Yoshii's Old School 2.5g Hawaiian Pico 🌴

[Rehype]

Wow this is beautiful yosh. Love the macro diversity. It would be so awesome if you could add some dwarf seahorses to this build.

[yoshii]

On 4/4/2020 at 4:55 AM, Rehype said:

Wow this is beautiful yosh. Love the macro diversity. It would be so awesome if you could add some dwarf seahorses to this build.

Thank you! Haha it would be cool, although I definitely don't have the motivation/time to be hatching bbs all the time for them. If only they ate pellets once a day or something

[Lypto]

You could culture some copepods and nanochloropsis! they're great for tank health in general. 

[yoshii]

On 4/19/2020 at 6:18 PM, Lypto said:

You could culture some copepods and nanochloropsis! they're great for tank health in general. 

I used to! Then I switched my goby to pellets and didn't culture pods anymore.

[yoshii]

In other news, I hope you all are doing well and staying safe during this crazy time! Luckily Hawaii doesn't have that many cases compared to other states. I am still working, but found time to do some Amazon/Marine Depot shopping.

 

The tank temps have been really high (88F) due to warm weather recently so I finally bought a iceprobe chiller, inkbird temp controller, and a new HOB. 💸

 

[banasophia]

19 minutes ago, yoshii said:

In other news, I hope you all are doing well and staying safe during this crazy time! Luckily Hawaii doesn't have that many cases compared to other states. I am still working, but found time to do some Amazon/Marine Depot shopping.

 

The tank temps have been really high (88F) due to warm weather recently so I finally bought a iceprobe chiller, inkbird temp controller, and a new HOB. 💸

 

Glad you’re staying healthy and safe... I’ve been so relieved to hear Hawai’i hasn’t had a lot of cases.
 

Looking forward to hearing how the ice probe works out, please keep us posted. My office tank has really been heating up as well, so I’m going to have to figure something out to control the temp better. 

[yoshii]

1 hour ago, banasophia said:

Glad you’re staying healthy and safe... I’ve been so relieved to hear Hawai’i hasn’t had a lot of cases.
 

Looking forward to hearing how the ice probe works out, please keep us posted. My office tank has really been heating up as well, so I’m going to have to figure something out to control the temp better. 

Thanks, I hope you're doing well too. I'm kind of surprised Hawaii didn't get hit hard, with it's location and number of tourists/travelers coming through. I'm very grateful, the islands and healthcare infrastructure can't handle much.

 

I definitely will, I think it will be a good test for this unit. I've been thinking about getting one since I set up this tank. Since I moved to a house that gets hot in the afternoons, I knew I'd have to do something before summer. I told myself it's worth it when I use it for my next upgrade 😎

[billygoat]

6 hours ago, yoshii said:

I told myself it's worth it when I use it for my next upgrade 😎

I know this is only foreshadowing, but I am already excited to see what you put together. 😁 The pico here looks absolutely beautiful.

[yoshii]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:23 AM, billygoat said:

I know this is only foreshadowing, but I am already excited to see what you put together. 😁 The pico here looks absolutely beautiful.

Thanks! I won't be upgrading for a while due to the pandemic but also my lack of a new tank stand, but I'm looking forward to it!

[yoshii]

Iceprobe chiller arrived today!

 

 

I'm definitely going to have to build some sort of stand for it. It will sit on top of the HOB, but I'm afraid it's too much weight for the HOB and tank panel to handle. I need to figure out a way of supporting it but still having the probe part be submerged in the back of the HOB. It's going to be really ugly, but if it keeps the tank cool, then that's ok.

[yoshii]

Iceprobe update!

 

I made a janky stand/holder for the iceprobe out of cardboard, tape and hot glue 😂 (just in case it didn't work and I'd have to take it down!). I mounted it over the HOB so the probe part is mostly submerged. I installed it last Saturday and so far it's been working pretty well! Sunday I let the room get really hot and did some tests to see how much it could cool the tank.

 

For this experiment, I left in the two sources of heat for the tank - the HOB running, and small in-tank pump (which usually raises the tank temp by ~2*F above ambient).

