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💟 Pico Project (3 gallon JBJ Cubey)(blues wuth orange filters fts and update.)
LazyFish posted a topic in All-In-One Tanks
I cant stand the frags in my 20g any more they are driving me nuts and I just dont have room right now for the other aios I have in storage. I had thought about setting up my 2.5g with a canister again but I realy wanted the equipment contained in an aio system so I ended up ordering this tank. I have a few pumps laying around one may fit this to upgrade the 40g pump it comes with. I'll have to see what one fits it. The lights are not that strong but my frags are all softies and these will support softies and some lps corals from what I understand they should be fine if not I can upgrade later. I plan to plug the bottom intake if this verson has it some of the newer ones have gone to a single overflow. I'll run filter floss and chemipure with some extra carbon In the mix. Once the frags are gone I plan to turn this into a pico reef/ rfa grow out tank for a few of my nicer rfa babies that I want to pay special atention too with a few other corals probly zoa and shroom and probly a shrimp or something and/or possibly an evota or clown goby. -
Hello all. Finally starting a journal to share and document my reef. I’ve been a reef aquarist for a long time. I set up my first reef tank in the early 90’s, and I have had one ever since. This tank is an upgrade from a Marineland 25 gallon rimless tank. My goal for this thread is for pictures to do the talking... so I’ll try to keep the words to a minimum. Enjoy! May 2018. DIY stand being built. Empty tank just there to dream a bit. August 2018. The stand is mostly done. September 2018. Tank moved! Rock and coral just dropped in. Pile-o-rocks! October 2018. A peak under the hood. Wire organization mostly there. A de-rimmed 10 gallon as a temporary sump. November 2018. Arch complete! Thanks for looking! Tom
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I am new to reef aquariums and am loving my fluval evo 13.5 thus far. However, I want to upgrade my filtration from the awful stock sponge. I ordered some egg crate and am planning on creating a diy version of the intank media basket available online. I was wondering, should this egg crate go in chamber 1 or 2 for best filtration? Do the sides of the basket need to be covered for proper filtration flow? Also, does anybody have pictures of a diy basket that they have made? Would be very helpful for building mine 🙏 Thank you!
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Hi, fellow reefers. I will be hosting the evolution of the tank on Instagram under the name Squid_Reef. Below are some pictures of the progress. - it's still very early days! only been up and running from yesterday, Now comes the cycling (which I won't rush), I'm only planning to grow corals with a few invertebrates. TANK SPECS Display: Ciano Cube 15 Rock: CaribSea Liferock Nano Arches Sand: CaribSea Sand Lighting: Fluval Nano Marines LED Return Pump: AquaMedic DC Runner 1.3 Heating: Aquael Ultra Heater 25w Controller: Inkbird Temperature Controller ITC-308S Skimmer: None Filtration: 3 Chambers DIY Refugium: DIY chamber with Chaeto + LED light Filter Media: Floss + Red Sea Reef Spec Carbon & Seachem PhosGuard Top Off: Auto Aqua Monitoring: Seneye LIVESTOCK: INVERTS: 1x Blue hermit crabs 3x Ceriths snails 1x Sexy Schrimp CORALS: 1x Pink Tip Torch/Euphyllia 1x Black Torch/Euphyllia 1x Super Green Candy Cane 1x Purple Rim Candy Cane 1x Flamboyance Zoa 1x Ice Phantom Zoa 1x Scrambled eggs Zoa 1x Eagle Eye Zoa 1x Acan Micromussa LATEST FTS: 15/06/2022 THREAD START: Here's the pictures of the progress, I hope some of you will make the journey on Instagram to support and share tips/advice.👊 Carib sea live rock Making of the Sump. Making of the Sump. Making of the Sump. Leak test & Coral positioning. Filtration in place. Cycling has started. TBC...
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So here is the start of the build, just five pieces of acrylic 1@20”x20“ (base) 2@20”x11”(front/back) 2@19.5”x11“(sides) I haven’t put something edible in it but it’s a “literal” start first things first! I have got to build the stand the stand is a 24x24X32 which will have a one inch top all of which is made out of scratch resistant lexan now I will have to start building the tank!
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Through a series of events I came into the possession of a Mini Complete Tank. Having an affinity towards small aquariums, I've always wanted to give these tiny tanks a shot. The packaging was neat and the bonus of a MCT sticker and a bamboo tray from TankMods was a great surprise. Putting the tank together though I wasn't crazy impressed with the sump, infact it bothered me so much that I decided to make a tiny custom sump, then a media basket, and later a stand to give this tank a little more pizzazz and enhance the functionality of everything. Anyways, this all led me down a rabbit hole that seemingly has no end. So buckle up and join me for a tiny adventure. Equipment: Tank: Mini Complete Tank Light: Stock LED Sump: Custom DIY Stand: Custom DIY Return Pump: USB fountain pump (80gph) Heater: Aqueon 5W with Cobalt Neostat ATO: AutoAqua Smart ATO Lite Corals: TBD Inverts: TBD FTS: 9/11/2021
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Hello all. A lot of my aquarium projects and ambitions have come and gone; regardless of good intention I seem to fall back on not having as much time as I thought to keep things rolling. That, and I'll be honest, my attention span is about as long as-- sorry I got bored. I seem to start and stop journals like a fashion connoisseur changes clothes, so I figured I'd do myself (and all of you) a favor and post all of my aquarium shenanigans all in one place to enjoy. Call it a "gallery" of ideas, diy, and messes if you will. Anyways, I hope to keep you all updated on what I'm up to and different projects I'll be working on in the future. Sorry folks, no gift bags at the door this time (this is a "bring your own food and charm" kind of potluck). As always, thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoy the mess to come, happy reefing.
