Eventual setup for a pico

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

I have thought about this for a long time. I have done in the past one hundred percent water changes weekly for years. Recently with my schedule and how I have been feeling it has become more difficult and I got inconsistent. I have had to change how I take care of the tank.

But what If I automate everything where it's just dump and refill. I am unable to build or do at this point due to costs and space at the moment.

I would like to setup a half gallon pico. I had an experiment going that ended up going south with water getting mixed up. Use an auto top off to export water and a 2 way small ato to refill using 2 5 gallon jugs. This would roughly need swapped and dumped every 10 days. 8 or 9 to be safe.depending on doser and if each one can be timed different, I could add a small bottle of phyto. Or add auto feeder as there needs to be some nutrients in water.

I my goal would be to see how well this could work, any failure points and possibly do this on my current tank but with smaller changes.

I do have some equipment such as container, prime hd(I believe still works lol), and air pump. The biggest expense would be an auto that is tiny and a doser and small pump. Live stock would be another expense. Maybe next year at some point I can get things organized and save up enough side cash to do this. I am still in process of stocking current taking and have other expenses to deal with.

Any ideas and things I maybe overlooking are welcome. What type of coral would you like to see used? Should it be like sps and certain corals during low tide? Maybe do multiple smaller in a day to represent tidal changes in shallow areas. Is there a way to automate even glass cleaning?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

I have been thinking things over more. I think an auto doser may work for both import and export and use a small ATO sensor as a safety measure for overflow to shut off doser.

The other issue is what about if doser does not refill due to failure? I could also setup where no doser is needed for top off. Instead have just an overflow that as it is filled, it exits through the hole and out. While this could eliminate less equipment, the overflow could get clogged.

I could use a setup with 4 dosing pumps. Fail safe for both import and export with ATO sensor still. I can add or buy bigger doser for more automation as well for feeding.

Another thought I had would be to setup phyto and pod containers. Run another dosing setup to add to the tank at certain times. So how it would go is pod container would dump some photo and pods into main tank. When the pods container has some of the water/pods and phyto that's left transfered, the photo will top off the pods. The old tank water will then fill up the photo container. I can also have an auto feeder for benepets as well for main tank. Setting this up while sounds easy in my head will also be difficult I believe to do.

The idea is for self sustaining. In my head, this in theory should work and only require glass cleaning and getting new salt. If I could setup properly I could even have this done to where I just add salt and press button or switch and the rodi would fill the bucket with pre measured salt.

There is a lot of ifs and buts lol. Lots of things I know I am missing as well including the cash needed lol. But if anyone that has the ability and time I would love to see someone try this. Or I will attempt to do so towards maybe middle to end next year. I still will be wanting to collect opinions and facts as well as failure points with setup or equipment. I also wouldn't want this to look like a Frankenstein either lol. So I would use cabinets and run items through things to keep it looking nice.

Current things for me to research is light and nutrient level needed for phyto to continually produce and can I keep the right nutrient levels from export with auto feeder.
Phyto levels and sustainment for pods.
Should I just use an auto feeder and forgo the live foods for simplicity?