Marcin’s Pico RFA tank

[marcinpolak]

Hey all,

After owning a Biocube for over a year, I was wanting to own another tank! Immediately I was thinking of doing a 125 gallon tank but then after doing some research and finding things around my house I decided to do a 5 gallon Rock Flower Anenome tank.

I do have a 5 gallon AIO that I bought years ago, although it’s filthy. I also have dry rock and sand so realistically I would need to buy a light.

But thinking of it I wanted to upgrade the return pump, just one problem… seems like I can’t find a small enough one. So suggestions would be great!

As I type this I have the tank in a vinegar water mix to clean it up a little bit….

 

[Peace River]

I have used the small Sicce pumps as replacement pumps for nano/pico tanks. You way want to see if they will work. Good luck on your adventure!

 

[marcinpolak]

I have used the small Sicce pumps as replacement pumps for nano/pico tanks. You way want to see if they will work. Good luck on your adventure!

Thanks I’ll look into it!

 

[marcinpolak]

After cleaning I did some aquascaping and put water into the tank! For right now I’ll be using the stock pump and for filtration I’ll be using filter floss and Chemi-pure elite.

 

[marcinpolak]

About a week into my cycle, I’m doing a pure ammonia based cycle. But for now I wanted to include a stocking list of what I will be getting.

Fish
- Green Clown Goby

Inverts
- 2-4 Porcelain Anemone Crabs
- 2 Trochus Snails
- 3 Nassarius Snails

I will not be having any corals as of now but just a lot of Rock Flower Anemones!

 

[Yamaha1634]

Really like that rock structure, especially "end on". Will be trying to recreate something similar with mine!

 

[marcinpolak]

Really like that rock structure, especially "end on". Will be trying to recreate something similar with mine!

Thanks let me know when your build thread is up!

 

[Yamaha1634]

Thanks let me know when your build thread is up!

Just started it today! Only a dry tank for now, will try and get some rock sand and water in this weekend!

Nano Build - Sea Evo - first attempt at marine

So on my first dabble into marine fish after keeping freshwater for years. I've had a thread in the "New to Saltwater and Reef" section and received some great advice! So below are my plans for the build updated as I go. As of 22nd March 22..... Hardware Tank: Fluval Sea Evo Filter...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Reefing102]

Following. Looking at doing something similar with my pico

 

[marcinpolak]

Following. Looking at doing something similar with my pico

Thanks, looking forward to seeing your pico maybe share some ideas

 

[Reefing102]

Thanks, looking forward to seeing your pico maybe share some ideas

Thanks! I don’t have a build on my pico. Right now it just has a damsel in it but it’s been running for almost a decade (granted a semi-neglected decade) but yea. I run a NiCrew LED on it which I definitely need to be careful with as it’s not easily adjustable for intensity ( 25, 50, 75 or 100%) are the only options

 

[marcinpolak]

Wow that’s a long time and one can only hope I can run this one for a decade but that is a dream. You should drop a picture of it at least. Lighting wise I definitely want something easy to control and was thinking Al Prime

 

[Starganderfish]

Very cool. I just transferred a 2.5 gal PICO into a 4 Gal Waterbox cube. Also a Green Clown Goby, but a scattering of corals instead of anemone. I've never come across rock flower anemone, they are gorgeous, NO sign of them anywhere in Australia that I can find sadly. I really like the peninsula style tank, that will be a lot of fun.
I'd agree with @Peace River above, look into Sicce pumps. I'm running a Sicce Syncra Nano in my 4 Gal, and it's a sweet little pump, good flow and super quiet, and it's pretty tiny. The other great thing is that Sicce provide the actual measurements and diagrams of their pumps on their site and they're pretty accurate so you can measure out what will fit. Once you get really small you get into those little 5v/12v Aliexpress pumps and they struggle to move much water. If you can't get a decent pump in the back chamber, then you can always keep the stock thing and look into adding something additional? I'm also running an AI Nero 3 wavemaker in mine for extra flow, dialled all the way down to 1% it's doing all right. Probably overkill but it nice to have the extra flow available.
I use an AI Prime for light and its awesome. Being app controllable and linked to the Nero wavemaker in the same app, its easy to control. Mines dialled way down as I'm acclimating the coral but even with demanding corals I doubt it would ever run at even 50%.
I threw in a bunch of snails (Trochus, Turbo's, Nassarius and a single small hermit crab) and so far they're doing a great job of keeping things clean. I've also dumped some chaeto in the back and am working on a little fuge light. I have a small airstone skimmer I can squeeze into the tank but I'd prefer not to skim unless I need to - maintaining water levels and salinity is important on a small tank.
With that in mind, I will say that for a tank this small, definitely look into an Auto-Top-Off because evaporation happens fast. For me, I've actually gone for a full-blown Auto Water Change unit that swaps out a litre of water a day. It amounts to almost a 40% water change a week and is completely automated. With a 30 litre reservoir, I only have to mix up new salt once a month. Apart from feeding and swapping out the filter pad I'm hoping to keep mine really low maintenance. I've gone a little overboard with the equipment but it's nice to have the extra overhead if I ever need it.
Can;t wait to see some pics with the anemone's in your tank, they are seriously cool looking creatures!!

