I've been away from the hobby for a few years because of some military service. But im back in now! I wanted to start with something that I ALWAYS wanted to do, a tiny nano, no being called a Pico. So I settled on the the most popular tank right now. The Eshoppes Deskmate. It has been a very fun build so far with quite a few frustrations due to my design ideas, but it's coming along. I have a really fun space for it in the bedroom that would require a stand so I have built that out. That was the first step in the build.
The stand was pretty frustrating at first because of the size. I wanted it to fit neatly in the space that I had which was going to create some problems. I like a very clean stand that is well laid out on the inside and I like it the same size as the tank. Because of the tank's small size, it was going to create some stability issues if I wanted any height out of it. But I am confident I've fixed that issue. I built the stand out at about 30 inches tall and to the same footprint as the tank with multiple shelfs inside to house electronics, ATO reservoir and some accessories. It's built entirely out of 1X12 with pocket holes and is incredibly strong. After building the frame I sanded it smooth and filled in any gaps or screw holes with putty. A couple coats of paint and lacquer with sanding in between and it's done. I mounted a "foot" to the stand that can be anchored to the floor to prevent any possible stability issues This seemed to be the way to go, because it certainly could be a little wobbly at that height and width even when built perfectly square. The other option would be to build the foot a little beefier and use casters on it, but I hate that look so I went with the anchors. I am not adding any photos of the interior yet because it's not finished, I'm waiting on a couple components to completely finish the inside to 100%. I'll update the photos for that when it's done. In the end, the stand came out perfect.
First photo of the stand unfinished, second photo of the stand finished and third photo of the "foot"
For the tank itself, most of the build was easy to decide on. I went with a Kessil A80 for the light, I love the Kessil shimmer and run it with a controller. I decided on a Bubble Magus MiniQ Skimmer because I like the cup, a Prism ATO, and an LA 25 watt preset heater run on an Inkbird controller for temperature monitoring redundancy. Everything has been going great with that for the most part. The only minor issue is dealing with micro bubbles from the skimmer, and tuning it took a lot longer than I thought, but it seems to be sorted out. it took about two weeks for that to get sorted out.
Now of the very frustrating part of this build. Filtration. I like my tanks to be automated or run with minimal interference. I hate filter socks. I will no the dealing with washing/replacing filter socks regularly. The out of the box solution is a filter cup with some floss which handles all of your mechanical filtration for you. I like a heavier filter load so I generally run media baskets in AIO tanks. This solves two problems. One, I get more filtration. Two, you generally need more flow with a basket to make sure water is sufficiently passing through the entire basket and this can be solve by upgrading the pump. After some research it seems a lot of people went with the IM mini which is DC (awesome) and comes with a controller and a max flow rate of 266gph which is almost triple the stock pump. When dialed back this would give me enough flow for the basket, any corals or livestock and with the controller, no need for a wave maker and the ability to use feed mode. I was stoked.
Having thought all of that out, all is good in the world because you can buy a media basket for this tank. This is where the problems start. Picked up my media basket and pump and quickly realized that I was going to need a dual return nozzle with this pump. No big deal, I added one from Vivid Creative. After having done that the flow from the pump was still too much even on the lowest setting. This was causing the display level to be too high which didn't allow for good water flow over the floss. At this point I was running a media basket with floss on top, carbon, and matrix. My solution there was to widen the overflow ports by cutting them out and putting a 3D printed cover over them to protect livestock. This helped a little but didn't solve the problem. The next solution was to lower the media basket some. So I cut it a little bit shorter. This also helped some but didn't solve it. Next I cut a larger hole in the bottom section of the media basket to allow for more flow and less contraction through the basket, again, some help but not enough.
photo of the first media basket cut down and with an added port to increase flow in the sump
All of this just brought me back to the filter sock, which I am in no way going to use. So I came up with solution #2. I got another media basket and had a piece of acrylic laser cut for a filter cup which I bonded to the basket. This ended up being a much better solution and nearly has solved the problem. However, it's not perfect. I still would like to get that water level down a little. In the end, I do think I am going to have to retreat to a smaller pump. I'll be picking up a Sicce nano today to see what that does. I know that 100GPH is not enough and the IM mini is too much. So we will see if this solves it. If it doesn't I will resort to a stock flow of 100GPH and add a tiny adjustable wavemaker.
First photo is the new system with the cfilter cup and media basket, second photo is just a top view
All in all it has been a very fun build. The scape was fun to build and put together. I completely bonded my scape to make it stable and drilled it to accept frag plugs which I left in for photos. The plugs usually live in my sump until they are in use. This lets them get a nice coating on them similar to what's on my scape. The next steps are to finish the inside of the cabinet once my order gets here and to add a small fish this week to speed things up. Probably a tiny goby. Looking forward to the future with this tank. Full equipment list to follow.
First Photo shows the scape, drilled plugs and overflow guard. next photo is the skimmer with maybe 4-5 days of skim and the last photo is the Kraken Cover
Kessil A80 with custom shield
Custom overflow return cover
Media basket with custom cut filter cup tray
Kraken Filter Cup
Kraken lid with evaporation cover
IM mini return pump
Vivid Creative Dual Return Nozzle
Bubble Magus MiniQ Skimmer
Prism ATO
Custom built ATO reservoir
LA 25 Watt Preset heater
Inkbird Heater controller
laser cut custom ATO reservoir. Made a little logo and had it engraved to make it look a little spicier. Painted it on arrival. Pretty happy with it.
