DIY 10 gallon AIO moving to a 20 long DIY AIO!!!

[Eagle_Steve]

Well my little 1 gallon reef at work was not enough. I decided since the 1g lived and all was doing well, why not build a 10g AIO out of an old tank I had at the house. Especially since I have already built a few AIOs out of 20 long tanks for my kids. I also wanted some fish this time, as the 1g only had a pom pom crab in it with the corals.

Long story short. Found a ton of old stuff I had, managed to find enough acrylic from a DIY sump I did a while back, a few hours of time, and then a week for the silicone to cure.

Specs:
1. Basic 10 gallon tank

2. Eheim Jager 50w heater

3. Sicce Silent 0.5 Pump (at about 1/2 flow)

4. SunSun Small Powerhead (do not think its needed with the Sicce pump up all the way, it may go)

5. DIY ATO based on 2 float switches, 12v DC pump and a 3-12v power supply tied to the switches and pump. Very simple setup with redundancy.

6. Media Trays. The trays are simple egg crate pieces that sit on some acrylic scrap glued to the inside of the overflow channel.

7. Mini Fuge in bottom section of the media baskets. This consists of 4 red leds and 2 blue leds encased in a small acrylic box that is sealed. The leds run to a power supply and pull a massive 6 watts. This design works well on my other AIOs, but I expect the cheato to not grow as fast as this tank will have alight bio load. We shall see on that.

8.Small fluval skimmer if needed. It will fit in the middle chamber with the heater, just barely, but it fits.

9. Kessil A80 on a timer. Set at 50% color and 85% intensity. Gonna have to par meter it, lol, just to see.

Corals:
2 small Kenya trees
1 small GSP rock
1 Hollywood Stunner frag
1 small rock covered in blue/purple mushrooms (discosoma sp.)
2 polyps of Utter Chaos Zoas
numerous Eagle Eye Zoa Frags
Numerous polyps of Pink Panther Palys on a piece of rock rubble
3 polyps of Miami Hurricane Zoas

Fish:
1 Fire Goby
1 Citron Clown Goby

Inverts:
1x Gold Coral Banded Shrimp
2x Small Margarita Snails
2x Nerite Snails
Tons of sponges
Numerous Pods, since rock and cheato was from an established tank
Few bristle worms and a peanut worm, as well.

Now enough of the words. Here is the setup and some pics of it. The corals have started to open after the move (this morning) which is nice to see.

Sorry for the crappy pic on this one, the little guy is perched out under some zoas lol.

 

[JBKReef]

Gorgeous little tank. I would agree with the current corals and scape I would think the Sicce would provide enough flow.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Gorgeous little tank. I would agree with the current corals and scape I would think the Sicce would provide enough flow.

Watching the tank, the GSP sways back and forth, and I just watched a small pellet of food roll along the sand, in between the rocks, around again, and then into a fishes mouth just as it was about to go into the overflow. So with the food doing that, it seems the sand should stay clean in the aspect of normal left overs. I got lucky with the rock design and where the return is though. The water flows randomly due to going down the tank, around the end, passing under the arch shooting upwards on the back glass, and hitting the new flow. There is actually a small wave action going on with some randomness to it due to how it has to move around.

As for coral, I may end up doing a birdsnest frag from my colony at home and one of my branching hammers has some babies that may get cut off and moved over. After that, this light just doesn't have enough power to support high light critters. Let the hammer and birdsnest grow out some and then move to a tank at the house, or make a bigger tank for work, or just let the hammer take up most the tank lol.

Either way, it is nice to be able to look over at more than 1 gallon of water.

On a side note. The Sicce .05 is silent. I mean super silent. I am 14" from the tank and I hear nothing. I am impressed with that.

 

[JBKReef]

I was shocked by how quiet my sicce and MJ motors are for my AIO tanks. I have a 14 gallon I use to quarantine corrals and a 25 AIO I use for an office tank and they are dead quiet. I'm used to my main display which is a noisy beast (Durso over flow) so it just amazed me how quiet these tanks can be.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well I had a bta split at a tank in the house, so the clone is in this tank now. It has already settled in and found a spot.

So now this is a mixed reef lol.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well the tank had its first weekend by itself at work. The auto feeder did its thing and the DIY ATO worked as it should have. I went ahead and tested everything and it is looking good so far, except calcium was a little low. But if that's all there is to worry about, I will take having to add a few drops of calcium every so often. I also added an old Hydor Nano Powerhead I had laying around for some more flow.