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Hey there! Recently, I have reduced this hobby to just one tank in light of life changes and an intense schedule working at an observatory. Although never intending to set up another reef tank, this 9 to 5 contest twisted my arm into setting up this small reef tank 🙈 In all respects though, I think this is going to be my endgame reef and plan to have it running until in 30 years I finally get my 220 or get out of the hobby. Like the title says, my goal with this tank is to have it be a "jungle" of SPS corals, or rather, a dedicated SPS system (but only between the hours of 9 to 5... 😉) This tank will be plumbed into a sump and will have a display fuge if everything goes to plan. I still have to tack down a few items that are going to power this tank, but I look forward to creating a neat little tank to help me get through the work day. Join me on this small adventure for many moons to come! Me in the office waiting for things to arrive... Current Full Tank Shot: Contest Entry Picture: Equipment: Tank: UNS 45L Lighting: 2x Noopsyche K7 V3 75W LEDs Stand: Vasagle Lowell Cabinet Filtration: Penn Plax Cascade 700 Wave Maker: Hygger Mini Wave Maker Heater: Topfin 20w preset ATO: Auto Aqua Smart ATO Lite Livestock: Corals: So much SPS Fish: TBD Inverts: TBD
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Hello, I'm (finally) getting back to saltwater after a long time. Looking forward to share and discuss reef with all of you. I've just started a thread in the Pico Reef Journals. you can follow the journey on Instagram @Squid_reef. Squid.
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Will Flo's 25g Rimless Cube + 50g Custom Rimless Builds
Will Flo posted a topic in Nano Reef Journals
So this is going to be one of those stories that starts with a dream followed by absolute disaster, We will see the loss of everything and the journey it takes to get back and push on to greater goals. I truly thank everyone that takes their time to read along and follow my journey with reefing, Through the bad the ugly and the eventual gorgeous place a box of water can bring! Our story starts about a year ago, I was at a friends house and he had in his living room a 60g Cube reef. Personally i had never seen a saltwater tank outside of marineland (I know I know the evil bastards lol XD, this was when i was very young and more than 25 years ago). my friend explained the tank to me and showed me the few coral he had. After a few weeks I was still fascinated with the tank so he got me to start testing the parameters and do maintenance on his tank, I took in as much info as i could at this time as I was quickly becoming obsessed with this hobby 😄 A childhood dream was rediscovered. Fast forward a couple months At this point I felt pretty confident in my basic knowledge of reefing and had saved up some money. I search around for a used reef tank with all the equipment included and found a 125g corner bowfront with a HOB overflow to a 60g sump, Bubble magus curve 7 skimmer, and a programable 4' t5 fixture. It even came with live rock, sand and some corals for 1000$. We put the coral in a holding tank while we moved my new tank to my apartment, gave it a quick clean and reset the tank in its new home. The tank went through an instant cycle basically (it took a week) because i used all the old live rock and sand with about 20g of the old water also left the filters etc dirty for the week to help get the process kickstarted. after that i added a few fish and the coral that was chilling in the holding tank. I enjoyed this process and my new tank sooo much everything was looking healthy and I was learning so much so fast at this point it was Sept. 1 2020. Then disaster. I lived in an apartment building and mid Sept. 2020 we had a new tenant move in. This person was a little off and within a few days everyone in the building had noticed her odd behaviour and were getting uneasy. Within 1 week that tenant had a schizophrenic break and the voices told her to set her boyfriend on fire, she poured gas over her boyfriend and the couch he slept on then continued pouring it out her door and down the hallway of the top floor of a 3 story building. She lit it and ran outside. It was 2:00am Sept. 20 2020 I lived in an apartment on the second floor luckily when I first heard the fire alarm i went to my balcony and heard screaming someone yelled the building is on fire. Now I'm sure most people have heard many fire alarms go off in their life and 99.9999% it isn't actually a fire just some burnt toast in the toaster or the frying pan is smoking hot cooking some bacon and eggs or any number of other silly non consequential reasons a fire alarm will start yelling at you, so we can all agree that when you first hear a alarm you are probably thinking its no big deal well this I quickly found out was that 0.00001%. My friends were directly above me in one of the apartments on the third floor they were trapped with young kids luckily they had a couple friends over that night. As soon as I heard the building was on fire I heard my buddy almost in tears yelling down to me that they couldn't get out of their door. A few seconds later he was hanging over the balcony by one hand down towards mine and his wife