My LED-ed Pico

[tosiek]

I've always been amazed with the small things that happen in tanks. You can have all the expensive fish and coral in the world and i'll be there checking out your cleaning crew or the acro crab in your ultra rare colored stick colony.

I always planned on setting up a small 2-5g nano somewhere but never had the patience or time. Plus the lighting sucked 3-4 years ago and the nano forums were void of any usable good information on anything other than your standard 5g tanks.

Anyways, it all started when i had a few extra 3W LED's and i had to order some extra parts for my LED actinic strips i built for my 180. While researching I seen that alot of the LED builds popping up were based on modding LED's into nano and pico beta tanks and then it came to me :idea:

And the sky opened up.....

...followed by some sparkles .....

....and some weird things happened

(i can't show you that here) .....


and I now almost own a PICO! .59g to be exact before LR and some sand. (my wife is gonna kill me btw)

I put on my special DIY gloves...

....for another DIY frenzy. I ordered some extra LED's and a dimmable driver to get my LED fixture going and started work on the light box for my micro ecosystem. The fixture is small @ 5 3/4" and sits 3 1/4" high which fits perfectly on the 5 3/4" square vase i picked up today from the florist.

And after some tinkering and sweat.....

!!!

Its still not finished. I still have some touch ups to do like paint those screws and build the mounting brackets.

Under the hood of that BEAST of a LED fixture....

....is definitely not a cute picture of a puppy dressed up for xmas. But there are 5 x 3W Cree LED's. 4 white and 1 Royal Blue run on a dimmable mini BuckPuck.

The LED array is standard + - looped back to the opposite pole on the driver.

LED specs

• 5 x 3W Cree XR-E LED's with 4 45 degree lenses and 1 80 for the blue
• BuckPuck 3023-D-E-700Pma with wired POT
• 4 1/4" x 3.9" Pre-tapped heatsink for 6 LED's
• 24V 1.5a AC to DC power supply
• 60mm low profile fan with speed control and 12V 300mah power supply
• Power switch and a few jacks to plug in the fan and lights (still waiting on a power switch for the fan to come in

The box is made of 3/8" Medex MDF. Medex is awesome although more expensive than standard MDF by a few bucks. Its moisture resistant as well as formaldehyde free which is turning into the new standard in code. Thought i should throw that out there because its worth mentioning.

I started with making a removable top where i access all the electrical in case i ever needed to. On the back of the fixture i have access to the Pot to dim the LED's, power switch for the lights, and jacks to plug in the power to the fan and lights.

Yes, i need goof-off too to get rid of that messy glue as well.

And made a slide out Plexi cover for the bottom to control the airflow to pass through LED's for cooling. The box is pretty much sealed except for the area around each lens and some holes that were drilled. I used UV resistant acrylic i had laying around as it doesn't soak moisture up and warp as quickly as your standard acrylic.

A simple black box. The only thing thats missing is some mounting brackets so i can sit it above the tank an inch or so.

And here is my empty canvas =0)

Its blown glass but I think its going to be fun working with. I'll be purposefully stopping by any and every florist or vase shop till i find that perfect 5-7" square vase or a really nice round one though. Michaels apparently has the 7" vases which i planned on using first but I haven't had the time to check it out.

And thus my journey begins....and for some reason I feel its going to be a painful one :fishhit:

Tank Specs

• 5 3/4" square glass vase roughly .59g before rock/sand
• Custom Cree 3w 5LED fixture 5 3/4" x 3 1/4"h
• slightly modded minijet 404 or 606 pump - Controlled @ 18gph at the lowest setting for the 404 which should be enough for SPS in a tank this size
• Hamster bottle ATO
• Flexwatt heat pad/betta tank heater
• Black Tahitian sand
• some LR. I'll weigh it before it goes in =0)

Its a small tank and small tanks are prone to two things which make or break them. Evap that causes salinity spikes and extremely quick temp swings or high highs and low lows at night.

I just started research into Flexwatt heat pads that you place under the tank to take care of heating and a way to control it, so other than "i've seen a few pico's use them" thats all i know. Or the other option of getting the small betta heaters and manually turning it off when i need it. I'll keep this updated on what i decide.

Im going to deal with evap using a simple suspended gravity fed ATO (hamster bottle). I just have to figure out how to mount it so it looks clean. Thinking off the side or back and using one of those small RC airplane gas bottles. I just have to figure out how much evap i'm getting so i can't start till I set it up and run it without livestock.

I think thats it for now. I will try some small SPS frags (a 1/8" mini SPS forest!) to see how they fair after a month or two of the tank running and stable.

I'll update with pics of it up and running in a week or so.

 

[tosiek]

I set up the tank on 9/8/10.

And the wife said it looks like a lava lamp. sigh :irked:

The tank is ~1800ML of water (.47 or so gallons) with the rock and sand. I glued up some LR rubble pieces yesterday and added in a half cup of black sand and started filling it with water from my current tank. I reaquascaped 3x in my big tank, once just recently and i can say its much much harder in a tank this small to get things the way you want it. Maybe its just because I have big hands and not enough small pieces to work with. I forgot to weigh the LR, i'll do it later on when i get a chance.

I am happy.

A few things to note. The temp rose from 78 to 82 in the tank throughout the day with the lights on and hot 90+ weather blowing through the house. Im still running one of those temp strips you stick on the side of the tank untill the digital one comes in. I was expecting the tank to match my room temp which was around 92 when i came home. With the fan and lights, and a large PH in the tank i only had a 4 degree rise in temp over 8 hours that stabilized at 78/80 with the lights off and the air conditioner on. I'll play more with numbers and how much i should expect from the tanks temp in different conditions.

