Eatfood's 6 Gallon Pico Reef - live rock added

[eatfood]

I will start this thread with a walk of shame picture:

 

 

There it is ladies and gents - the horrible truth. I have in my possession an aquarium that, for the lack of a better phrase, has been forgotten about back in our bedroom. I bought the 6 gallon jbj nano cube around 10 years ago and it pretty much struggle it's whole life. When I was doing proper maintenance the thing was... "ok" for awhile, but never what I wanted. The fans in the lid make me want to take a baseball bat to the thing and the filtration compartment only accomplishes creating less space in the display as far as I am concerned (crappy nitrate bomb). These days cyano has taken over (there has not been corals in this thing for years).

 

The percula clown will be staying (this setup was gifted to my mother for a few years and she bought the fish). I will not be adding any other fish or inverts other than corals (zoanthids and maybe a center piece clam).

 

So here is the plan:

 

I set up a temporary tank for the perc and started "cooking" the live rock that was in there to recharge it for the new setup. I will be adding another 3-5 lb piece of live rock to what I have. I removed the lid and cleaned out the tank:

 

 

I then removed the built in filtration and the rim from the tank. I also removed the cruddy inside silicone from the back two corners. I then cleaned it up and redid the silicone in those corners (feel pretty good about the strength of this thing now).

 

 

Next step is to paint the back and bottom black. I am painting the bottom because I want to go bare bottom on this pico. The equipment goes as:

 

already have:

 

Filter:

-AC 70 (with an AC 20 impeller) and an:

-AC 70 surface skimmer box from badfish reef systems

-AC 70 intank media basket with:

-hydor 50w heater

-filter floss and seachem purigen

-jbj nano-glo fuge light and cheato

 

Light:

-Boost LED with lamp clamp

-3 royal blue 1cool white 1 natural white par30 lamp

 

still need:

-vortech mp10

 

I am pretty confident that with 1-2 gallon weekly water changes this puppy will shine. I know the disco shimmer ball this tank will create on the walls in our bedroom is going to be awesome. It is going to be a little bit of a process cooking the rock and revamping the equipment, but I think it will be super worth it.

 

Any suggestions/questions welcome and thanks for the read. I will be updating this build as I go

[JR!]

very cool start imo. cant wait to see more.

[eatfood]

thanks - I am pretty excited to get this going.

 

It's funny , the whole time (like 2 hours) I was scraping old silicone I was thinking about jumping on marine depot and getting a $50 mr. aqua 7.5 gallon. I am glad I am reusing this tank - it is fun to putting life back into this crusty thing (plus I really like the curved corners in the front).

[Clarinet_Reefer]

Looks like a good restart! Can't wait to see what new rockwork you come up with. That par bulb will be great on this tank.

[eatfood]

Thanks, the light doesn't get here until Monday and I cannot wait to flip that baby on.

[ExSmoker]

nice clean up job so far

[eatfood]

Filtration assembled:

 

[ExSmoker]

Awww I thought you was going sump.

[Clarinet_Reefer]

Filtration assembled:

 

Looks good! Nice planted tank too.

[eatfood]

Awww I thought you was going sump.

 

I have a sump on my ADA 60P - i will start a thread to show that tank off.

 

 

Looks good! Nice planted tank too.

 

Thanks - its a 75 gallon piranha tank

[FishBrawler]

Bb FTW

[Solarflare8806]

Loving the transformation, this is probably my favorite thing anyone has ever done with a nano cube.

[eatfood]

Thanks for the kind words

[eatfood]

Painted:

 

http://s1205.photobucket.com/user/lombardozzi1/media/painted_zpsa8943140.jpg.html'>

 

I removed the nano cube logo and painted the rim as well – looks new.

[eatfood]

What corals would you suggest for this setup?

[lnglostsurfer]

Wow.

 

I'm not a fan of the little AIO tanks like that (even though I set one up) but with the back compartment removed and using a hob filter this is going to be a really cool build. As for corals, I would try to get as much color in there as possible to offset the back black ground and barebottom. Maybe find some crazy zoas, ricordias, some acans and other LPS. I like corals that really give some "flow" to the tank too like a frogspawn/hammer and maybe some gsp or xenia if you can keep it under control.

[eatfood]

Thanks!

 

If you look at my avatar you can see me pretending to fly fish in the background of my 20 gallon nano that a GSP colony completely grew over the top of all my other corals. It only took like a year or two and that coral grew over all the rock and sand and half way up the glass in the front - just took over. it was like a green hairy bowl. I had a super battle with cyano and lost all by one baseball sized rock of it, which is separated by 2" of sand on all sides from any other rocks now (in my other nano).

 

I have been looking around and I still really like the zoos. another coral I would really like to try is montipora -like a really nice orange one and a pink one if I could find them.

[eatfood]

equipment so far..

 

http://s1205.photobucket.com/user/lombardozzi1/media/boosted_zps5b072bac.png.html'>

[jcarman81]

This setup looks awesome. Good luck!

[eatfood]

Thanks!

 

so what does everyone think about a little in tank auto top off float valve like this one:

 

http://autotopoff.com/custom/nano.jpg

 

I am wondering how much water this thing is going to evap over a day. How do the rest of you handle evaporation in your picos? does anyone else use an in tank float switch? I have the double switch sump version on my other tank and I love it. Another question I have is how a float switch like that will work with a little wave from the mp10?

[Tamberav]

Looks awesome! I'm following along. I have a similar tank and now I want to rip the back off. haha! I like my 20g AIO but for whatever reason the cube was just frustrating. I think it was just too hard to clean compared to my 20g Long.

[eatfood]

They are hard to clean. I also didn’t like it is hard to see the evaporation level.

 

Speaking of which I have come up with plan for an auto top off. I think I might put a check valve and inline adjustable airline valve between an aqualifter and a hole in the Aquaclear lid. Then just get a $15 dollar digital timer that does 1 minute increments. I will just set it to run a cup or so of RO top off a day and adjust from there. It won’t be perfect, but will probably be good enough to get me between weekly water change days.

[ExSmoker]

Looks great Wonder if there is any way to mount your goosneck onto the back of the filter?

Would be even more nicer looking from all 3 viewable sides.

[eatfood]

Looks great Wonder if there is any way to mount your goosneck onto the back of the filter?

Would be even more nicer looking from all 3 viewable sides.

 

That would be cleaner, but I am trying to use the light base to “hide” my ATO switch going between it and the filter.

 

One piece at a time..

 

Skimmer box

 

http://s1205.photobucket.com/user/lombardozzi1/media/skimmerbox_zps4c003e5e.png.html'>

[ExSmoker]

Looks proper to me Dont worrie about the ATO showing, its a small peice. Besides nobody looks at that when ya gots corals packed in there.