My college daughter has decided to move out of the dorms and back in with dear old mom and pop. She wanted a shroom and Duncan filled pico for her room. That started me fumbling around all of my old equipment and realized I had almost everything to build something, just not shrooms and lps (more on this when I get to the lighting.) I have never done anything smaller than my innovative marine 14 peninsula. I am quickly figuring out that this little tank will require real thought from me. There is nothing “off the shelf” that really fits this little cube. But I’m going to try and do it cheap. My target expenditure before stock is < $250
Equipment:
8” cube 2.2 gallons made at the local glass shop out of starfire glass by a buddy. Free
Architects lamp holding an old Rapid LED daylight reef par 38. I think I’m about $110 total. But this is old stuff that I haven’t used in some time. So I am calling it free because this all came out of a junk box. This bulb is why I am not able to put lps and softies in. At the bottom, I have 220 par, 330 at the top of my single chunk of fake rock and just over 550 an inch under water.
I have a 25 watt Hydor Theo on the way. I will run it through a old ink bird ITC-308 that also came from the junk box. Heater $21, Inkbird free.
Due to limited real estate on the glass, filtration is going to be handled by a Finnex PF-7 Nano HOB filter. It says 52 gph max flow. $15 new from Amazon.
Flow will be handled by the HOB filter and a old Tunze 5024.040 another 70gph of very laminar flow. This is going to be corrected with a diy 1/2” black pvc spray bar. Tunze pump and 4”section of pvc came from the box, free. I did still need a black pvc cap for the bar, 2.95 after shipping.
For seed bacteria and substrate I went to Fernandina beach this evening and collected about 1 quart of sand and broken shell. I am only using about 1/2” of substrate. Free
ATO gravity feed that screws on to a water bottle (for now) may move to an ozmolator if I ever move this tank to more public parts of the house. $15
Total price on equipment 53$
I don’t want to feed this tank much. But I do need a clean up crew of some sort. Hermit crab and a fighting conch will do well. Both stolen out of my 14 gal peninsula. I will feed with nori and occasionally supplement with a couple PE pellets for the hermit.
Weekly 100% water changes are planned using the discarded water from my 14 g.
the parameters of that water are
1.026 sg
10.0 dkh
440-450 ppm cal
8.1 ph obviously this moves around.
1350 ppm mag
10 ppm nitrate
Ammonia undetectable
Phos <.02
This pico gets no fish, maybe a shrimp later on. For coral, only 2. At the base of my singular rock, I am putting a mind trick (my favorite coral) frag. Top center of the rock I will put in an acro to be selected later.
8” cube 2.2 gallons made at the local glass shop out of starfire glass by a buddy. Free
Architects lamp holding an old Rapid LED daylight reef par 38. I think I’m about $110 total. But this is old stuff that I haven’t used in some time. So I am calling it free because this all came out of a junk box. This bulb is why I am not able to put lps and softies in. At the bottom, I have 220 par, 330 at the top of my single chunk of fake rock and just over 550 an inch under water.
I have a 25 watt Hydor Theo on the way. I will run it through a old ink bird ITC-308 that also came from the junk box. Heater $21, Inkbird free.
Due to limited real estate on the glass, filtration is going to be handled by a Finnex PF-7 Nano HOB filter. It says 52 gph max flow. $15 new from Amazon.
Flow will be handled by the HOB filter and a old Tunze 5024.040 another 70gph of very laminar flow. This is going to be corrected with a diy 1/2” black pvc spray bar. Tunze pump and 4”section of pvc came from the box, free. I did still need a black pvc cap for the bar, 2.95 after shipping.
For seed bacteria and substrate I went to Fernandina beach this evening and collected about 1 quart of sand and broken shell. I am only using about 1/2” of substrate. Free
ATO gravity feed that screws on to a water bottle (for now) may move to an ozmolator if I ever move this tank to more public parts of the house. $15
Total price on equipment 53$
I don’t want to feed this tank much. But I do need a clean up crew of some sort. Hermit crab and a fighting conch will do well. Both stolen out of my 14 gal peninsula. I will feed with nori and occasionally supplement with a couple PE pellets for the hermit.
Weekly 100% water changes are planned using the discarded water from my 14 g.
the parameters of that water are
1.026 sg
10.0 dkh
440-450 ppm cal
8.1 ph obviously this moves around.
1350 ppm mag
10 ppm nitrate
Ammonia undetectable
Phos <.02
This pico gets no fish, maybe a shrimp later on. For coral, only 2. At the base of my singular rock, I am putting a mind trick (my favorite coral) frag. Top center of the rock I will put in an acro to be selected later.