SG - 1.026
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 2.5
Phosphates - .03
Alk - 8.6
PH - 8.2
Calcium - 380

But being as everyone wants pics, here is this morning as everything is waking up and the lights are ramping up. (Well I kicked the whites up for the pic)

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well everything has finally decided to open up all the way and not be shy, so figured would update this with some pics. Of course being on a horribly boring conference call does aid in finding something to do to kill the time lol.

I have also ditched the cheato in the media rack for now, as I wanted to see how some red macro algae would look in view. I like it, so plan to make it more permanent and rearrange the shroom rock so the gracilaria sits behind it and goes up that corner. This will provide some food for the blenny and snails as well as help with nutrient export since I am skimmer less.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well the time has come for a bigger tank due to a bigger office. I am a big fan of DIY, so why not do a 20 long DIY AIO? $1 per gallon sale, sheet of acrylic, some krylon fusion, and a little time is all that is needed right? Well I found the time and it has begun.

Tank is painted, acrylic is cut and glued, now it is time to paint the acrylic. Should have bought black lol.

Here is what will be reused from the 10.
Sand
Corals
Single fish lol
Heater
DIY ATO
Pump
DIY media basket

Here is what is new. (Well crap I had lying around in the mess of old stuff)
Aquatic life 115 skimmer. Modded to not be micro bubble monster.
165w Black Box led modded for better spectrum.
Some SPS once it stabilizes.

And the pics of what is done so far. 45 or so minutes of time invested so far and 39 dollars lol.

Ignore the acrylic shavings in the tank. Table saw is my friend with cutting acrylic. Also ignore the mess/old carpet in my barn garage room thingy. I do have to say the carpet is nice walk on versus the concrete slab.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

And now the silicone has to cure. 2.5g tank with some sand works well to hold the insert in place. I have some left over acrylic and enough stuff to make the 2.5 into a AIO pico.........Hummmmm.....

 

[jaxredsoxfan]

Nice acrylic work, wish I had enough confidence to do that. Ive done glass but acrylic scares me.. lol

 

[Peace River]

Very nice work! I have a couple of questions:

• What did you use to glue the acrylic pieces to each other and to the glass tank?
• How thick was the acrylic and would thicker be better?
• What type of blade did you use on the table saw to cut the acrylic?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Nice acrylic work, wish I had enough confidence to do that. Ive done glass but acrylic scares me.. lol

Thanks. I have messed up a lot of pieces over the years trying to use the knife thingy and a jig saw. I found a table saw and a finish blade for plywood works really well to cut it. As for glueing it, weld-on 4 is your friend lol.

 

[Peace River]

Thanks. I have messed up a lot of pieces over the years trying to use the knife thingy and a jig saw. I found a table saw and a finish blade for plywood works really well to cut it. As for glueing it, weld-on 4 is your friend lol.

Weld-on for the acrylic to glass as well? Also, a regular plywood blade and not a fine tooth finish plywood blade?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Very nice work! I have a couple of questions:

• What did you use to glue the acrylic pieces to each other and to the glass tank?
• How thick was the acrylic and would thicker be better?
• What type of blade did you use on the table saw to cut the acrylic?

Lol. I was replying with that as you typed the question.

But here it is again with less inbetween

Weld-on 4 for glueing acrylic to acrylic.
Loctite Aquarium Safe silicone for acrylic to glass (actually hold very well). I will take a pic of me holding the 10g AIO by the acrylic in it with some weight added to the tank.

.22” thick acrylic. I prefer that over thin any day as I am horrible and always break anything less than .118” thick stuff.

For the blade, Diablo finish blade for plywood.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well the way I had to hold it to put weight on the 10g insert, I couldn’t put weight in it. But the silicone from the acrylic to the glass, support the entire weight of the tank.

For small stuff like this it is fine. In a 40b sump as baffles, I don’t do that. I know people who have and it seems fine. The way I step chambers, that is a lot of pressure on the panel that separates the fuge and skimmer section.

 

[Peace River]

Thank you for all of the responses! I have done a lot of DIY work with electronics, glass, wood, metal, etc. but very little with acrylic and am hoping to change that soon!

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Thank you for all of the responses! I have done a lot of DIY work with electronics, glass, wood, metal, etc. but very little with acrylic and am hoping to change that soon!

Not a problem. Best of luck when ya start playing with acrylic. It really isn’t that bad once you get used to it.

 

[IanK]

Nice work with the acrylic. What did you use to bond the dividers to the main piece? Mine never turned out that well

 

[IanK]

By the time I typed that all out there was like 5 more responses plus the answer!

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Nice work with the acrylic. What did you use to bond the dividers to the main piece? Mine never turned out that well

Weld-on 4 for all acrylic to acrylic bonding. A trick is to leave the plastic wrap on one side and use a square and straight edge to draw the lines where you want the dividers. Makes getting it lined up super easy.