My 3.3L DIY Pico reef tank

[Lucid Reef]

Hello and welcome to my build thread for my 3.3L Pico Reef tank.

I started the build in January 2022. The tank is a 3.3L AIO Acrylic tank that you build yourself. Its made by a company called PTank. The tank is lazer cut into acrylic and comes in flat pack form which you then have to cement together yourself.

Building The Tank​

[How the tank is shipped out in flat pack form]​

Although pretty daunting at first, it's much easier to put together then I had first thought it might be. The tank was cemented together using some Anglosol 1200 acrylic cement and with the aid of a couple of soup cans from the cupboard.

[Part way through building the tank]​

[Leaving to dry overnight before leak testing]​

After leaving the cement to properly bond the acrylic together for 24 hours, the tank was finally ready to be leak tested. I found a tiny seam in the display that hadn't quite fully sealed so emptied the tank and reapplied some more cement before carrying on. Another 24 hours later and the tank was leak free.

The Equipment​

I wanted to run the tank using only USB powered equipment so that I would only need one power socket from the wall to power a USB charging hub and then have all the equipment plugged into the hub. It took a bit of researching and looking around but I managed to find all the equipment I needed.

The light is a TMC Illuminair nano, a tiny 3w light that can be powered off usb and has a little inline controller to change colour and intensity. Although the light comes with a controller that can change the colour and intensity, it still needed to be switched on/off manually. I found a little device called a Sonoff smart usb switch that can be used to turn usb devices into smart devices including having a timer function. This allowed me to connect the light to my phone through an app and then setup a timer schedule so the light would turn on and off automatically.


The heater is also USB powered and has a built in thermostat too which can be set and then displays the current temperature of the tank.

The last piece of equipment needed for the tank was a return pump. I just picked up a cheap 200 LPH one online. You can find these USB powered ones just about anywhere.

While I was waiting for parts to arrive, I thought it would be a good idea to make a base for the tank to sit on and had some spare oak kitchen worktop offcuts laying around. The idea was too router out the underside and have all the equipment mounted on the underside so it was hidden away. A couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon and it was done.

The Aquascape​

The idea for the aquascape was to build a large rock pinnacle that would poke up out of the water, almost like a volcano and have a plant living on the top of it. I had seen a few other aquascapes that used tillansia or air plants to great success.

I used some spare bio media as a centre support structure for the scape and then used milliput to secure pieces of rock to build up the design.

[Building up the scape, piece by piece]​

[Almost done but not quite high enough]​

The rock is a man-made media called Cérock by ReefX. It's super porous and lightweight which was going to be perfect for what I needed.

I left the putty on the scape to harden off overnight and then tried to wrestle the aquascape into the tiny little display section once it was done.

 

[Woodyman]

Hello and welcome to my build thread for my 3.3L Pico Reef tank.

I started the build in January 2022. The tank is a 3.3L AIO Acrylic tank that you build yourself. Its made by a company called PTank. The tank is lazer cut into acrylic and comes in flat pack form which you then have to cement together yourself.

Building The Tank​

[How the tank is shipped out in flat pack form]​

Although pretty daunting at first, it's much easier to put together then I had first thought it might be. The tank was cemented together using some Anglosol 1200 acrylic cement and with the aid of a couple of soup cans from the cupboard.

[Part way through building the tank]​

[Leaving to dry overnight before leak testing]​

After leaving the cement to properly bond the acrylic together for 24 hours, the tank was finally ready to be leak tested. I found a tiny seam in the display that hadn't quite fully sealed so emptied the tank and reapplied some more cement before carrying on. Another 24 hours later and the tank was leak free.

The Equipment​

I wanted to run the tank using only USB powered equipment so that I would only need one power socket from the wall to power a USB charging hub and then have all the equipment plugged into the hub. It took a bit of researching and looking around but I managed to find all the equipment I needed.

The light is a TMC Illuminair nano, a tiny 3w light that can be powered off usb and has a little inline controller to change colour and intensity. Although the light comes with a controller that can change the colour and intensity, it still needed to be switched on/off manually. I found a little device called a Sonoff smart usb switch that can be used to turn usb devices into smart devices including having a timer function. This allowed me to connect the light to my phone through an app and then setup a timer schedule so the light would turn on and off automatically.


The heater is also USB powered and has a built in thermostat too which can be set and then displays the current temperature of the tank.

The last piece of equipment needed for the tank was a return pump. I just picked up a cheap 200 LPH one online. You can find these USB powered ones just about anywhere.

While I was waiting for parts to arrive, I thought it would be a good idea to make a base for the tank to sit on and had some spare oak kitchen worktop offcuts laying around. The idea was too router out the underside and have all the equipment mounted on the underside so it was hidden away. A couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon and it was done.