Also, the evaporation was around 6-7oz in 24 hours. I Forgot to test the salinity on the tank though so I'll run it for a few more hours to see how much 4oz raises my salinity.

I also need to add to the lighting a bit. Mainly add 1 more blue 3W LED and maybe another white 3W. I'm running 60 degree reflectors on the whites (80 on the blue) and there is spotlighting in the tank so i have to change them to 80's which i will test later or take them off completely. Im also getting a dark spot front and center and the blue didn't spread as well as i thought which is the reason I might add 1 more LED which shifts the LED's around and might balance the light spread. Im sure if i went with white sand it wouldn't be so noticeable.

Streamlining Design is another thing. I have to get rid of the light legs holding it up and do something hidden to hold the light up from the back of the tank. So my next project when i am fixing the LED's is working on a new light stand.

Also, I am bringing home some 1/8" clear rubber cabinet door bumpers to raise the tank up off my cabinet. From drips and spills I am going to destroy the cabinet if water stays under there and doesn't evaporate. Plus it will stop the tank from shifting easily which is another reason why I have a spill problem.

I added a hermit and a snail to clean up the rock a bit before putting them back in my main tank. They were the smallest i could find in my tank and still look enormous in this half gallon of water.

Anyways, as far as water changes I'll be doing 1/4 of a 1/2 gallon water changes every week either from my main tank or freshly mixed depending on how busy I am.

This seems to be more of a blog than anything else. Sorry for all the typing, chit chat, thoughts, and overall dragging things on more than they need to. I'll add more pictures when i start putting coral and animals in.

 

[THEDLO]

Cool cant wait!

 

[Deep Dive Coral]

im in for the follow

 

[PeterD]

i cant wait i have a 3 gallon pico

 

[R27]

nice subscribed

 

[tosiek]

First post updated. Finished up the post to where i am now.

 

[tentacles]

AMAZING! The new nano tank.

 

[House of Laughter]

Real nice start T. That thing is screaming for an MP10.

Looking forward to seeing this 'tank' develop.

Russ coming to you from MACNA

 

[smoq]

This is AWESOME. I really like the led fixture. Does those buckpucks need separate power supply and one for dimming?

 

[THEDLO]

this is awesome. I really like the led fixture.

+2

 

[tosiek]

Thanks for all the compliments =0) I can't wait to get it set up and sitting in my living room.

Russ, I had very serious thoughts on making a MP.5 :shocked1: (oohhh! aahhh!) Which might happen once i get some free time. Keep us informed on MACNA =0) A wedding is keeping me here and not with you guys :irked:

This is AWESOME. I really like the led fixture. Does those buckpucks need separate power supply and one for dimming?

They draw 2V off the power supply (i could be wrong as its not clearly stated in the spec sheet but i am slow sometimes) so for the 5 LED's@ 3.5V ea im using 17.5V + 2V so i need a 20V DC power supply. Im running 24V and all LEDS are maxed. I put on a 18V Dc i had laying around and the LED's were at 60-70%? power so im guessing its drawing for the POT before it throws the rest at the LED's.

 

[tosiek]

Made some maybe temporary legs to mount the light on the tank. Filled it up today to see how stable the temp is with the pump and lights on. I also got to test out how this mini pump i found in my fish stuff works in adding some flow in the tank. I also learned how easy it is to flood the thing with my enormous hand in the tank so don't mind the spill.

Here are some pics and a small movie.

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[tosiek]

Tank set up, added pics and wrote some stuff in the second post. Enjoy

 

[ellebelle]

What animals are you going to put in? I bet a yellow clown goby would be loving that.

I should commission one of those for my office!!

 

[tosiek]

Hehe or something smaller like a flaming prawn goby :knockedou

The problem the tank has is that it really can't support anything i have to feed. The tank isn't stable enough as the filtration is at bare minimum and once i put in coral I am going to probably have to do bi weekly WC's to keep parameters where they need to be. Having a med size turbo in there could nuke the tank with poop after a week or two.

Actually, one guy on nano-forums was complaining because his snail was making 12 poop things a day and it was starting to be alot of waste. Who counts snail poop! or even notices it in their tanks except the pico tanks :tongue1:

So far the only plans for the tank are micro and mini inverts along the lines of mini brittle stars, max is a baby hermit, maybe a sexy shrimp when i see one ontop of coral.

One of the things on my to buy list is a long dropper to pull all the waste out and to blow around the rock base to keep it clean and long tweezers to work in the tank. Im currently using chop sticks to do any work inside the tank that i need when its full.

 

[ellebelle]

Wow, who has time to count snail poop?!

you could also try a trimma goby. Those things are less than 1"

 

[asianer]

Great set-up Tony and thank you for posting the LED materials list. This might be a silly question but are you concerned about the evaporation from the tank adversely affecting the wall-mounted TV? Actually this more of a general question regarding tank placement and electronics - Is it safe to keep a tank right next to a TV?

 

[tosiek]

Im not too worried about the evaporation from that tank but if it was larger, around 5-15 gallons durectly under there i would be. I don't know enough about electrical problems associated with tank evap though. I can say that my 180 has a gallon of evap a day if i remember correctly and I don't have any problems with my computer in the same room with minimal ciculation. The fans from the hood and stand are blowing towards the door though.

I do remember a post either here or on RC about 5 years ago talking about heavy evap in a guys basement where he kept a few large open area frag tanks and had problems. It was something stupid like 5g in 300-400sq ft of space with no venting. Mold, mildew, bases warping, tiles always wet and he almost had a fire because his electrical box started sweating on the breakers.

 

[THEDLO]

very nice man!!! i like it alot!