Picoreefguy’ s 2 gallon build.

[PicoReefGuy]

Hey guys, haven’t posted in a while and I don’t think i ever really introduced myself so here goes. I’m a long time reefer, I’ve been in the hobby since late 2006 or maybe early 2007, can’t really remember. I’ve had several tanks over the years anywhere from as small as 1 gallon and up to 60 gallons and everywhere in between. I’ve also helped out and or worked at local fish stores taking care of their fish tanks which included large systems and smaller individual tanks. But im as you can probably guess from my handle i really enjoy the teeny tiny tanks. One of my favorites was a 5 gallon pico id setup and had running for 4-5 years till it sprung a leak. Here’s a couple pics of that one that were taken around 9 months apart and you can really see the amazing growth over that time.
March 8th 2016

Dec 12th 2016

Anyway on to this build. I have this thread on my local club but its not getting much traction there and i figure you guys might enjoy pico tanks, plus ive just recently started it so im going to copy and past the progress here. I was given a 2 (possibly 2.5, in not 100% sure but it’s tiny) gallon tank a little over a year or so and figured I would turn it into my next project tank. I had taken down my 5 gallon a couple of years before that due to a leak and was really wanting another cool project to work on. So I ordered some black acrylic and black vinyl and got to work. I made the overflow similar to how I did my 5 gallon pico where the water would enter, flow through a filter sponge then carbon and lastly matrix biomedia before overflowing into the return pump chamber and back into the tank. I did however make this one a peninsula style tank rather than having the filtration in the corner. Then I covered the glass where you could see filter parts in the vinyl and had planned to start it up eventually and just never did.

So it sat for a little over a year after that. Every now and then id look at it and think to myself I’ll get it started soon. Well a couple of friends decided to get into the hobby and that motivated me to get this tank up And running.

so anyway enough backstory. The tank is already 5-6 weeks along so there’s a good bit to cover but we all know you’re here for the pics, so here goes.

you can get a sense of the basic layout here. The water enters on the bottom left and returns to the tank on the top left. This Is when I had a thin acrylic lid I had cut for it but I’ve since replaced it with a glass lid I had laying around

I decide I wanted to use it as a bedside tank so I’d give it plenty of attention. Here you can see the course mix of shells and crushed coral I’m using as substrate along with the stand little table I’ll be keeping it on. This was taken on day one of having water in the tank which was June 27th.

I had a box of random rubble pieces laying around and so I thought I’d try my had at a negative space aquascape. I think it turned out pretty well. It’s hard to really show well in pictures so I’ll just show a bunch of them.

raw materials

finished product

front

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Some other views of the rock and a couple shots of it in the tank.

And some cool bubbling action from when i first put it in the tank.

 

[OfficeReefer]

@PicoReefGuy welcome to R2R!

I like small tanks too, albeit I have a larger one now for larger fish and colonies.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Cool little DIY mods you did on the tank. Nice rock scape you got going. I love little tanks. What are you going to add for livestock?

 

[Steven Garland]

Awesome little pico !!! I love pico's myself,I feel like they are the best setups for sure.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Here’s a view of the filter area. Here you can see I switched to a course sponge and moved the filter pad to the return pump chamber. I’m using a tiny pump made for a desk top fountain and in the confined space it was rattling and that’s not so great when it’s a bedside tank. So I took the filter pad and cut it into strips that were as wide as the pump and about 3x long as the pump is wide I wrapped one strip around covering the front, bottom and back and the other strip covering the sides and bottom so it gave me plenty of cushion and significantly reduced the rattle. I had several of these pumps laying around as well as one I had ordered for the project so I tested them all out in a specimen container. Two at a time head to head and chose the one with the best flow. They’re all rated for 80 gph but I don’t think any were even close. But they move enough water for I love you purposes here. So I took a cpvc 90 to bring the water through the wall of the filter and connected a coupler I modified to have a fan shape and pointed it up towards the surface so as not to directly blast any of the coral but still ensure good flow.

Gotta give the hand for scale.

Here are some of the contenders for the pump. I had 3 others that were diff shapes and sizes that also fit but I went with this style of pump because it gave me the most room for filter pad to reduce noise. The top left was the one that I chose in the end. And the outlet size between the pumps wasn’t a factor because I swapped them around and tried each outlet on each pump and that pump with the widest outlet won.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Thanks guys. As far as live stock im doing mainly zoas and a few other easy corals. And a barnacle blenny and possibly some sort of small goby in this one.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

I stole this single barnacle from a friend that’s got a cluster laying around. I figure since im planning on getting a barnacle blenny id give him a proper home.