The stand was pretty frustrating at first because of the size. I wanted it to fit neatly in the space that I had which was going to create some problems. I like a very clean stand that is well laid out on the inside and I like it the same size as the tank. Because of the tank's small size, it was going to create some stability issues if I wanted any height out of it. But I am confident I've fixed that issue. I built the stand out at about 30 inches tall and to the same footprint as the tank with multiple shelfs inside to house electronics, ATO reservoir and some accessories. It's built entirely out of 1X12 with pocket holes and is incredibly strong. After building the frame I sanded it smooth and filled in any gaps or screw holes with putty. A couple coats of paint and lacquer with sanding in between and it's done. I mounted a "foot" to the stand that can be anchored to the floor to prevent any possible stability issues This seemed to be the way to go, because it certainly could be a little wobbly at that height and width even when built perfectly square. The other option would be to build the foot a little beefier and use casters on it, but I hate that look so I went with the anchors. I am not adding any photos of the interior yet because it's not finished, I'm waiting on a couple components to completely finish the inside to 100%. I'll update the photos for that when it's done. In the end, the stand came out perfect.
First photo of the stand unfinished, second photo of the stand finished and third photo of the "foot"
For the tank itself, most of the build was easy to decide on. I went with a Kessil A80 for the light, I love the Kessil shimmer and run it with a controller. I decided on a Bubble Magus MiniQ Skimmer because I like the cup, a Prism ATO, and an LA 25 watt preset heater run on an Inkbird controller for temperature monitoring redundancy. Everything has been going great with that for the most part. The only minor issue is dealing with micro bubbles from the skimmer, and tuning it took a lot longer than I thought, but it seems to be sorted out. it took about two weeks for that to get sorted out.
Now of the very frustrating part of this build. Filtration. I like my tanks to be automated or run with minimal interference. I hate filter socks. I will no the dealing with washing/replacing filter socks regularly. The out of the box solution is a filter cup with some floss which handles all of your mechanical filtration for you. I like a heavier filter load so I generally run media baskets in AIO tanks. This solves two problems. One, I get more filtration. Two, you generally need more flow with a basket to make sure water is sufficiently passing through the entire basket and this can be solve by upgrading the pump. After some research it seems a lot of people went with the IM mini which is DC (awesome) and comes with a controller and a max flow rate of 266gph which is almost triple the stock pump. When dialed back this would give me enough flow for the basket, any corals or livestock and with the controller, no need for a wave maker and the ability to use feed mode. I was stoked.
Having thought all of that out, all is good in the world because you can buy a media basket for this tank. This is where the problems start. Picked up my media basket and pump and quickly realized that I was going to need a dual return nozzle with this pump. No big deal, I added one from Vivid Creative. After having done that the flow from the pump was still too much even on the lowest setting. This was causing the display level to be too high which didn't allow for good water flow over the floss. At this point I was running a media basket with floss on top, carbon, and matrix. My solution there was to widen the overflow ports by cutting them out and putting a 3D printed cover over them to protect livestock. This helped a little but didn't solve the problem. The next solution was to lower the media basket some. So I cut it a little bit shorter. This also helped some but didn't solve it. Next I cut a larger hole in the bottom section of the media basket to allow for more flow and less contraction through the basket, again, some help but not enough.
photo of the first media basket cut down and with an added port to increase flow in the sump
All of this just brought me back to the filter sock, which I am in no way going to use. So I came up with solution #2. I got another media basket and had a piece of acrylic laser cut for a filter cup which I bonded to the basket. This ended up being a much better solution and nearly has solved the problem. However, it's not perfect. I still would like to get that water level down a little. In the end, I do think I am going to have to retreat to a smaller pump. I'll be picking up a Sicce nano today to see what that does. I know that 100GPH is not enough and the IM mini is too much. So we will see if this solves it. If it doesn't I will resort to a stock flow of 100GPH and add a tiny adjustable wavemaker.
First photo is the new system with the cfilter cup and media basket, second photo is just a top view
All in all it has been a very fun build. The scape was fun to build and put together. I completely bonded my scape to make it stable and drilled it to accept frag plugs which I left in for photos. The plugs usually live in my sump until they are in use. This lets them get a nice coating on them similar to what's on my scape. The next steps are to finish the inside of the cabinet once my order gets here and to add a small fish this week to speed things up. Probably a tiny goby. Looking forward to the future with this tank. Full equipment list to follow.
First Photo shows the scape, drilled plugs and overflow guard. next photo is the skimmer with maybe 4-5 days of skim and the last photo is the Kraken Cover
Kessil A80 with custom shield
Custom overflow return cover
Media basket with custom cut filter cup tray
Kraken Filter Cup
Kraken lid with evaporation cover
IM mini return pump
Vivid Creative Dual Return Nozzle
Bubble Magus MiniQ Skimmer
Prism ATO
Custom built ATO reservoir
LA 25 Watt Preset heater
Inkbird Heater controller
laser cut custom ATO reservoir. Made a little logo and had it engraved to make it look a little spicier. Painted it on arrival. Pretty happy with it.
