0.5g 'femto' tank

So PNWMAS is having a 'femto' tank competition. system volume must be under 1g and there's a total budget max of $120 (not counting rock, sand and sessile inverts). I figured I'd try to track my progress here too. Nothing together yet, but the ordered items are trickling in:

1. 1/2g cube-ish vase from goodwill - $3
2. AZOO mignon 60 filter/skimmer deal. $14 on amazon, this will probably house some GAC/GFO and the heater and is sole source of water movement (16gph) - $14
3. Archaea Mini Aquarium Heater, 25w with a good heating controller $28
4. DIY leds from rapidled.com using a 4"x4.25" heatsink, a moonlight driver (up to four diodes), two moonlights, a 5w CW diode and a 3w violet/UV diode (POP!) - $29
5. need to plan a way to mount the leds/heatsink above the vase
6. rock/sand/water (initially, at lease) will come out of my 90g to kick start things.

this bad boy will techincally be running about 28watts per gallon of LED power, which is kind of disgustingly high. I'm planning on a snail or two and possibly a little goby (under 2" max size). because of the teeny bioload, crazy lighting and hopefully easy maintainence (with GAC/GFO and 50% water changes), I'm hoping to make this an SPS-only reef (32x water with just the filter).
I've got a 1/2" frag of birdsnest from Kimberlee and will be getting a frag of german blue digi from smann this sunday. They'll both live in my 90 until the femto is ready for them. I'll probably snag a couple trochus snails and maybe a couple nasserious, either from my 90g or from TPA in salem. Garret said he's going to try to bring in some teeny gobies for us competition people to get, so that should be good. he had an amazing 'bamboo' shrimp (I think that's what he called it). it was super awesome, but looks like it needs low flow and was $30... a lot for this budget.

I'm up to $74 right now, $45 left in the budget (remember rock, sand, corals and other sessile inverts are not part of the budget). I figure the goby and snails will run me $20-30, so I'll see what I spend the other $15ish on (if anything). maybe some plastic for a media rack in the mignon? maybe a sexy shrimp, we'll see

if you're curious, this is the official competition thread:
http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/showthread.php?32746-Femto-Tank-Competition-2012-2013

I'll try to be good about keeping pictures going on this, but there's nothing to show yet, just an empty vase on the shelf.

this was something a few friends and i have tried before with a couple of differnt stipulations such as gallons and it did come out pretty interesting.the one thing that we didnt really count on was the DIY skills of each participant was not equal nor was the raw resources. Some distributers, such as thrift stores ,do not have the same price tag cash value so in the end it was a little bit one sided but on another note is the tanks that came out of it were each unique to the person who created them.i wonder how they will judge these tanks?

on another note that would be pretty cool if you could make it an SPS micro nano.i dont see why you couldnt if you kept the temps stable and changed out the media on schedule.seems like an overkill on the lights can you dim them?there are some real cool little gobies out there.some are pretty costly and some are not...the yellow and green clown goby come to mind.as does the wheelers.i look forward to checking out the progress.

Ya, lights are way overkill, I may only use two of the four...not sure. I don't think the moonlight driver can dim, but I can either lift the fixture or mask it (with window screen or something).
a clown goby or some of the teeny free-swimming hoboes come to mind for me. With the sps, snails and possible sexy shrimp. A filefiwh would be cool, but they're spendthrift and big...anything teeny that you can't put with LP, sorties or zoas but that will be nice to the birdsnest and digi?

good call, the screen to diffuse the light and distance should work out well.and i might watch out on the LPS and the softies as many of th soft corals will overwhelm the small water volume with toxin and mucus depending on the species and LPS can be unfriendly niegbors as far as stinging goes.just a heads up.you could go woth some small LPS on the floor and let the SPS branch out from the mid tank level.and of course some slow growing mini zoanthids in there somewhere.maybe night mares or blue somethings. hmmmm micro fishes???

I might put a frags of little vacant I have in there, probably not, I might put a frags of zoas in there, probably not. I'm thinking to just put the birdsnest and digi, maybe a little pink spa I've had since it was (I thought) dead and is only half-alove still...

i might be able to throw something to try out in there once it is all up and running.a little snipet of a branch maybe.

