Repurposed EcoZone Vivarium controller

Since I have two EcoZone controllers I've decided that since one of them only controls lights on one setup that has no chameleon in it (cham relocated to different free range). Since I have been working on a very small reef tank project, I thought i'd use it for that. The EcoZone duties will be to maintain water level (called an ATO - auto top off in the awuarium world), water temp, sun rise/set (using a Rapid LED dimmable PAR36) and a dimmable moon LED light that will follow actual lunar cycles.

A brief run down of the equipment...

  • EcoZone Vivarium Controller
  • JBJ Picotope
  • AC70
  • AC70 InTank media basket (older version)
  • Maxi-Jet 606
  • RapidLED Par36 60* (Mixed color with UV)
  • Toms AquaLifter for (ATO)
  • Hydor Theo heater
  • Black sand
  • One 5lb LR

A bit of back ground....

The Picotope aquarium is a 3 gallon tank that comes with a small filter and a simple 9w light. There are a lot of mods people have done with these tanks. I have done away with all that comes with the tank, aside from the tank. I painted the back black to cover up the wires and filter. I have built into the tank a surface skimmer/overflow. This removes any water surface debris and allows for the ATO to work. As water evaporates the water level in the overflow will change and the tank water level is always maintained. Inside my overflow I have a Mini-Jet 606 that I call a 'power hole'. It takes water from the overflow and shoots it out of the overflow to circulate water within the tank. Normally you would use a 'power head' but I don't have room for that, so I dubbed mine the 'power hole' since it is just a hole in the overflow. The AC70 is a very large filter for this size of tank, but I had it on hand and it's never a bad thing to have a lot of filtration. This filter has a media basket in it that is made by InTank.

Here is the current status of the tank:

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Here are some pics of the build...

Mocking things up (yes, the filter is dirty lol)

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I had to break a bit of the rock to make it fit....

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I used a plastic bonding epoxy to fill in the gap between the filter and overflow.

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Side view of the setup..

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I made shallow holes in the side of the overflow wall to secure the heater to the wall.

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These are my two other tanks:

My 12g JBJ Nano Cube. This tank currently has a red slime algae issue... You can see it in this photo as it is before i removed most of the offending slime. I've had to keep my grow light on 24/7 to combat the slime... currently it's been starting to win as you don't see that much slime in my tank anymore.

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Sun Coral, is not photosynthetic, has to be fed a couple of times a week:

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Seat Cucumber, it filter feeds aka cleans the water lol

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some Zoa's:

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My Clown thinks these star polyps is an anemone:

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This is my 29 gallon tank with a 5.5 gallon sump. It is located at my GF's school inher science lab. We don't have the room for it at home and her 'teacher cool factor' is up 10 fold with a reef tank in the class room.

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Rite on kevin they are lookin great..im really missin having a reef tank.. it also doesnt help that i go an get fruit flies for steve that place has some cool fish stuff too.. was just there an seen a perfect tank the guy prolly gunna try sell it to me..
 
Thursday I cut out the overflow so that it could be cut down. Friday it was cut and sealed back into place. It is now 1/2" shorter:

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Recent updates to the 3g.

The 3g now has it's rock, black sand and salt water. I soaked the rock in salt water for about two or three weeks prior to placing into this tank, so the rock should be fairly 'alive', but surely tere will be a cycle.

I need to give a big thanks to Tony at EcoZone. He made a custom patch in the EcoZone firmware for me. Normally the I/O input trigger does not trigger individual AC lines. I needed to do this in order to use the EcoZone as a auto top off. He made it happen with some tweaks and an update for me. It works flawless. :) Thanks Tony!

Before sand and saltwater.

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EcoZone shown at the right.

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I worked on a grow light and light blocking device so that the tank isn't illuminated at night while the 'grow light' is on. I had this LED light for some aquarium laying around. I cut off the flexible goose neck and base, made my plexy cover/light blocker, drilled holes to secure the light to the cover and wired it up.

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Once the cycle is over I will get some corals going in the tank. ;)
 
updates

I added a little frag of a toadstool coral.

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I also added a plastic junker car to the 29g school tank... corals are pissed cause I had been moving them around and the water is cloudy from some supplements I added. :eek:

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Sweet! I love a pico reef. That sun polyp looks more like a dendro but either way it is beautiful. Awesome overflow idea as well!!
 
Kevin, what did you use to make the overflow? I too have a 3 gallon picotope and want to make something like that because having the heater our in the open is ugly.
And how did you paint the back ?
 
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