was started handing him the kids one by one he managed to take each kid with one hand and pass them to me after we got all three kids down safely to my apartment him and his other two friends climbed down and we got the kids out of the building to the street. One of my buddies friends helped my buddies wife get down and out of the building, at that point the smoke was coming into my place and starting to fill up the ceiling i had just enough time to grab my cat and run out of the doors. The firefighters arrived but because it was set by gasoline the flames didn't go out for hours everything in the entire building was lost luckily everyone got out and there was only one person with injuries. At this point understandably I was crushed... and while I am writing this it is still something that I have only barely been able to start processing and healing from. I had just lost everything in my life. It took about a month and a half to find a new apartment at which time I was couch surfing with a friend, when i moved into my new place I was gifted a 20g breeder and a 29g tank from a close friend that is really into fish and had a few tanks laying around that he could spare and free up some room at the same time 😄 . This was amazing it helped my depression and gave me hope that soon I would be able to have this dream of a saltwater reef. Its almost 2 weeks after I moved in and its Dec. 1 2020. I get some dry rock and some sand toss it into the 29g with some saltwater to start curing the rock. I'm really hesitant to run a nano tank at this point so i'm still trying to find something bigger to run at this point but all I can find that i can afford is the glass panels from a 75g so i buy that and make some grandiose plan of making a pentagon tank out of it that would have a plywood bottom epoxied and be around 150g. Two weeks later I find a 25g rimless cube tank with a clean looking stand and the dude thats selling it is awesome he only wanted 60$ for it. I buy the cube and its just such a nice looking tank even though it is only 25g. At this point I know I want a sump but I also know I want some fish soon to help get past that horrible disaster, so I bite the bullet and set it up with an internal filter a couple small powerheads and heater. I cycle my tank for a month no fish then start looking around to find some clowns that don't look like Nemo 😄 . A local guy is selling baby clowns and had some of the ones that i was looking for. I buy a midnight clown from him and get it settled in its new home. which brings us up to current basically now what? Well upgrades of course. Now I mentioned that i grabbed that glass from a 75g, now I've also managed to grab a couple beat up old tanks people were throwing out so I would have some glass for projects so its time to build. 25g Cube + 50g Custom Rimless Build The Plan So essentially the idea is to add a sump to the 25g cube now looking around if i want to buy a overflow box thats is decent i'm looking at around 200$ cad and pre fire that would have bothered me but at the moment I am still trying to replace years of furniture, studio equipment, and decor so money is super tight lol. So that being said im not spending that much on a overflow box that will make me have to use a internal box portion that takes up room inside my tank, which is already imo small. Lets build it 😄 , I have glass and a cutter I have silicone and a caulking gun, I can pick up the right drill bits for cutting holes and save a ton of money, also I can notch my tank allowing me to not have an internal box portion to my overflow. Next I will cut down the 75g glass panels i have to make a custom rimless tank that should sit around 50g, for this i will use the excess glass and build a bean animal overflow box for the 50g. Finally I am going to make baffles for my 20g breeder and use that for a sump, Both tanks will drain into the sump and will each have their own return pumps by doing this I can ease my mind and minimize the un-stability of a nano tank system making my overall system volume to 85g-90g -
Hi, The skimmer is noisy, hard to maintain (Fluval PS2) and eats coral's food. I found a better solution - (UAS) Upflow Algae Scrubber. Your water will be crystal clear and maintenance is very easy. You will need (upd. you don't need an airpump in AIO chamber area). Innovative Marine AUQA Gadget Chaetomax 2-in-1 9W Refugium LED 1$ basked from the dollar store (just find any basket that will fit) Plastic mesh screen (I rub it on asphalt to make it rough) Airpump (I think is not necessary, but I use one for "Micro and nano bubble tank treatment" and for this scrubber too). I use Fluval Q2 (stay away from noisy Q1). Airline tubing with many holes (I drill with 1/16 drill). Always use Check Valve and stay away from "Hagen Elite Check Valve". Airline Gate Valve for air control One Suction Cups (I use "Marina Black Thermometer Suction Cups") I attach the mesh screen on each side of the basket (using tie wraps, but you can use reef safe glue). Use a drill to make the hole in the airline tubing - if not, all the air will out from the biggest holes: Scrubber test: I put it in the middle chamber: Result: UAS in working (at night when light off): Future upgrades: I need to install this for better airline tubing: Good luck!
