My next project a 2.5g pico reef! contest

Bryan wrote:Sweet setup, are they dimmable ?

Not dimmable, can't do it with this type driver, its variable voltage, not just 12v, it will drive from 6-12 1watt leds. I had to figure out how many leds to use from the start and its perfect.

that a serious setup compaired to most 2.5g out there

okay im sure you posted this somewhere in the 6 pages of this thread, but can you post link for where you got the 10w leds?

Win wrote:okay im sure you posted this somewhere in the 6 pages of this thread, but can you post link for where you got the 10w leds?

Sure John
A piece of advise, if you buy from here, get the leds on the stars not just the round led, the stars make it much easier to solder it all together. This is his ebay store, all kinds of leds, lenses, and drivers, if you need any assistance shoot me a PM. Takes about two weeks to get after ship. I made the heat sink from a 1/8" x 2" flat aluminum angle and a piece of 1/2" aluminum angle from Tractor supply and stainless steel rivits from TS!



LED supplier

Daytime pics with new leds taken this morning. Much better to my eye, what do ya'll think?

wow that looks really bright lol

Great lighting and color from your LEDs. I hope your coroline takes off for you also.

matt_longview wrote:Great lighting and color from your LEDs. I hope your coroline takes off for you also.

Just to let you guys know, I have always used reef crystals and it has always been good to me but the last 160g bucket I got has been consistently testing 3 DKH on the alk. This is ridiculous. I contacted customer service and they want me to send them a few cups at my expense to test. I have a better idea, they can take their salt and shove it where the sun don't shine! I will be switching brands, I shouldn't have to add baking soda to freshly made water. I made it yesterday, let it circulate all night and today the ph is 7.8 alk 3. Be sure to check your water out!

that is why I got away from RC, then DD H2Ocean was sooooo dang expensive. Now I am using Red Sea Coral Pro and everything is looking great and I havent dosed since the switch

Fed my pico a little cyclo-peese this morning and saw this bristle worm stick his head out for a meal, sure makes ya wonder where all this stuff comes from. I used dead boiled rock and only a spoon full of sand from my 28 and this pico has pods in it 1/4" long and then this morning the bristle worm, it is so cool to watch all this stuff appear. The sps are doing ok but not much growth yet, I'm still working on just what makes them go.

Quit being modest... you're just trying to give us time to catch up so nobody can say you won because you got started earlier. You know exactly what you're doing and we all know it!!! ;-)

That's a cool find with the bristle worm. I'm a little jealous I haven't spotted one in my tank yet.

What really has me bungfuzzled is that no coralline is growing yet. I have noticed the same thing in my 28 that coralline has a hard time growing, only thing I can figure is the leds are hampering its growth. Not that this is a bad thing you know lots of folks say coralline growth hampers the nitrogen cycle by clogging pores in the rock that the bacteria live in. I keep my calcium high and alk high and plenty of circulation with two pumps in the pico but still lacking any coralline. I have seeded it several times with scrapings and added a couple of pieces to the tank but no luck yet, I would like a little coralline just for color.

Is the color all across your front rock coraline or just light? If that's coraline that seems like some decent growth.

Its just the blue from the leds. I have one tiny speck of coralline way out of the light.

Tank is lookin good Donnie. I agree, it is amazing how stuff still seems to find it's way into the tank. Can't wait to see the end result.

Thanks Tony, everything still appears to be alive just not getting much growth. The Milli in the center is growing, it has started to spread down over the superglue and the green birdsnest has sprouted a fork but mostly just staying the same. I am experimenting with C-Balance to try to get more growth, that and Cyclo-peese. How is your tank doing?

I like your project, and it looks great!!!

Found some Nerite snail eggs in the pico yesterday! These guys are supposed to have a male and female to have babies but this one has been in the pico for three weeks, I guess she could have been fertilized prior to I don't know. It will be interesting to see if the babies hatch and make it with no predators in the tank to bother them.

Just to update this on the Nerite eggs, nothing ever came of them, the snail still continues to lay eggs but they never produce any little snails as of july 24, 2011.

I had some nerite eggs on my back glass a few weeks back also. Without predators in yours though... it's a little more interesting. :-)

Hope you have some little snails running around, those nerites do good work!

Don't know if I need three pics in for this month but here they are anyway!

That rule will be in effect starting tomorrow, you can use these as your June pics if you want.


tank is looking great by the way.

Looking awesomely good

Took some fresh closeup pics today for my June pics! Still can't get coralline to grow under the leds, most sps have started growing to the rock and I love these crazy clove polyps.

looks good Donnie. not sure what to tell you on the coraline situation, might do some research on this to see what I can find.

Bryan wrote:looks good Donnie. not sure what to tell you on the coraline situation, might do some research on this to see what I can find.

I'm convinced its the leds, Corraline just won't grow good under intense light from led, its the same in my 28g. All the params are perfect for corraline but no growth except in the shade from corraline that was already on the rocks. In the case of the pico I used dry bleached rock and tried to seed it several times.