The Aquascape​

The idea for the aquascape was to build a large rock pinnacle that would poke up out of the water, almost like a volcano and have a plant living on the top of it. I had seen a few other aquascapes that used tillansia or air plants to great success.

I used some spare bio media as a centre support structure for the scape and then used milliput to secure pieces of rock to build up the design.

[Building up the scape, piece by piece]​

[Almost done but not quite high enough]​

The rock is a man-made media called Cérock by ReefX. It's super porous and lightweight which was going to be perfect for what I needed.

I left the putty on the scape to harden off overnight and then tried to wrestle the aquascape into the tiny little display section once it was done.

Awesome build! What's your planned stocking for this? I've been interested in those flat pack AIOs. I'll need to get one at some point!

I like the oak base as well! I should bust out my router and do the same for an upcoming tank.

 

[Lucid Reef]

Cycling the tank​

To cycle the tank, I just took a spare maxspect bio ball from my other tank and a few scoops of mature sand (3 shot glasses to be precise).

I also used water from my other tank as the nutrients from the water would give the tank a kick start. I'm not 100% sure that a cycle in the conventional sense was even necessary as no fish would be able to be kept in a tank of this volume. The stocking plans were to keep a couple of sexy shrimp, a small clean up crew made up of 1 small snail, a few brittlestars and any spare pods that I could catch at the time.

[After adding sand and water]

​

To keep the rear sump organised, I had a company called Aqua-Print, 3d print me a media basket for the first chamber of the rear sump. Its just big enough to hold a single bio ball, a small bag of chemical media and a floss pad.

[Media basket 3D printed by Aqua-Print]​

[Rear sump layout]

Adding Livestock​

After leaving the tank to settle for a week, it was time to add livestock and corals. I ordered a trio of sexy shrimp from my LFS and added some tester zoas to the display to see how they would fair.

[First few zoas going into the tank]​

[Sexy shrimp checking out his new home]


​

 

[Lucid Reef]

Maturing​

For the next couple of weeks, i just left the tank to do its own thing and start to steadly mature. I fed the sexy shrimp twice a week with whatever i had laying around after feeding the other tank. Mysis and flake is quite difficult to feed in a tank this small but a tiny pinch of pellets or a crumb of EasyReefs mastic seems to work well as it sinks quick gives them time to eat it at their leisure.

I spoke with the company who sell the tank and asked them if they would be able to make me a modified lid for the tank. The tank comes with an acrylic lid as standard but because the rockwork poked out of the top of the water, I couldn't use it unless it had a cut out. Ptank were amazing and had a newly designed lid made and posted out to me within a couple of days. Evaporation was starting to become a concern at this point so a lid was going to really help with trapping the evaporation and reducing the amount I needed to manually top off the tank.

[New lid fitted to the tank]

​

 

[Jonny Walker]

Looking great! I just started a pico last Friday so I’ll be following along.
Where did you order the the equipment from?

 

[Lucid Reef]

Time for a redesign
​

Although the lid massively helped with reducing the amount of evaporation i was losing from the tank, i was still having to top off the tank manually quite regularly. The problem was, im quite forgetful and with a tank this size, it doesn't take long for things like temperature and salinity to swing and cause issues. It was time for a redesign.

I decided that although I wanted to have all the equipment run off USBs, it made sense to run a dedicated ATO to keep the tank stable. I had a spare DD ATO laying around from a previous tank, I just needed to modify the pipework as the standard tubing for the ATO is around 10mm in diameter and by the time it kicked on and the sensor triggered, it would already have put too much water into the tank. I reduced the tubing down using some 1/4 dosing line and fitted an inline valve so that I could further reduce the flow. A quick raid around the kitchen and I found a temporary ATO reservoir until I could make something more permanent.

[It's a snug fit but the ATO sensor just managed to fit inside the return chamber]

[Not the best looking ATO reservoir but it works as a temporary fix]​

I decided that if I could manage to build and cement my own tank together then building and cementing an acrylic stand and ATO reservoir would be easy in comparison. I drew up a couple of designs and then ordered the acrylic cut too size so that it just needed bonding together.

I came up with a design that I liked. Just a simple stand that lifted the tank higher so that I could be viewed easier from the sofa. I also added a slide out draw that could hold a small ATO reservoir on one side and house the USB plugs and other bits of equipment on the other side.

[Building the new stand]

[ATO reservoir in Frosted orange acrylic]​

[The new stand and ATO Reservoir finished up)

Building the new stand and ATO reservoir went really smoothly and only took a couple of hours to build. I still had to wait 24 hours before I could leak test the ATO reservoir but I couldn't resist getting the tank sat on top to see how it looked.