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🚧RDA's DIY Build Thread🚧 (DECOMMISSIONED)
The Rainy Day Aquarium posted a topic in Pico Reef Journals
There comes a time where we all get a little bored of this hobby. Everything is running smoothly. You have all the gadgets and automation you could ever want. Your corals and fish are happy AND you finally got rid of that pesky emerald crab that was chowing down on your $150 zoas. You can't fit any more corals in your display and your frag racks have become part of the glass of your aquarium... I have not reached this point in my reefing career. Ironically, during this season of joy and happiness I have been a little down. It's been a bit of a hard time for me. So, against the advice of my therapist, I am drowning my angst in miscellaneous projects and doodads. You know the saying "if your life is busy make it busier." Wait no...hmm...how about "if you need to finish something, start something else." No that's not it...What I'm trying to say is... WELCOME TO MY SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT PICO REEF: UNDER 2.5 GALLON 6 GALLON EDITION A SMALL AMOUNT EDITION This is going to be my adventurous journal into the depths of diy, tiny reef tanks, and bad jokes. I won't be focusing on any tank in particular, but rather sharing my spiritual journey of cutting glass and gluing acrylic and maybe. MAYBE. if we're lucky, some sprinkles of 3D printing. I have to say this may be the first and last post of this here journal, but with any luck we'll be cooking with gas here in no time at all. So grab a gift bag on your way in, help yourself to the snacks there to your left and pull up a chair! -RDA -
Hi all. Since I’ve just finished this project, I figured I’d share it on here. this tank started as an ordinary 10 gallon setup filtered by an aqua clear 70, but I always wanted an aio tank, but couldn’t find a reasonably priced tank where I live. After waiting a while, I pulled the trigger on the lifeguard aquatics 9.98 gallon aio tank. At first I was happy with it, but I quickly realized the design flaws with that tank. Firstly, the overflow weir cut outs are too small. That combined with the improper heights of the baffles meant my return section was running dry at an alarming rate. After giving up with that tank, I decided to try to create my own aio tank. Since I don’t have the means (or budget) to have the aio system to be created from acrylic, I decided to take a risk and use corrugated plastic. I found a black sheet of the material for only 5.99 CAD which was very convenient. The most time consuming part was precisely cutting the overflow, because I tried to make it look proper by printing a template, and gluing it to the plastic. Upon realizing that I Couldn’t properly make the rounded overflow like the real tanks, I just cut out a rectangle opening, and cut out small rectangular pieces to act as the barriers. I then siliconed them to the back of the opening. It’s fragile and crude, but it works. for the baffles, I modelled them after the Fiji cube aio box. The intake chamber will consist of the media, and the return chamber will have the heater and the pump. I went this way because I didn’t think I would have enough space for a middle chamber. Soon I will make some sort of media basket to properly contain the filter media in the first chamber. Please disregard my crude silicone job. At first I had taped off a perimeter to keep it neat, but after I removed the tape I decided to add more silicone to be safe. P.S The tank is still cycling, no livestock is in here yet. thanks for taking a look everyone.
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Hello Everyone, I'm a new Nano-Reef member, but a long time lurker and user of information on this forum. I have a question about a DIY acrylic sump that I built that is falling apart. It’s my very first time doing something like this and I built it because my cabinet is long and narrow, and nothing off the shelf would fit it, but also because I wanted to experience building one. Well, I did it but not very well. One corner seam leaks no matter what I do to it and now the back panel bottom seam has completely detached. I feel like it’s a goner at this point but I want to try to fix it since I can’t recycle it — I really don’t want to be wasteful. If I can’t fix it, then are there some ways to give the acrylic used on this project new life? Any help or guidance would be so appreciated. Thank you so much. Materials used: 1/4” Cast Cell Acrylic purchased on Amazon cut by my local acrylic shop. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YV61USA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_A688B15XA9PJSB6XZWVR?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R9FKGZL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_C6W04DSKNV1KG1N2W8RN?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H9NQP8G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_6RHR69NJXQY2GHD7X7Z7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 **Not sure if they finished the edges as I thought it was standard.** Weld-on 3 acrylic cement with a Needle tip applicator. Process: I loosely followed a video from Joey, “The King of DIY” on YouTube and I used the “pin method” with two T-pins as I saturated the pieces I wanted to join together. Then I waited one minute and pulled the pins. Admittedly, I cemented the front, back, and side panels (in that order) to the bottom panel first instead of cementing them to each other. I also didn't get better at pulling pins until after completing the third panel. I used Amazon boxes to keep the panels at a stable 90 angle and in place while I waited for everything to set. And that's about it for how I did it.
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Hey Guys, I'm new to the forum and a "legacy" hobbyist. I shut down my last saltwater aquarium more than 10 years ago in Brazil. But now that I'm leaving in US and with all the pandemic-stress I decided to go back to the Reef world with a nano. I started a Fluval Evo XII with standard configuration about a month ago. Its doing pretty well and I already have a little ocellaris as well as some soft corals. But as my other hobby is DIY and I'm a IT professional I decided to just blend everything together and bring some automation to the reef! 😀 So after some experimentation with Arduino and some research, I decided to move forward with a Raspberry PI based project as this controller/micro-computer offers everything I need like wifi, video outputs, and can run a webserver. Also, I dont want to reinvent the wheel, so I decided to leverage as much as possible from the Open source Reef-pi. Its a very well maintained project with lots of material available on-line. The main author, Ranjib Dey have also very good Tutorials like this one: https://learn.adafruit.com/reef-pi-installation-and-configuration I will be posting the advance of the build here to share and mainly to get your feedbacks and inputs. For now I have already configured the software and implemented a temperature sensor. So let me start by that. Material so far: Raspberry PI 4B 2GB RAM (you can use other versions, I just went with the latest one... you know, Im an IT Nerd 😁) - 35.00 USD from Adafruit https://www.adafruit.com/product/4292 Protoboard and Jumper wires - Less than 10.00 USD on Ebay Temperature Sensor Kit - 8.99 on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087JQ6MCP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 - Strongly recommend this one as it comes with the required resistor so you dont need to solder anything (I hate soldering). After the wiring (very simple to do using jumper cables) and doing the initial configuration on the software, I'm already monitoring the temperature: The prototype connected to the thank: And the actual monitoring of temperature: If you are interested, I will keep you posted! Also, please share your inputs and feedbacks!