This seems like a pretty cool idea to me. Especialy if there was some sort of way that all of the participants could bring their tanks into a single room for judging. It might be a little unfair as far as the availability of some things,such as if you have access to a friend with overgrown corals, but in the end it would really come down to enginuity and an eye pleasing look.That can certainly be done within the contest constraints.Can't wait to see one up and running.

i am pondering thinking about trying to do one of these little nanos. hmmmmm it would be kinda cool and i dont have much to lose so to speak.

YES!!!
I want to see one in a window with no light and no heater...which is also cheap.

hmmm i guess i will be keeping my eyes open for a gallon vessel.

you know how much I want to put a clam in here? so bad...so bad.

but alas, it will have to be SPS and only SPS, that's the plan. wondering if there's a encrusting or scrolling SPS that can use stupidly-high lighting to put on the sand in this...I think that'd be nice to have with the blue digi and brown birdsnest that will be branching...

btw, I got my HOB filter today, the AZOO mignon 60. it's about 1 1/3 cups of water volume, super tiny. water flow adjusts, apparently 16-24gph. I'll probably keep it pretty 'open' since it's sps.

are you going to just rock some rock in the filter or some carbon as well.i do like carbon in my systems.and did you make a flow deflector for the filter so it doesnt kick things up too much?

The filter is super teeny, not much more than the heater for space. I'll probably try to squeeze a couple table spoons of carbon and maybe even GAC, but that's tough. I'm thinking that's will basically fill the volume of the whole thing. And yes, I said a rablespploon or two of each is all.
I got the heater and led kit today too. Heater and pump are running now to make sure it all works. I'm working on getting the electrical schematics right, voltages, etc. Hopefully it all works out. Thinking about some black nail Polish over the violet diode to tone it back a bit...we'll see once it's together. First I need to figure out a way to mount the heatsink ...

here's the idea:


I'm planning to wire the 4 diodes in series, it'll run about 4.5watts (I think), 350mA through the circuit, which includes two 'moonlights', one cool white and one UV/violet. I'll see how bad the UV is once I get it rigged and possibly put some black silicone or black acrylic over the diode to tone it back some, but i'm hoping it'll be ok or the sps I'm planning on.
The heater sticks just a tad out of the filter, I'll need to cut a little whole in the filter lid so it will still sit flush, also need to get minibaggies of some sort to put GAC/GFO in (might be needed?). planning on keeping a nalgene next to the tank with RO/DI for top off and having a gallon jug around for water changes. hoping to do two 50% changes per week (which means about 0.6 gallons of NSW per week needed).

hoping to find some kind of encrusting or scrolling sps for low placement, have blue digi and brown-polypped birdsnest. I'd love to get another frag or two of some sps, 1" or less is great (the tank's only about 4-5" in any given direction).

Well that will be nice if you can manage to fit everything inside that little filter. Make things clutter free so you can enjoy the coral.

man that is looking like it will turn out rather nice.what are you going to do as substrate?just rock?and i have a scroll coral that is recovering but when it is ready i can help you out.

yay for scrolling!!!!

I'm planning on about 1/2" of sand (give or take), anyone wanna do a sand trade this weekend? I am happy to give up a cup of mine for a cup of yours (try to start the femto off with some good bacteria). My sand is super fine aragonite, originally dry, added to the tank about 13-14 months ago, moved to my 90g (from the 55) about 6 weeks ago and the new tank is running well (did a pretty thorough rinse of the sand when moving).

I plan to get it officially started by this weekend, including a piece or two of rock from my main tank and some sand (probably about half from my tank and half from someone elses, or 1/3s or whatever if multiple people want to do sand trades). I'll take pics for sure

livestock will be a while, I'll probably add an omega pellet each week or so while its cycling, then add a trochus and nasserious snail once I see algae. I plan on just doing top off water until I see either the nitrates/phosphates too high or I am about to add coral. I'll probably do two or three 50-75% water changes then (at least one of them from my 90g), then add my little digi frag (and hopefully a scrolling coral from badx), probably a sexy shrimp or two...possibly a little 1" or so goby.

i can throw you a hand full of sand some time.just drop me a line and i will dig some out.

Any pics of the progress?