I set the InkBird Controller at 78F, with a "range" of 1F. So as soon at the temp reaches 79F, the Iceprobe will turn on until it cools to 78F. Then the temp will creep up again to 79F and the cycle repeats. Here's my summarized data log below. In short, the Iceprobe did a great job, and only struggled to keep the tank at 78.1F when the ambient temp was 92F, a difference of 14 degrees!!

 

Room Temp 84F

Start temp: 79.4F

End temp: 78.0F

Time to cool: 25 min

Time for tank to heat up again (to 79F): 26 min

 

Room Temp 85F

Start temp: 79.2F

End temp: 78.0F

Time to cool: 21 min

 

Room Temp 88F

Time for tank to heat up again (77.9 to 79): 19 min

 

Room Temp 89-92F

Start temp: 79.0F

End temp: 78.1F

Time to cool: >1.5hr - held at 78.1F, could not drop temp all the way to 78.0F when room was 92F

 

After this experiment I set the Inkbird to keep the tank at 80F, and it hasn't struggled yet! The room max temp this week was around 88F.

The only thing I don't like...is how ugly and bulky the set up is. It's so. so. ugly 😭

 

[debbeach13]

ugly beats hot IMO

[yoshii]

34 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

ugly beats hot IMO

I know, I know...but still 😫 I need to build a nice stand for it, hopefully that will help a little

[teenyreef]

Nice to hear you're doing well! Did the galaxea ever recover? 

[Gramophone]

SO much macro! I love it, Yoshii.

[badfish816]

Yoshii! Good to see you are still reefing. Been awhile so it's good to see some familiars. Tank is looking really nice. 

[yoshii]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:24 PM, teenyreef said:

Nice to hear you're doing well! Did the galaxea ever recover? 

Sadly it didn't 😞 I dont know what happened. I will try again if I find more in the future

On 5/22/2020 at 2:22 PM, Gramophone said:

SO much macro! I love it, Yoshii.

Thank you!

On 6/2/2020 at 12:28 PM, badfish816 said:

Yoshii! Good to see you are still reefing. Been awhile so it's good to see some familiars. Tank is looking really nice. 

Thanks badfish! There's quite a few "older" members still hanging around here

[yoshii]

For updates, not too much has been going on with the tank, added some new macros I found while snorkeling. This Halymenia looked awesome in the field but seems to have lost its spots in the tank

 

 

But the more exciting update is...

upgrade!

[Tigahboy]

😮 What tank is that?

[Gramophone]

44 minutes ago, Tigahboy said:

😮 What tank is that?

x2!

[debbeach13]

Congratulations on the new tank. Would like some details size, equipment, and stocking plans when you get a chance.

[yoshii]

6 hours ago, Tigahboy said:

😮 What tank is that?

 

6 hours ago, Gramophone said:

x2!

It's a 6g long. I was considering a 12g long but they weren't available. It's a cheaper brand, Aquatop. But I'm happy with it so far. Although I have yet to so a leak test so we'll see

5 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Congratulations on the new tank. Would like some details size, equipment, and stocking plans when you get a chance.

Thanks! I plan on moving existing macros over to the new tank, but idk what else I want to do for stocking yet. I definitely want at least 1-2 fish, maybe a small damsel and a goby?

 

Equipment...I need to brainstorm. I am too scared to drill the tank, but I want a better way to mount the iceprobe chiller. I was thinking about making my own "hob" like I did for my old 3g, with a pump in the tank pushing water into a larger tall container next to the tank, which then waterfalls back to the tank. Then I could drill that and mount the chiller on the side.

[yoshii]

Oh, and here's a pic of the tank out of the box

[Tamberav]

I have used the Aquatop tanks before and they held up just fine 🙂

 

Your tank is looking really nice! 

[Christopher Marks]

Congrats on the new tank @yoshii, that's exciting!

 

I remember an original HOB ice probe design that used an AquaClear filter and I'm pretty sure had the ice probe mounted underneath it, through a hole drilled in the bottom of the AquaClear filter chamber. It seems the probe can work mounted from any direction, if that helps your design. I think you're on the right track with using a taller container for the chiller that can sit beside it and overflow into the tank. You might consider having something made from acrylic, it could even hide the chiller probe entirely with opaque material. Long time community sponsor Micro Reefs Aquariums could make something for you I bet, Mike does a lot of work with these chillers.