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I'm only playing along so @Ratvan doesn't win. Tank : UNS 3n Lighting : TBD Heat : Archaea (25W) ultra slim Flow : Cobalt mini-jet 404 Entry FTS : 2/1/20
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Hey nanoreefers, There was a storm near me and I noticed that quite a bit of macroalgae and chunks of seagrass stems had been washed up and were baking on the sand. I decided to see if any of them could be kept at a reef temperature or maybe in a non heated tank as they're normally used to colder temps. I had a little experience growing mangroves and they've thrived so I figured I'd give this a shot. all the material here was storm wash and was dying so I figured it'd be a good chance to document species and see what was around. So far I've seen a lot of sargassum (considering taking this out as it goes bad quick) Ulva (not lactuca, somthing smaller), Dictyota, Rodophyta, some unidentified segmented branching corraline algae. Mostly brown and red algaes, in the summer there tends to be far more Ulva and other greens. I planted it in the same mix I used for some mangroves without as much peat, It's mostly sand and clay I then put crushed oyster shell sand on top to keep it in the pot.
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Most Recent FTS: Updated 11/19/2020: Tank: Drilled 40 Breeder with Modular Marine Overflow (Bean Animal Style) Sump: 20 Gallon Long with Custom Baffles https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/custom-20g-long-sump-design-feedback-wanted.601665/ Filtration: Carbon, Klir Filter Roller, Simplicity Skimmer Lighting: Aquatic Life T5 and Orbit Marine Pro -2X Blue+ -1X Coral+ -1X Actinic Flow: Sicce 2.0 return pump with RFG nozzles 2X Nero 5 1X standard non-controllable powerhead Dosing: Red Sea Ca, Alk, and Mg on Kamoer X1 Dosing Pumps Heater: 200W Cobalt Neotherm ______________________________________________________ I have been working on this project here and there for a while but I figured it was time to start an official thread. This tank will hopefully be filled in the next few weeks! This tank marks a lot of firsts for me so please chime in if you have suggestions. Does anyone still use Miracle Mud? I was thinking about adding it to my refugium section. I built a tray to hold some substrate in my fuge and am looking for suggestions on what to fill it with. I'm also gonna go bare bottom with this tank and hopefully grow some montis, zoas, and other encrusting corals all over the starboard at the bottom. I have a lot of montis at the top of the scape in my 20 gallon and I dont want to repeat that mistake. They are fast growers and shade out large sections of the tank. I am currently working on the plumbing which has given me a lot of appreciation for all the reefers with those immaculate color coordinated PVC works of art in their stands ( you know who you are). I am on at least the 4th home depot run at this point. Anyways I look forward to getting this tank wet and sharing the progress with everyone!
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Hi, New to the forum but not reefing in general, have been out for a few years but recently set up a small nano for my daughter in her room, and have been bitten by the bug again. I have been offered an old RSM130 for free but cant get it for a few weeks due to covid restrictions here in UK and now i'm working from home I'm going for a little desk pico while I wait! I've had a large empty vodka bottle sat on teh shelf gathering dust for some time with a mind to upcycle it at some point, and reading through the Jar picos threads on here its seemed like an ideal container to build something a little different. the plan is to drill out the bottom of the bottle, seal the top and stand it upside down. with a small power head for flow and LED lighting. The bottle will be mounted in a solid wood base, with a matching hood suspended on copper pipe, I have roughly started the build today with progress pics below. small amount of rock is currently in the nano seeding up and i'm still waiting on pump, LED driver and heat sync to be delivered.
