Smallest Reef on RF Thread! 0.5gallon Zoa Tank!

[Cwazy Clown]

I originally had this setup in my nano thread but now that its actually starting, I figure lets separate it.

This is a 5x5x5" cube made of completely scrap parts. The pump was from an old filter, I actually purchased an LED and the heat tape.

Heres the cube:

Then I put on a light (its a single blue luxreous)

Then I put on an overflow closed loop. for flow:

Then I finally added a heater. Its heat watt tape:

Added a controller to it so water wasnt 90 degrees:

I redid the rockscape I also added 2x white ultra bright 15 degree LEDs just to the middle to highlight the jetting rock center. Makes the Rockscape POP while the blue washes everything around it.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

Added a top off today! Its about 3 weeks worth of top off water. Petsmart didnt have the 16 oz bottle, so I was stuck with the 32 oz.. haha oh well. Painted it blue as well... ran out of black paint.

Now...I'm going to go get some Zoas!!!!

 

[fishoutofwater]

thats funny

 

[lvsuckerfish]

dude you are a trip!!!!!!!!! looks good

 

[edwing206]

Haha that's awesome! I can't wait to see it filled up with zoas!

 

[saltwaterfishes]

Very nice....so cute!
Can't wait to see it with some corals.

 

[ac7av]

That’s the coolest thing I think I’ve seen yet. That is so awesome to do a top off like that.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Looks neat, you should get like 3 sexy shrimp for it Maybe a pompom crab too.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

Fishoutofwater:

Lvsuckerfish: haha thanks man. I intended to make people go wtf

Luis: soon you will!

Caitlen: I can't wait to pick up some corals from your place haha

ac7av: thanks dude. I used the same type of top off setup on my 8g sps cube too but that one only lasts me about 3 days lol. It's a super cheap way to maintain top off if you have a nano.

Mgdmirage: great idea. I think I'll have to actually do that. Sexy shrimp=win.

I've been trying to get my father to put this in his office at Microsoft. Those offices are just too boring lol. He won't do it more for me then! Haha

 

[IWishIWasAFish]

That's exactly what I want for my auxiliary school tank! If you get tired of it, let me know How does that top-off work exactly?

Thank you for sharing the great ideas and example! I want a teeny little tank, and I figured on Mondays I'll put one little coral frag or creature in it for the kids to observe more closely and/or touch, and on Fridays I'll move the critter back to the main tank. Was thinking one piece of live rock, HOB nano-filter/refugium and a 90% water change using main tank water every Monday.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

Iwishiwasafish: Will do, but you could make your own for very little amount of money. I'll do a price rundown for you. The auto top off works as a gravity fed system. The whole thing is a hamster water bottle and you just chop off the tip with the marble thing. This tube acts like a valve. when the water is level with the end of the tube, theres no air going into the bottle, thus not pushing any water out. but when the water level is below the tube, air is allowed into the bottle and water is pushed out until the water level is up to the tube.

Yeah your plans sound solid. A small HOB would be very easy to acquire and make work instead of my overflow.

Price rundown:

Tank: 0$ (built from scraps)
Light: 10$
CirculationL 0$ (small filter pump from a freshwater filter)
Heater: 3$
Heater controller: 4$
Thermometer: 2$
ATO: 5$
LR/LS: 0$ (Rubble rock and extra sand from nano)

Total: 21$ Not bad for a complete setup

 

[jag3534]

very unique i must say!...almost need one of those for my office desk!

 

[IWishIWasAFish]

Thanks! I thought that might be how the water bottle worked, but wasn't sure what you'd done with the little ball on the end. Didn't realize the DIY parts for the heater w/controller were so cheap - I'm a little intimidated by the prospect of making that, but I think I could handle the rest. I even have some spare acrylic around here somewhere

 

[Cwazy Clown]

Jag: Thanks man, do it!

Iwishiwasafish: Yup, you just chop it off or you can use pliers to bend it so the balls fall out. Yeah the heater is dirt cheap and to make it even cheaper, if you truely do get into this project and need heat tape, I still have 8" of heat tape I'm not using. I only used ~4". I could ship it to you for free to save you like 3$, which is a good amount if you think about the cost of the whole thing..haha. Its not hard at all to make. The heat tape runs off of 120vac, so all you gotta do is run some wire from the two sides of the tape into a light dimmer and then into a plug. There are some videos, keep in mind, the clips are not included, so just soder wire to the bare metal or bolt it in like I did...

How to wire heat tape to a plug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUZRwsEjUwY&feature=player_embedded

How to add a controller to the heater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QIoU645-YQ&feature=player_embedded

How to mount the heat tape. (I skipped this as mine is just sitting under the tank. It doesnt get hot enough to damage anything. 12" of 3" thick heat tape gives ~10 watts of heating power. I'm using 4" for .5gallons and I can get a temp boost of +20 degrees at max power. )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InucZXSvnuQ&feature=player_embedded

 

[IWishIWasAFish]

Thank you some more! Youtube is an amazing thing. I can learn to do this without tracking down someone to teach me

 

[estoniangirl]

Nice setup!!!!

Iwishiwasafish: Will do, but you could make your own for very little amount of money. I'll do a price rundown for you. The auto top off works as a gravity fed system. The whole thing is a hamster water bottle and you just chop off the tip with the marble thing. This tube acts like a valve. when the water is level with the end of the tube, theres no air going into the bottle, thus not pushing any water out. but when the water level is below the tube, air is allowed into the bottle and water is pushed out until the water level is up to the tube.

Yeah your plans sound solid. A small HOB would be very easy to acquire and make work instead of my overflow.

Price rundown:

Tank: 0$ (built from scraps)
Light: 10$
CirculationL 0$ (small filter pump from a freshwater filter)
Heater: 3$
Heater controller: 4$
Thermometer: 2$
ATO: 5$
LR/LS: 0$ (Rubble rock and extra sand from nano)

Total: 21$ Not bad for a complete setup

$21 that's it?!?..would be great for a frag tank... make it long and narrow with like two lights???!?!!!:idea: hmmm :idea: let me know what you can come up with and how much ???!!! :

 

[Cwazy Clown]

You know what would be cool.... a 36x6x6" tank. Itd be a massive bookshelf tank, or a frag tank if you wanted. lol.

Its actually quite easy to put together a dirt cheap system if you plan ahead. For example, if you wanted a 36x6x6 tank, the acrylic for that would probably be 10$ worth of scraps. Then you got the heater, which would be 8$, and a controller 4$. Then you can decide if you want to build a vortech like I did or to buy a k-nano or something really small. If you build a powerhead, itd be 20$, if you buy a new k-nano its 30$ and if you buy a used random powerhead, i'd be like 5$. then we got lights, well LEDs are ftw and cheap to DIY. StevesLEDs sells 3w LEDs for 2.15$ each. So you'd need like 6, which is 13$. Then you add a wall slug, which would be very easy to find, around 5$. If you cant find one, then 20$. ATO: 4$

Best case scenario: 10+8+4+5+13+5+4= 49$

Update: I added my first lil frag of zoas today, Thanks Thang for the phree phrag! Theyve been in the tank for 1 hour now and one polyp is 1/2 open.. hahaha OPEN UPPP

 

[Shane and John]

Clown...you ought to build a few of these set ups...I know we would like another small one..

 

[Cwazy Clown]

haha maybe I should make a couple of different sized ones and just see who wants what. I know I really want to try the 36x6x6.

I'd design all of them with coast 2 coast overflows

 

[estoniangirl]

i'm first on the list whens the pick up? maybe something like 15x12x12???? will the lights be ok for zoa's - that's mostly what i have let me know....