First tank

My mentor, who's also from this forum, calls my set-up 'a Joke', although not in the bad sense. I just call it Over-kill or "A swallow may be small, but it has all the internal organ". Well as a warning, the pictures are kinda not all regarding aquascaping tho... And I'm so new to this, I don't even know the names of the plants.


My 1 gallon Cherry shrimps tank... super tiny..
Substrate is 2mm GEX "water grass" (水草)


My DIY Self-Standing plumbing system and self customised undergravel filter.
I was using silicon sealant, but they can't take the load and handling. So I ended up using hot-melt (in the background) as a temporary measure, can't leave my poor shrimps sitting in a tuperware for too long. Just bought some aquarim-purpose epoxy today. Going to rebuilt all the elbows and joints.


How the plumbing looks in the tank. Kinda like a perfect fit.


The filtration system... or rather the "Joke" part, but follwing my mentor's advice, I didn't get some other components that I wanted to add initially... So it's not much of an overkill now.

The Heart is a Eden 501 canister, and the reason of the customised plumbing. It runs on the less common, but smaller, 12mm/9mm hose size, so I've to built everything myself so that it would fit the hose. Another reason for the customized plumbing and using of a undergravel filter is that it's much smaller than having a sponge wrapped filter intake and 'giant' tubing all over the place. This way, I have more space in the already tiny tank to work with.
I've added some activated carbon to the mechanical filtration compartment of the Eden 501 as well.

Then there's the Dolphin 788 TME cooler. T_T


A wide angle view of my tank. The chiller and fan still failed to reduce the temperature sufficiently. So I guess my plans to try keeping CRS had to be postponed until I can afford a proper coolant based chiller...

Anyway, anyone has any ideas how I can suppy CO2 to a setup this small?

Some people doses Seachem Excel as a Co2 replacement.
Interesting setup with the undergravel and filter and chiller.
How is the flow rate in your tank ? connecting the Eden 501 with chiller than a undergravel, should reduce the flow by alot.
Heard from one crs keeper, he do overfiltration more than one canister filter in a tank. Not sure about the rest thou.

Nice. I searching around for info on setting up a small tank in my office. Learned alot from here.

hmm... why not try out the DIY co2?

I don't have a means to measure the flow rate but it's stil more thanl sufficient, perhaps gravity feeding helped the pump with over coming the resistance from the gravel. I have to add a valve to reduce the flow, or i'll get a washing machine in the tiny tank.

The valve I use is a quick release valve from Eheim (They make 12/9 hose accessories ^_^). It also makes water change much easier, I could split it, switch on the valve on the tank side and the water from the tank would be gravity fed into a pail. And to get water into the tank, I just need to place the pail with the change of water on the same level as the tank, put in the other end of the quick release, turn on the valve and the gravity and the canister's pump will feed water back into the tank. That's the reason for the loops of hose hanging around in the picture of the filters.

I just went and google on the Seachem Flourish Excel, interesting I may go out and buy a bottle. I'm trying to supply CO2 now because I hope to improve the growth and rooting of the plants... Most are trying to float out from the fine and light gravel. I'm thinking: low CO2 = low photosynthesis for the plants = low glucose = slow growth. Am I wrong? The problems with the Seachem flourish excel would be the daily dose... 1 cap (5ml) for 200 galons. Which means daily dose for my tank would be 0.025mls... I don't have a micropipette like a lab... how can I measure that tiny volume?! Or should I just space out the doses to water changes?

As for DIY CO2, any interesting threads for me read on it? I've no idea what that is...

The Eden filter is not meant to sit under the tank. The motor used is not strong enough and you will end up burning out the motor by placing it like that. What kind of a chiller is that, that it can't chill a small tank like that? Hope you didn't pay too much for it.

Originally Posted by brianclaw

The Eden filter is not meant to sit under the tank. The motor used is not strong enough and you will end up burning out the motor by placing it like that. What kind of a chiller is that, that it can't chill a small tank like that? Hope you didn't pay too much for it.

Hee, actually i'm aware that Eden 501 is designed to be placed on the same level as the tank and I was prepared to have it there when I bought it. So I checked by eye on the flow rate of it at the same level as the tank, and at the lower shelf. Perhaps due to the help from gravity (i.e. gravity will try to level up water levels in both end of a U shape tube), difference in flow rate observed is not noticable. But I do have to start the system with the filter leveled with the tank, but once the water is in the tube, all's well.

As for heat... the filter pump is "water cooled" naturally right? With the water temperature lower than ambient, i think it should be fine. Well, only time will tell.

As for the cooler. It's a Dolphine MC-788 TME based cooler, similar to what some people build themselves. It's rated at 75 watts. And TME cooling efficiency is only 10-15%, much lower than coolant based coolers, and Singapore's recent above 30 degrees C weather isn't helping... So, personally I'm disappointed with it as well. I got it at SGD$88 at a LFS. Should have saved the money and buy a proper chiller. But I can't find one that would fit in that tiny shelf...

Good set-up and tank looks ok, plants are healthy green. You DIY and got everythings running even with a cooler/chiller. Hey, you are not so new but quite a expert with hardwares.

Originally Posted by eddyq

Good set-up and tank looks ok, plants are healthy green. You DIY and got everythings running even with a cooler/chiller. Hey, you are not so new but quite a expert with hardwares.

Haha... Well, the plants looks healthy cos I just planted them... Hope they still looks that way in the next few weeks. As for DIY, well I guess Technical Education in secondary has its uses... And my old modelling tools helps.

good start up.

Nice to see the hardware and the stages before completion. Thanks for sharing.

Wow the diy parts look complicated but cool. I assume the long tube at the top is the outflow? The other 2 are inflows?

Originally Posted by limchongyu

Wow the diy parts look complicated but cool. I assume the long tube at the top is the outflow? The other 2 are inflows?

Hee, it looks more complicated than it is. The long tubing from the gravel filter and the longer L shaped tube is the draws water out from the tank while the shorter L shaped tube and the 'rainbar' is the returns water to the tank from the filter system. The 2 are actually seperate, but being held together by the black joints at the top. I glued the 2 joints together so that the gravel filter would suport all the tubing, enabling it to stand.

possible to use computer water cooling system?