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This DIY is intended for a pico or small nano mixed reef tank that's around 1-6 gallons. Could also be used as a refugium light or other small scale need. I'm trying to get this DIY our there because pico tanks are super fun and they're becoming much more popular too. They also have very simple lighting requirements despite what some people might say. You don't need to spend $100+ on a pico light! Many of the commercially available lights are simply overkill for a typical mixed reef pico. On the flip side the cheap Amazon/eBay lights can have sketchy quality, bad color rendering, or low PAR. The cheap lights can also be overkill because they're so cheap that we tend to overbuy. So rather than spending a ton on a light that's overkill or buying a light that you don't know if it will even work take a look at DIY. This light has exactly the features needed for a typical mixed reef pico or small nano. Also it's super easy. I'm tempted to buy these parts again and have my 7 year old try to build it - I actually think she could with some practice soldering. FYI I'm using this light on my Fluval Spec III and it works much better than the stock light! Still to do: Design a simple mounting solution. I'll update with that video when I've made one. Materials list - total cost: $25. $5 Meanwell LDD-700 HW https://www.ledsupply.com/led-drivers/mean-well-ldd-h-series-cc-step-down-mode $8 2x Royal Blue XT-E https://www.ledsupply.com/leds/cree-xlamp-xt-e-royal-blue-leds $4 1x Neutral white (4000-5000K) https://www.ledsupply.com/leds/cree-xlamp-xt-e-white-leds $3 12-24v LED PWM dimmer https://www.amazon.com/XtraLED-Dimming-Controller-Lights-Ribbon/dp/B00H8KTXNU (can get it prime for $6) $5 12v 2A DC power supply https://www.amazon.com/Choose-Nice-TM-Switching-Regulated/dp/B00LPCX2BQ/ref=sr_1_34?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1509556333&sr=1-34&keywords=12v+power+supply includes plug adapter You'll also need some wire, thermal paste, epoxy, and an old computer heatsink or something similar. Credits: I did not come up with this idea, just modified the information found on thePlantedTank.net.
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Well, it's a little late to start a build thread now seeing as the tank is mostly put together, if anything I suppose this will be more of a "polishing up" stocking and grow-out... thing... I do have some pictures I've taken of the process though and some little stories about how one thing or another got thrown together, but at this point I like the scape and stock enough I wanted to share it. Hope you enjoy! About 8 months ago I bumped into the opportunity to purchase a used Nuvo Atoll and AI prime light for $150 and I just couldn't say no. I'd been really wanting to get back into the hobby after moving off the big island of hawaii for ongoing health-reasons after a bout of myocarditis. It came in pretty scratched but I polished it up within an inch of the factory using the three-step Novus polish kit and some microfiber towels. Unfortunately I no longer really have any before and after pictures of the 6 or so hour process of getting everything nice a bright again, but I definitely learned I never want to deal with an acrylic tank again. I can't believe how easily these tanks scratch and how deeply at that... Next up was grabbing some rocks, I didn't want to deal with all the pests and unknowns which can hitchhike on live rock so I went with dry, instead figuring I would cycle the tank using ammonia, bottled Tim's, and some time. I couldn't really think of a fantastic scape Idea and had too many plans laid out, so I just ended up walking out of the LFS with a 30lb or so pile of Dry rock. I figured I could do some kind of really vertical scape to take advantage of the cylinder-shape of the tank, and I grabbed enough flat pieces that I felt like I could easily make a cove or island layout if I wanted to down-the-road. I replaced the stock pump with a Sicc nano 120 gph and bought a Sicc Voyager 240 for circulation alongside Brightwell N03 cubes, about "50 gallons worth" of Matrix and No3-out media, some chemi-pure blue nano satchels, phosguard, carbon, and egg-crate to hold it all in the AIO section. Underneath the overflow is filter-floss, carbon/phosguard, and then a chemipure satchel, to the right of it in the section which gets essentially no-flow is the NO3 seachem media, then in the large-middle section is half-a container of the brightwell NO3Out media and the Seachem Matrix. I also fashioned a little DIY lid out of Lowes scrap acrylic to keep evaporation down, though I really should have used some rods to keep it from warping, I still can't say I'm unhappy with the results. Bought a continuous power-supply UAC, which doubles as a backup for the nebulizer-compressor... And a Finnex 100W heater. Next-up the protoscaping while the tank cycled, I really wanted to try to maximize the amount of space I had for corals and livestock, while working with keeping a kind of full-tank-gyre action going. I was never really happy with the initial-concepts but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do, shy of keeping things bare-bottom, either. I managed to skip any huge algae or cyano breakouts and ended up with a 0-ammonia 10-nitrate tank within two moths, though I did get a few diatom blooms they always cleared up as fast as they came on. (That said I still get the occasional bloom after playing with my