino/my programming skills to run a heater without backup while I'm not home and I'd either want to have it control my current heater for a while or put a failproof(ish) backup on the new one. I do have a buzzer that I'm going to add though.

[cptbjorn]

My sister's fiance has asked about the green+purple coral in the middle of this pic a couple times (I'm taking the hint and he gets the first frag), if I remember correctly it was sold as an acan echinata and was in the $10 frag section at my LFS. Today he told me he had found out it is actually a diploastrea, an uncommon genus in the favia family. Apparently they aren't collected very often because other favia sell better but it is one of my favorites because it is very bright and I haven't seen anything like it anywhere else. They are supposed to grow into big spherical colonies when they get bigger.

 

The green zoas to the left of it are just exploding, looking at old pics it was ~15 heads only on the frag plug 2 months ago and it is about 50 now and they are growing off in all different directions around the plug. I've taken out a couple zoa frags because they pretty much needed full shade to open up under the LEDs but these ones seem to love it.

 

[reef2.5]

wow ive been searching the intranet every where trying to learn how to make a heater i would be in a great debt to you if you could share with me how to make one i have a very small space to work with though but any info would be awesome