CADlights 4 gallon Pico build.

Hello again 3reef..

About 7 months ago I sold my house which contained my beautifull 240 gallon in wall tank build. After the move, my wife said were never having another tank again. Ever since, I have been "sober" from the hobby.. Until now...

I was finally able to convince my wife to allow me to purchase a tiny tank as a gift for my 15 month old daughter with a budget around 100 bucks...Haha. When my daughter was real little, she would just stare into that thing and seemed to enjoy it. So, it our project together.

I was torn between buying an AIO or build one. It seemed that building one was going to at least be double or almost triple the cost.

After hours of research, I decided to go with the Cadlights 4 gallon Pico.
It was a tough choice between the Ecopico 4g, JBJ Cubey 3g, and the Innovative Marine 4g. Here's why I chose.

The Cubey looked nice, but it had bad reviews with units arriving DOA, screws rusting, LED's shorting out, and no glass lid. 99.00

The EcoPico looked good, but I didn't like the filter/powerhead combo or the lack of the back chambers. The 129.99.

The Innovative marine looked really good. A little more in price at 149.00

What sold me with the CADlights. 89.99. The ENTIRE back chamber is removable if I want to ditch it all together. The LED light arm is very wide and can easily fit more LED strips. Plus Starfire glass.

 

I purchased the unit last night and waiting for unit to arrive. If any one is interesting ill do an unboxing. There are a few unboxings of this product out there already, but I am more than happy to do one or might do one for the heck of it.

I'll see if I can't bum some live rock from my friends tank with some coralline algae.

Live sand.. Debating between regular aragonite, oolite bahama, or non magnetic black sand.

Ill get a heater later... Its been near 100 out.

Plans for the tank:
Planning on running just stock for months. Doing weekly water changes .5 or 1g water changes. Im going to use either nutri-seawater for the water changes and distilled water for top off. If nutri-seawater gets too expensive ill just buy more distilled and make my own water. Should be very easy to be consistent. I dont trust my LFS's water nor do I want another ro/di station

Not sure if i even want to add any type to additives or chemical filtration. Just simple, consistent, water changes.

Just simple simplexity on this one.

Thanks for reading. Please give me your .02 cents for my piggy bank.

 

Forgot stock internet photos..

 

that is a great looking little tank! I think you made a good choice. Congratulations on finding a way to "squeak" back into the hobby. I would like to know what you're planning on doing with the tank before I'd suggest my .02 on the sand

 

Livestock wise.. We get 1 fish. Seems like my wife is going to have a lotta say on that. She wants something that swims around. I want to put a highfin goby or Yasha + pistol combo in there, If I cant get the green light on that. If not then I guess it will have to be a neon goby.

Inverts will be a small cleaner package from reefkeepers. Pom pom crab. anemone crabs. I don't know if ill do sexy shrimp since they can eat coral.

Coral wise.. Will stick to softies.

 

I love sexy shrimp! what about maxi mini with sexy shrimp? I think your wife would probably really like these shrimp. I'm thinking you may want to go with black sand. I think that may make your fish/inverts stand out more - just my opinion.

 

Ill give it a shot. Still debating on sand.

 

Woah this is gonna be sweet! Can't wait to see progress!!

 

Tank arrived today, 5/5 around 4 pm via Fed Ex.

Overall I am pleased..

looks like this little tank has changed a bit from some reviews I saw on the internet.

The back chamber is no longer removable as it is silicone in.

The light bar looks sleek. Plastic looks a little flimsy, but not bad. A LOT of LED's. Not sure about the specs, but it does look bright. There is enough room to add some Ecoxotic pico strips if I want to increase the lighting. There wouldn't be a mod since they would just stick up there with adhesive tape. The light would still look stock with the added strips.

Pump does look small. There is no flow nozzle. I think I will be able to add an additional pump by stacking them in the return chamber. Pretty confident ill be able to drill a small hole.

Looks like I can squeeze a fully submergible small heater on the bottom floor of the chambers under the filter sponge. Also, looks like room it I want to add some media bags.

Pics to follow tomorrow. Have to go to work.

 

Some pics...