rockwork >_>) After two months wet, and about 1 month of feeding an empty tank, I decided to test the waters with a small clean-up crew, four nerite snails and a dwarf cerith. I never really took any pictures of them, but my wife and I both love watching the nerites zip all over the tank despite supposedly being "nocturnal", and have enjoyed trying to figure out where on earth the cerith is hiding during the day. Shortly thereafter we decided to grab a maxima from a local LFS, at the time it looked almost opal-white and was barely two or three inches across. I placed it towards the top of my rockwork and woke up the next morning to find that the little bugger had jumped into a hole and quite-firmly attached itself, prompting a "quick" re-working of the tank. Unfortunately working in the tank and scaping is much less pleasant than I had expected, certainly nowhere near as enjoyable as it used to be for me. Because of my various conditions I've lost most of my postural muscles over-time and have swinging electrolyte-imbalances which can cause shaking, spasms, and pain at just about any angle or weight. Needless to say working in the tank can at times be incredibly frustrating and physically-unpleasant, that said I still love aquascaping dearly and will probably end up with a planted bookshelf-tank or jar in the future. A shot of the clam and a Photo-bombing pair of nerites a few weeks-in. About a month later I decided it was time to start adding some corals when I chanced upon a bunch of indo euphyllia about to run out its' timer on Ebay, I picked up an unknown piece which I think is Baliensis, a bi-color frogspawn, and a yellow-ish hammer; plus a Florida-ricordea, chalice, and blasto-merletti colony for about $15 a piece after-shipping. Here's a grumpy shot of everyone after shipping, dipping, and dropping into the tank: And everyone a few days later: After an ongoing, impressively-successful, feeding regimen of sera-marin-granules (once a week) and 1/4 the recommended dose of RedSea AB I decided to order some plastic-coated neodimium magnets to replace the frag plugs, with the plan of epoxying and gluing their pairs into the rockwork, this way I can remove, swap, and frag the colonies without tearing apart my scape or worrying about much of anything. Unfortunately I think I went overkill on their strength as I can pretty much pick my rocks up by the corals XD Shot of the Maxima and Pink-green chalice after about a month settling-in and my dialing in the two-part dosing to keep alk and cal stable. The longer I had the scape up the more I realized the flow levels just weren't working out for the euphyllia or the chalice. The water coming off the voyager was getting deflected down directly onto the colonies and buffeting them, so I bought a timer to turn the powerhead off a few times a day as a temporary-solution until I felt ready to begin more re-scaping. After a week or so I decided breaking up the rock the Maxima was attached to was a great starting place as its' size and awkward shape left itself and the entire scape unsteady and prone to constantly coming apart while I tried to work with the coral. A few days ago my wife fell in love with this dark black-purple and rich-green anchor coral we found at a LFS, it reminds me of a truffula tree or some goofy fairytale-plant. Which leads me to the current iteration of the scape, overnight the new anchor coral decided to go cliff-diving and fell off its' plug entirely, to fish it out I pretty much had to tear apart the whole tank. With that said it did give me the opportunity and excuse I needed to completely-redesign my rockwork into something that would work better for my animals and for me. Four hours and a very sore back/core later and we have this beautiful little lagoon/cove which keeps the euphyllia sheltered from harsh flow and light, keeps the clam high-and center toward the Prime-puck, and the chalice in highish-flow and medium-ish light. The plan from here is to get a Lobo/Favia/Acan colony for the center and some bubblegum Digitata for the back-right of the wall (to be suspended by magnets) and decide on a small fish which won't harass the clam (No clown gobies, no damsels, I've heard clownfish can be mean...) maybe an assessor? I would love to try a yellow-stripe clingfish, but I know you're not supposed to keep pipefish with clams and am not sure if there's a similar rule. On top of that they're very difficult to keep and, while I would be willing to make it a little-feeding dish and shelter and go the extra-mile, even those who seem to do everything right tend to have their fish die within 3 years... Since there's no real information about their actual lifespan in the wild, I don't know how comfortable I am with the idea of potentially doing that to an animal when other species seem to adapt or even thrive in captivity by contrast. Anyway, that's pretty much the whole process of setting up this 13g nano, it has been a really long time since I've been able to play around with this hobby and honestly this tank has been jumping back into the deep-end for me. I'd love to hear any suggestions on livestock, but I want to keep it light and 10% every-other week or even monthly water-changes in the realm of possibility because of my condition (I test every three days to make sure nitrates are undetectable). Hope you enjoyed the read as much as I've loved browsing around the community and admiring all of your tanks and projects, hope you have a great day!