 

[marcinpolak]

Very cool. I just transferred a 2.5 gal PICO into a 4 Gal Waterbox cube. Also a Green Clown Goby, but a scattering of corals instead of anemone. I've never come across rock flower anemone, they are gorgeous, NO sign of them anywhere in Australia that I can find sadly. I really like the peninsula style tank, that will be a lot of fun.
I'd agree with @Peace River above, look into Sicce pumps. I'm running a Sicce Syncra Nano in my 4 Gal, and it's a sweet little pump, good flow and super quiet, and it's pretty tiny. The other great thing is that Sicce provide the actual measurements and diagrams of their pumps on their site and they're pretty accurate so you can measure out what will fit. Once you get really small you get into those little 5v/12v Aliexpress pumps and they struggle to move much water. If you can't get a decent pump in the back chamber, then you can always keep the stock thing and look into adding something additional? I'm also running an AI Nero 3 wavemaker in mine for extra flow, dialled all the way down to 1% it's doing all right. Probably overkill but it nice to have the extra flow available.
I use an AI Prime for light and its awesome. Being app controllable and linked to the Nero wavemaker in the same app, its easy to control. Mines dialled way down as I'm acclimating the coral but even with demanding corals I doubt it would ever run at even 50%.
I threw in a bunch of snails (Trochus, Turbo's, Nassarius and a single small hermit crab) and so far they're doing a great job of keeping things clean. I've also dumped some chaeto in the back and am working on a little fuge light. I have a small airstone skimmer I can squeeze into the tank but I'd prefer not to skim unless I need to - maintaining water levels and salinity is important on a small tank.
With that in mind, I will say that for a tank this small, definitely look into an Auto-Top-Off because evaporation happens fast. For me, I've actually gone for a full-blown Auto Water Change unit that swaps out a litre of water a day. It amounts to almost a 40% water change a week and is completely automated. With a 30 litre reservoir, I only have to mix up new salt once a month. Apart from feeding and swapping out the filter pad I'm hoping to keep mine really low maintenance. I've gone a little overboard with the equipment but it's nice to have the extra overhead if I ever need it.
Can;t wait to see some pics with the anemone's in your tank, they are seriously cool looking creatures!!

Holy! This is an awesome write up! Gave me some awesome ideas thank you. Also did not know Waterbox made a 4 gallon that thing is sweet! Right now I’m trying to get my hands on some Nero 3s but I am struggling to find any… Also do let me know your auto water change system because that sounds amazing!

Unfortunately it will be a bit before I add anything in there other than the Clown goby because I’m taking it super slow!

 

[Starganderfish]

