Hexscape 3 Gallon Pico

[Sprinter70]

Worked on tying in all I am learning into the largest tank I have started. Tank was a deal at petsmart:

Top Fin® Easy Clean Aquarium - 3 Gallon | fish Aquariums | PetSmart

Top Fin® Easy Clean Aquarium - 3 Gallon at PetSmart. Shop all fish aquariums online

www.petsmart.com

Flow and filtration:
Using the recirc pump it came with as well as an additional centrifugal pump “hidden” behind the aquascape. I am running without the filter but will put the filter in temporarily if there is too much debris in the water from a glass cleaning or over ambitious feeding.

Lighting:
I built the lights so I can separately tune the brightness of the actinic blues, green-blue to green, and warm white to reds separately. Light housing was 3D printed (not my best print but I was excited) but is capable of 450 par at the surface and 350 at the bottom. I am currently ramping to 150 par at the surface with more red in the morning/evening and more blue dominant at mid-day. There is also a moon cycle that runs every 29 days using the warm white to red band (this is so cool as a night light!).

Controls:
Controller is built from an Arduino and controls temperature, light, ATO, and automatic water changes. Temperatures are set to 24 for the winter and will ramp to 26.5 for the summer. The auto water change is currently removing 20ml every hour and adding it back with fresh salt mix. ATO uses an infrared sensor to detect water level and will turn on a pump to add DI. Controller box was 3D printed and includes switches for acclimation mode, display lighting, ATO disable, water change disable, pump priming for all the pumps, and a main power switch. Whole thing runs on 3 plugs, the heater, stock pump, and a 12v 5a power supply.

Aquascape:
3D printed hexagonal columns (why it has the name) with holes for screw in frag plugs so I can move stuff around without gumming up the aquascape with glue. Designed it with spots for all different types of coral in mind.

 

[Mark_C]

I friggin LOVE the scape prints. Did you go ABS or PETG?
I'm tempted to rip down my entire tank now...

 

[Sprinter70]

I went PETG, I can help with it if you’re interested. ABS is a bit harder to print, have to vent the printer and it tends to crack if you look at it funny while it prints. I have another more natural looking pico scape I printed, going to post that build when I have the chance.

 

[Sprinter70]

I friggin LOVE the scape prints. Did you go ABS or PETG?
I'm tempted to rip down my entire tank now...

You can just set up a new Pico tank! No need to rip down anything!

 

[Sprinter70]

Time for an update! Lost the Acro and green montipora to a spike in salinity (forgot to turn the ATO back on after a tank cleaning), replaced the acro with another kind of fuzzy stick and the monti with a Leptoseris. I also struggled with the coding for the lights and wound up with a few long and bright days that led to some algae problems that have mostly been resolved. Added a few more Leptoseris and an all for reef doser to automate the twice daily dosing. Also printed an auto feeder for the fish food for the newish clownfish (had him for about 2 weeks now) and new coral banded shrimp.

 

[Sprinter70]

Added a couple acros on 2/19 (miyagi tort and immortal tort) and am getting good regular polyp extension! Did not like the digitata in the front so I replaced it with a yellow birds nest. Got a Favia (looks like the Sector 001 but not sure) and added it pretty high but seems to like the light. All the way to the left I had added a cyphastrea, but they do not seem to do well in any of my tanks. The brain coral close to the center had some momentary tissue recession when I added the crushed coral to the foreground. The crushed coral doesn’t blow around as much but keeps the aesthetic I am going for with the contrast to the black aquascape. Also added some montis on the frag disc on the sand bed, wasn’t planning on leaving them there, but they seemed to like it so I will let them grow up the column from there. Also added a few zoas to the crushed coral, hoping they will grow over and create a lawn I can maybe frag from to get them into other tanks too!

 

[Sprinter70]

Just a quick pic update

 

[Sprinter70]

Update: had to shelter the acans from the peppermint shrimp. It had killed my Favia and started going after the acans I added shortly after. Have a temporary frag rack while I wait to cut up a frag of another coral I got. At about 10% weekly water change and probably miss one a month.

 

[ericrodriguez]

How much space are you leaving between your sps at top?

 

[Sprinter70]

How much space are you leaving between your sps at top?

Not a lot of space at all, I expect the will continue to grow slow and will trim as needed.

 

[Sprinter70]

Really like how it looks from the side!

 

[Sprinter70]

Well, I have a couple problems right now.
Problem 1 - This is a recurring thing on this Favites. Appears to die back in small regions as it spreads. Rapid growth is always followed with the development of a lesion like this and stunted growth. It grows out of it and keeps on its merry way after a couple weeks. Any ideas what might cause this?



Problem 2 - I have frag racks in a pico tank and reef a palooza is this weekend…bad place to start and does not look like it’ll get better. Any ideas of how to treat this one?


Silver lining - I’ve got a sweet idea for this new pico I’m gonna name Acropolis. And if you haven’t guessed yet from the name, I’m gonna take a stab at an Acro centric pico with 2.5 gallons…. Maybe not a silver lining, but certainly a fun challenge!

 

[Sprinter70]

Just a quick update, had some trouble moving it twice since the last update. Lost a lot, learned a lot. Dropped a light in the tank, burnt up a controller with the salt water splash and could not make a replacement so I had to consolidate tanks to free another controller almost immediately. Other than a few key mistakes like this, it has been smooth sailing.

 

[Sprinter70]

Well, successfully moved it again, only changed a few things. Moved some stuff away from the growing favias to avoid seeing how fast the Favia will kill stuff. Added a yellow porites frag that was having trouble in another tank. And a new Gorgonia type coral as well.