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Hey all, I was noticing that there seems to be very little forum post about BlueAcro, so I thought I would add my two cents and share my experience with their products. I decided to take the plunge and try their led's since I've been a little dissatisfied with Par38 lights, not that they didn't grow corals, but the corals never had good color since I had to sell my AI Prime (awesome light BTW) and I never really liked the spectrum (tried CoralCompulsion and a cheap Lumentek par38 from amazon). Plus not having control over intensity is a real draw back, especially the coral compulsion 24w 22k model over my 10g tank, I almost bleached my rockflower nem, had to remove the reflectors to fix that, plus I hated the disco ball effect. Now i'm not saying that Par38 lights are junk, they did the job and they grew corals, but they didn't satisfy my needs or wants. Now onto my review of BlueAcro The Good: This Led chip is the BEST I've used so far, my corals and I love the spectrum that this led provides. I can say this confidently because they are coloring up like the used to be under the AI Prime and are super lush ( if I can use that expression ). And the shimmer from this chip, by far the best shimmer I've every seen yet from a DIY led, almost like a kessil, not quite there but close. Color blending was exceptional (except when your using the their reflector, I'll get into that in the UGLY section), the blending was crisp and there was not a hint of disco ball affect, none that my eye's could see anyway. The chip itself is very small and compact, very impressed that those tiny diodes can throw out so much light, it also fit perfectly on the a Par38 heatsink that I retro fitted the Acrostar into. I also got their 2 channel driver, that thing was also tiny and worked very well with Manually adjusting the current to the channels, plus when I got the Coralux storm controller they just worked great with each other. The Bad: I hate to add this to my review but I felt it was worth mentioning, while the products were great the customer service is lacking. When I had made my order, which was fine, I had waited two weeks and had not received my order or got a shipping confirmation. I thought they had a lot of orders and were making more chips, but I didn't hear anything from them, so I emailed them what was the status of my order. I was emailed back three days later ( 3 days is just too long) and was informed that they some how missed the order and marked it shipped in their system. They apologized and refunded my shipping, which was $4 dollars. I got my order a few days later and when I had opened the box, they forgot to send the thermal paste I had bought (its $0.50, so I was not crying over this) and they forgot to send a wire disconnect tool that their video says is shipped with all their products, now these things are not the end of the world, I modified a paperclip so I could release the wires from their chips, but I was starting to become annoyed with the mistakes. The last thing is instructions for their products, there is almost nothing online and nothing was shipped with my order. Now the chips are not complicated and led was easy to figure out, but their driver took more guess work, particularly when hooking up the storm 5v PWM controller. There are 4 input connectors on the driver: Vin, Ground, Dim 1 and Dim 2. There was no information on were to hook up the pwm Ground wire, and being a poor man in a rich mans hobby, I didn't want to hook up the brand new controller wrong and fry it. I again emailed them and they took 2 days to get back to me, in which apparently the p/s ground and pwm ground are shared. I think this would have been important to give instructions for, because every driver I've seen online that take pwm signals have a separate ground from the power supply. Now I'm not trying to bash BlueAcro, maybe they have great customer service and I got the short end of the stick, but I didn't like the short end of the stick and I hope they read this review, make needed adjustments and be great company, because they make a great products. The Ugly: There only one thing I want to add here and it is the reflector that you can buy with the chip. I bought the 1/2 Acrostar and added the reflector/ diffuser to my order, the reflector seemed like a great idea to give the light more versatility on what corals I might want to have, but when I attached it to the chip it made half of my tank blue and the other half white. Now the reflector has these pegs sticking out of it and it can only fit flush with the led chip in only two positions, I tried both position and still my tank color all over the place. It seems that for whatever reason the reflector was ruining the color blending of the chip, even when I tried the diffuser and color blending was just bad. Maybe reflector was defective, but didn't feel like emailing them and waiting again. Conclusion: blueAcro makes great led chip and I would totally order another one when I have a need, even thinking about changing my 20g long tank to these led's. customer service is lacking but to me not a deal breaker, just hope that they can make some improvements and they will be a great option to the reefing community. I don't have any pictures yet of my light setup or the tank but I will post some soon. Peace out
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I've been out of the hobby for a bit and need to clear out some of the old LED parts I was hanging onto. Had hoped I could swing a new tank by now but the wife says it ain't happening LOL. Anyone need some LED parts? I've got drivers and two fully built fixtures. Message me for any questions. Thanks. DIY LED Fixture x2: These lit up a 90G really well and looked great doing it. $100 each OBO. (If anyone wants both fixtures, with drivers and power supply, I'd do $200 for it) 12" MakersLED Heatsink w/cooling fan 1x Bridgelux BXRA-40E0950-B-03 Neutral White LED 4x Luxeon M Royal Blue LEDs 4x Cree XPE2 Blue 4x Hyper Violet 430nm 2x Luxeon ES Cyan 2x Luxeon ES Lime + Optics (Unused) Controllers: Bluefish LED Controller - Wifi Enabled LED lighting Controller w/ 3 pre-stripped control cables (missing power supply though but it just takes a 12V power supply) This thing was easily the coolest item I had during my DIY led days. Works great with LDD drivers (which I happen to have a few of). https://aquarium-led-controller.com/...ed-controller/ Used 1 year - $100 OBO Power Supplies: Meanwell NES-350-48 Power Supply w/ 110vac plug - $25 OBO 350w 48V 7.3A Drivers: Meanwell LPC-35-700 (2 drivers, both unused) - $10 each or $15 for the pair OBO 700mA 35w Constant current driver Meanwell ELN-60-48P (3 drivers, used about 2 years) - $10 each PWM Dimmable, 60W, 1.3A output Meanwell LDD-1000H (5 drivers, used a year) on Coralux LDD-6 board- $25 for all drivers on the board PWM Dimmable, 1000mA Meanwell LDD-700H (2 drivers, used a year) on Coralux LDD-2 board - $10 for both on board PWM dimmable, 700mA Spare Meanwell LDD-700H (unmounted) $5
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Hey guys i have a 15g biocube and was thinking of implementing a algea scrubber was wondering if this would work? If placed the algae scrubber across the top of the overflow (All in on unit btw) and use a return pump to pump the water in and out the other side of the overflow box. I would use some led's and shine them directly onto the scrubber. Would this work?
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