I found a nice spot right up front. (From my point of view anyway lol)

For lighting I got some cheap blue and white leds as well as a single module of green, red and orange for some color pop and variation from a company that specializes in lighting for signs. I got 12 blue, 6 white and one of each of the rest. But when I tried the blue out it ended up being almost the perfect color so I’ll probably end up just using those and maybe integrate one or two whites. I also covered the part of the lid that goes over the filter with black vinyl to reduce algae growth and cut down a lid handle to be 1/3 it’s normal size to fit the tank better cause it just looked way too big the way it was.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

At this point it had been around 4 weeks and i was itching to get some life in the tank so i drove down towards Atlanta to a great lfs and got a few frags. I got a frag of emerald on fire zoas, a frag of snitches zoas and a nice big frag of pipe organ. The emeralds on fire are on the left, the pipe organ up top and the snitches are glued to the rock on the right. You can also see some leftover emeralds on fire on the far right.

I also fiddled around in my main tank which is a 40 breeder and took a frag of king Midas zoas Shown here mounted at the very front of the tank. I took the pic shortly after mounting them so they hadnt fully opened yet.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

over the weekend I decided to start building a stand and canopy for the tank. The stand is mostly for decorative purposes, I think the tank will look better with a matching stand and canopy. And it’s only a desktop stand rather than one that’s freestanding. I stole the very simplistic design from the ones I built for my 5 gallon years ago with a few small modifications. This time around rather than using butt joints at the corners I decided to try my hand at miters which look better imo. And with my previous stand I used metal L brackets that I glued in place at the corners to keep everything strong and stable. This go around I used small blocks of wood that I cut from 1x2 wood glued and clamped from both sides. This was because the brackets didn’t have a good bond with wood and the ones I used in the canopy rusted so this time I figured the blocks would have a good bond so they’d be stronger and wouldn’t rust so it should last a lot longer.

I used a couple different widths of precut poplar from the hardware store. The main body of both pieces are 2.5” wide and I think 3/16” thick. And to get the edges of the trim flush with the top of the stand I glued in some thinner scrap strips of the same material which hold the weight of the tank inside the stand. Since this whole setup will only weigh in the neighborhood of 25-30 lbs I’m not worried about the wood glue being the only thing to support it since the glue joints tend to be stronger than the wood itself

Taped everything together to let the glue setup

Then shortly after taping I put it on top of the tank to keep everything square while the glue set since I didn’t have proper clamps for this purpose

once the glue had fully cured I went back and glued and clamped the little blocks into the corners for extra strength and rigidity.

for the canopy I was just a little short on wood so I had to butt joint two scraps together to make one piece long enough to make the side. and on the inside I made sure to put extra glue and clamp the strip that holds it on the tank really well.

in the process of clamping the strip down I guess it moved and I didn’t notice. I glued all the sides together and put it on the tank to keep it square like I did with the stand and when I went to take it off is when I noticed that I could feel the trim well below the bottom of the canopy on part of it. You can kinda see it askew here.

another difference between this canopy and the last one is I thought about ventilation ahead of time. with my last one it was a copy of the stand flipped upside down and I noticed that the lid warped because of all the excess moisture. I ended up cutting 3 huge holes in it to allow for ventilation. So this time I used one of the narrower strips and mitered the edges to match the front and cut it down the middle and glued one to the top back and one to the bottom back. This lets me also pass through the cords as well. I may add a strip of black cloth to reduce light spill as well.

to fix the issue of it not being level I may just flip it upside down and glue in supports at the right spots. But I noticed the length is a little be off, it’s a fraction of an inch longer that it needs to be so I may end up rebuilding it before I put the lid on.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

I forgot to mention that I had been trying to think of a glass cleaning solution since every magnetic cleaner I’ve seen is pretty big and would take up too much room in the tank. I had a bunch of these bar style magnets laying around and they looke to be about the perfect size for this project. Big enough that they could still attract each other with glass and a scrubber between them but not be obtrusive. So I took some wax paper, put a blob of silicone down and stuck the magnets in it. Then added more silicon on top of that and covered with the other half of the wax paper and flattened them with some wood. After they cured I cut away the excess silicone leaving a couple mm around the magnets and then repeated the process to make sure I got a really good coating. I think I’m gonna silicone a Brillo pad to the inside one and some plastic from a fish bag to the outside one to help it slide across the glass.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Lots of work on that little guy. Cannot wait to see it all together. Those zoas glow!

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Lots of work on that little guy. Cannot wait to see it all together. Those zoas glow!

Thanks!! Yea I’ve been wanting to set it up for a long time and had tons of ideas brewing in my head so when I finally got started there was tons to do lol. And yes they do they’re gorgeous.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I have done a ton of trying to make magnets work for little tanks. Hope it works for you. I ended up getting a little magnetic cleaner that I really like. Great power for a little thing. It is bright and not want it to sit in tank all the time though.

Orlushy Mini Aquarium Magnetic Brush on Amazon ($7)​

 

[DeniseAndy]

I have this one too, but not even close to as strong. It is smaller though.