 

[Lucid Reef]

Awesome build! What's your planned stocking for this? I've been interested in those flat pack AIOs. I'll need to get one at some point!

I like the oak base as well! I should bust out my router and do the same for an upcoming tank.

Thanks, Im a little behind with the thread so these posts are a little backdated. I went with 3 sexy shrimp and a small clean up crew. I was thinking about maybe added a pompom crab too.

The oak base looked good, it just wasnt the most practical when it came to water spills or trying to turn off equipment. That's just based on my design though, if id treated the base with wax and had my equipment somewhere else then it wouldn't have cause those issues.

 

[Lucid Reef]

Looking great! I just started a pico last Friday so I’ll be following along.
Where did you order the the equipment from?

Thanks, Yeah I think I read through your build thread the other day. Cool design with the rockwork on the overflow wier right?

I got a lot of the equipment through Amazon. The light came from a LFS and the 3D printed parts from a company called Aqua-Print.

 

[Jonny Walker]

Thanks, Yeah I think I read through your build thread the other day. Cool design with the rockwork on the overflow wier right?

I got a lot of the equipment through Amazon. The light came from a LFS and the 3D printed parts from a company called Aqua-Print.

Yea that’s the one, I just added some sand from my 25g moments ago after seeing sand in yours lol I’ve always liked the look of sand in my tanks but I wanted it to be easy for cleaning, but after seeing yours I said screw it I like sand
I will check out the heater for sure, it looks smaller then the one I have.
How is it for keeping temp stable? so far mine has been swinging between 77 78 on and off throughout the day.

 

[Lucid Reef]

Yea that’s the one, I just added some sand from my 25g moments ago after seeing sand in yours lol I’ve always liked the look of sand in my tanks but I wanted it to be easy for cleaning, but after seeing yours I said screw it I like sand
I will check out the heater for sure, it looks smaller then the one I have.
How is it for keeping temp stable? so far mine has been swinging between 77 78 on and off throughout the day.

Yeah i much prefer sand in a tank. I get the whole bare bottom thing, especially in a large tank but these tanks are so small and so easy to clean that id rather have the stability and natural look that sand adds to a tank. It takes me around 15 minutes to clean all the sides of the tank, stir up the sandbed, do a large water change and then change out the floss in the media basket.

I'll try and find you a link to the heater I ordered. The one I've had has been solid since the day I got it. I know a few other people who use them in the same tank though and have said they've had mix results. I definitely can't complain though as I don't think I've ever seen mine out by more then 0.2⁰c

 

[Woodyman]

Thanks, Im a little behind with the thread so these posts are a little backdated. I went with 3 sexy shrimp and a small clean up crew. I was thinking about maybe added a pompom crab too.

The oak base looked good, it just wasnt the most practical when it came to water spills or trying to turn off equipment. That's just based on my design though, if id treated the base with wax and had my equipment somewhere else then it wouldn't have cause those issues.

You've definitely got me considering a pico build like this! Looks great!

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Very cool. I'm definitely into the volcano rockwork!

 

[Lucid Reef]

New Scape
​

Although the original volcano scape looked pretty cool and also allowed me to keep a tillansia plant on top of the scape. It wasn't very practical for maintenance, waterchanges or for coral placement and health. The plant was also struggling due to the heat given off from the light.

The aquascape design was very vertical and made placing corals quite difficult in such a small space. It also restricted the flow around the tank quite a bit, creating dead spots and simple things like cleaning algae off the side of the tank became a chore.

I decided that before it was too late, I would redesign the aquascape to something more simple that would allow for better coral placement and also reduce the dead spots and need for more maintenance.

One of the things I love so much about these tanks, is how simple it is to make changes like redoing an aquascape. 30 minutes with some smashed up Marco rock and some coral glue and the new scape was in. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as the first volcano scape did, but once it's filled out with coral, it will allow for a much better looking and more balanced tank and should make maintenance on the tank much easier.

[New aquascape is much lower in the tank now]
​

[Corals already seem happier with the increased flow and lighting]

[Inside the stand]

[Pico Control Panel]​

[New ATO Reservoir now in use]​

 

[Lucid Reef]

Adding more coral​

Started to add a few more corals to the tank now that its starting to mature. Coraline is starting to grow on the new rockwork and return nozzle too. I decided to be brave and try some LPS with a little double headed splatter hammer and some toxic green candy cane.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Very impressive! Love the way the acrylic arrives in flat panels and therefore allows for perfect shipping!

Very easy to solvent cement, I assume you did capillary action.

Remember in picos, less is always better in live rock, love how you dialed it back from how you started!