Cheer mate. Waterbox used to make 4, 7, 10 and 20 gal cubes but they dropped the 4’s and 7’s a few years ago. It’s a shame because they’re awesome little pico tanks. I’m guessing the demand wasn’t high enough for em. The place I found had a single one in stock so I decided to just grab it while I could.
I really like the Nero but it’s definitely overkill for a pico. I run mine permanently on 1% and even then I’ve put rock in front to slow it down. It’s annoying because the built in “Feed Mode” can’t go lower than 1% so the modes completely useless to me. I’ve message AI asking them to update the firmware so Feed Mode is configurable and I can drop it to zero. They said they passed it on to their developers so I’m assuming nothing will ever come of that lol.
I use the AutoAqua AWC Duo. It’s a stupidly expensive piece of kit - costs more than the AI light, the Nero wave maker or even the tank itself. I’m pretty sure it’s the most expensive piece of equip in my setup! I like it cause it’s fully automated and everything’s integrated. It has two sensors you place in the tank and three small pumps. One pump goes in the freshwater reservoir and handles top off - when the water level drops below the top sensor it triggers and adds fresh to bring the level back to that sensor. For AWC, one pump goes in your sump or tank and drains water down to the lower sensor and the third pump goes in your saltwater reservoir and fills the tank back up to the top sensor. It’s quite a clever little system and because ATO is integrated it automatically deactivates ATO when performing a water change. The pumps it comes with are the same little 12v units that you probably got with your tank and they just plug into the control unit with standard plugs. I’ve actually bought small 12v diaphragm pumps of Aliexpress, wired them up to the right sized plugs and swapped out the stock pumps for them. They pump slower than regular impeller pumps so are more suited for tiny tanks and they are less susceptible to siphons or running dry. Best of all the pumps live outside the water so you don’t have to have an additional pump in your tank or worry about finding a reservoir you can squeeze the pump into. And they’re only like $3 from Aliexpress so I bought a bunch and if they die it’s an easy swap. I’m working on a small enclosure for them to sit on the counter but for now they’re just sitting next to the tank.

There aren’t too many other options for an integrated auto water change setup unless you go for something like an Apex or GHL. I genuinely considered an Apex but every single component is really expensive, a lot of the stuff seems to be really loud, and with so much equipment these days having built in wifi control I couldn’t really justify adding one.
The AutoAqua is really expensive (too expensive downside if I’m being honest) but water changes are the thing I hate most about having a reef tank so if I can minimise the need for me to do them, I’m willing to pay.
The other clever thing you can do is pick up “smart plugs” for the equipment. I have an Amazon Echo in the room and use it to control some of my other hobby equipment so I realised that if I plug the pumps and the Fuge lights and such into a smart plug I can not only use voice commands to trigger them on and off, I can set schedules in the Alexa app to have the devices switch on and off as needed. No more fiddling with mechanical or digital timers, it’s all run through the app and works off the same clock so the sync properly. The one down side is that if the internet goes down, you’ll lose the scheduling ability but the equipment will still run. I use the em for my return pumps so I can schedule them to switch off during the auto water change and it’s a simple button push to switch them off at feeding time. Also have them on my Fuge lighting so they power on and off at night on a schedule.
I’m a big fan of automation and new tech to make things easier for me. My last tank was a big 4 footer almost a decade ago and it lacked any real automation or programmable controls and everything was done manually so maintenance was time consuming. These days you can automate a lot of that and just keep the parts you enjoy.
sorry for rambling, I’m kind of in the middle of setting all this up and testing and configuring so my minds going a mile a minute.

 

[marcinpolak]

Cheer mate. Waterbox used to make 4, 7, 10 and 20 gal cubes but they dropped the 4’s and 7’s a few years ago. It’s a shame because they’re awesome little pico tanks. I’m guessing the demand wasn’t high enough for em. The place I found had a single one in stock so I decided to just grab it while I could.
I really like the Nero but it’s definitely overkill for a pico. I run mine permanently on 1% and even then I’ve put rock in front to slow it down. It’s annoying because the built in “Feed Mode” can’t go lower than 1% so the modes completely useless to me. I’ve message AI asking them to update the firmware so Feed Mode is configurable and I can drop it to zero. They said they passed it on to their developers so I’m assuming nothing will ever come of that lol.
I use the AutoAqua AWC Duo. It’s a stupidly expensive piece of kit - costs more than the AI light, the Nero wave maker or even the tank itself. I’m pretty sure it’s the most expensive piece of equip in my setup! I like it cause it’s fully automated and everything’s integrated. It has two sensors you place in the tank and three small pumps. One pump goes in the freshwater reservoir and handles top off - when the water level drops below the top sensor it triggers and adds fresh to bring the level back to that sensor. For AWC, one pump goes in your sump or tank and drains water down to the lower sensor and the third pump goes in your saltwater reservoir and fills the tank back up to the top sensor. It’s quite a clever little system and because ATO is integrated it automatically deactivates ATO when performing a water change. The pumps it comes with are the same little 12v units that you probably got with your tank and they just plug into the control unit with standard plugs. I’ve actually bought small 12v diaphragm pumps of Aliexpress, wired them up to the right sized plugs and swapped out the stock pumps for them. They pump slower than regular impeller pumps so are more suited for tiny tanks and they are less susceptible to siphons or running dry. Best of all the pumps live outside the water so you don’t have to have an additional pump in your tank or worry about finding a reservoir you can squeeze the pump into. And they’re only like $3 from Aliexpress so I bought a bunch and if they die it’s an easy swap. I’m working on a small enclosure for them to sit on the counter but for now they’re just sitting next to the tank.