KASANMU Aquarium Magnetic Scrubber for Glass Fish Tank​

 

[PicoReefGuy]

I’ve been pretty lazy this past week and haven’t gotten much done but i have made some progress. ive gotten the stand painted with a few layers and have sanded it and have applied the first coat of clear, ill add a couple more layers of clear coat sometime this week. I had to glue up a panal to make the lid for the tank since I didn’t have any pieces of wood wide enough. One of them was a little cupped so i wet it down and put it on the garage floor with some weight on it. Hopefully that will fix the cupping issue but if not ill just buy some more and start over with it. I also got the diy magnetic cleaner in the tank although i may add another layer of silicone to the wet side of it. It definitely works though. I also need to put something on the dry side to help clean the outside of the glass. I was going to use some plastic but i think a piece of cloth or something similar would be better since it would serve dual functions of cleaning the outside of the glass as well as allowing it to glide smoothly.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

I’ve sprayed the stand with a few more coats of clear and gotten it under the tank. Now ive gotta get to work on the canopy. I also had these brightwell xport bio blocks laying around for a while and never put them to use but they are a great fit for my filter in this tank and i have plenty of room even with the few pieces of matrix in there. Funny thing is that these have an expiration date on them and they expired in march of this year. But its just ceramic and i don’t think there is anything that could go bad on them from just sitting around so im going to go ahead and use them.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Minor update. I’m starting to get some algae growing on the rocks and i finally got to use my diy Magnetic scraper and it works really well. I’m not sure it’ll hold up too great with harder algaes but the for the initial film of algae i got on the glass it works fantastically. Also my emeralds on fire seem to have caught Zoa pox. I had noticed one of them staying closed and when i took a closer look it had little white dots on it. I wasn’t sure what was going on so i went to google and made a diagnosis. It wasn’t just the one that had it either about half of the emeralds on fire i have had pox. So for now i tried using peroxide to treat it and im not sure how its gonna go. I only treated half ( i broke the original frag off the plug and left the zoas that had grown onto the plug) just in case i end up killing them with the peroxide. I also popped the pox on one that is as treating with peroxide just to test. some people online seemed to think it worked so i figured id give it a shot. The untreated ones are now all staying mostly closed. they’ll open a little bit when the light is on but not even enough to see the middle part. I’m hoping the peroxide treatment works because these things are beautiful and id hate to lose them.

This is how they looked on thursday. You can see the closed up one circled in yellow that has the pox. That’s the first one i noticed having an issue. the rest seem to be fine at this point.

Then over the weekend they opened less and less And this is them today.

And here you can see a better view of the pox on the frag i treated with the hyrdrogen peroxide.

I’m really hoping the treatment works. Anyway i also got some tisbe pods that i ordered on amazon. I’m not sure how to attach videos here yet but i did get a cool video of them crawling on the side of the bottle.

 

[PicoReefGuy]

Huston, we have a problem. So a few nights ago my pump started rattling like crazy in the middle of the night and woke me up, i fiddled with it for a couple minutes to try and get it into a spot where it wouldn’t make noise and just ended up unplugging it so i could go back to sleep. the next morning I decided to order a sicce syncra nano since they are a brand that’s known for their quiet pumps. I got it in yesterday and put it in the tank with no luck. It’s just a tiny bit bigger than my current pumps so it touches the sides most of the time and creates some noise. I did test it outside the tank and its nearly dead silent. Another problem is that noise is being transferred to the tank itself from the pumps outlet tube. It interfaces with the acrylic via a street 90 on one side and a modified coupler on the other. i ended up putting the old pump back in and im not sure what ill end up doing to fix it it was loud again yesterday when i went to bed so i unplugged it overnight. im thinking i may try one of those silicone potholders around the pump to reduce contact with the glass since the filter floss isn’t cutting it anymore. And im considering placing an o-ring around the pvc where it meets the acrylic in hopes that it’ll reduce some of the vibration im going to check and see if i can find some silicone tubing that’s the right size as well because the vinyl tube im using is pretty stiff compared to silicone tube so im sure it transfers vibration pretty well.

It’s hard to see but the front of the syncra is touching the glass and the back is touching one of the baffles.

But in other news i did end up fixing my canopy’s alignment problem, not completely but its much better. Rather than rebuilding or flipping it upside down and putting in blocks to hold it at the right spot i decided to cut a portion of the offending support out. It’s not the prettiest but it’ll be invisible once in use and there is still support on the back half of it as well as the other side and the front of of the canopy. I also glued in some rests for the lid to sit on once i get it done. It‘s a long way off from being finished but its progress. I still have to figure out some sort of hinge as well as a support to hold the lid open while im working on the tank. I’m trying to avoid metal because it’ll end up rusting or corroding so i want to build both of those parts out of wood or plastic.

here you can see the “repair” where i cut out the part that was making it sit way too far out of whack as well as the rear and front lid supports.

Sorry for such an insanely long several posts to get everyone caught up but hopefully y’all have enjoyed it so far.

 

[Steven Garland]

Looks so be zoa pox to me,which I haven't seen in ages. Fresh water works,light scrubbing with a soft toothbrush works too as well.