There aren’t too many other options for an integrated auto water change setup unless you go for something like an Apex or GHL. I genuinely considered an Apex but every single component is really expensive, a lot of the stuff seems to be really loud, and with so much equipment these days having built in wifi control I couldn’t really justify adding one.
The AutoAqua is really expensive (too expensive downside if I’m being honest) but water changes are the thing I hate most about having a reef tank so if I can minimise the need for me to do them, I’m willing to pay.
The other clever thing you can do is pick up “smart plugs” for the equipment. I have an Amazon Echo in the room and use it to control some of my other hobby equipment so I realised that if I plug the pumps and the Fuge lights and such into a smart plug I can not only use voice commands to trigger them on and off, I can set schedules in the Alexa app to have the devices switch on and off as needed. No more fiddling with mechanical or digital timers, it’s all run through the app and works off the same clock so the sync properly. The one down side is that if the internet goes down, you’ll lose the scheduling ability but the equipment will still run. I use the em for my return pumps so I can schedule them to switch off during the auto water change and it’s a simple button push to switch them off at feeding time. Also have them on my Fuge lighting so they power on and off at night on a schedule.
I’m a big fan of automation and new tech to make things easier for me. My last tank was a big 4 footer almost a decade ago and it lacked any real automation or programmable controls and everything was done manually so maintenance was time consuming. These days you can automate a lot of that and just keep the parts you enjoy.
sorry for rambling, I’m kind of in the middle of setting all this up and testing and configuring so my minds going a mile a minute.

Wow thank you so much for all this information! I’ve been wanting the Nero 3 so bad but they are all out of sale which sucks…
I actually just ordered a new return pump and if it’s powerful enough that will be my only pump in the tank.

That’s actually a really cool auto water changer system and definitely something I will be looking into now thanks. I definitely will be stealing the your 12v diaphragm pump idea because I won’t be able to fit another pump in my sump lol. Now I just need to find space for the containers which will hold the salt water and rodi. I already have some smart plugs and they are life savers make everything so easy. Automation definitely made this hobby easier.

Dont mind the rambling because I’m getting so much information and idea for my tank so thank ya!

 

[marcinpolak]

Hi everyone!
So the tank is finny cycled pretty quick and never used any bottle bacteria!

I have also purchased and received some dry goods for the tank so now I will be making a hardware list.

Hardware List….
- Top fin retreat 5 gallon aquarium
- Cobalt aquatics 50 watt heater
- Inkbird temperature controller
- Sicce Syncra nano pump
- AI Prime 16 lights
- a small ato?

That would be all for now but some pictures of the tank we all the new hardware.

 

[Yamaha1634]

I can't comment on many items here as I'm new myself! But for a small ATO try the one from H2Ocean. I have it on mine, great little thing! Optical sensor for the tank is tiny!

 

[Starganderfish]

I can't comment on many items here as I'm new myself! But for a small ATO try the one from H2Ocean. I have it on mine, great little thing! Optical sensor for the tank is tiny!

Nice. I believe that’s a rebadge of the Auto Aqua Smart ATO Lite, which is a great solid ATO unit with cool features. I use one as a spare for QT tank etc.

 

[Yamaha1634]

Yes I have seen the same model under different names, I got mine from my LFS so the H2Ocean was the name they stocked...

Only slight down side is that the small pump that comes with it doesn't fit in the opening of a 10l plastic water container. It may fit in a 25l I haven't tried. I bought a separate 5l food storage container i can place it in, fits better down the side of my unit too!