For November we're featuring El Fabuloso and his 3 gallon pico reef!



Click the picture above to check out his reef profile! You can find El Fabuloso's tank journal here in our Members Aquariums forum. Feel free to post any comments or questions you may have for El Fabuloso, and he'll try his best to answer them.

yay fab!!!
Your pico is amazing!
I want your blue cloves
P.S. C marks made a typo...

hey, even i saw this one coming!

congratulations, fab!

OMG, DATS FABULOUS!!!!!
Congrats, Aaron!!!

Congrats!

I love the Monti cap in the back

nice, keep it sexy!

Awesome! I love the monti cap.

Thanks guys! I think I'm still shocked that they would pick the noob with the pico for TOTM. It's a real honor and am flattered to be featured on this wonderful site.

clownfish1124—yes, I noticed the typo.

i was bout to say, but cmarks fixed it

Congrats Fab! I was thinking about setting up a second tank for a long time and your pico was what put me over the edge. Enjoy your well deserved time in the limelight my friend.

Simply Superb Fab! Congratulations!!

Congratulations!

wow, that's a great little tank

good one

A very good one!!!

Congrats!!!

Another great TOTM

Just wanted to know how you acclimate your corals in such a small tank. Great Job-Congrats

Thanks for all the compliments!


That's funny because your tank was one of the ones that inspired me when I first started browsing through this forum.


I get all my corals locally so I typically just float the bag and add/remove water over a 45-minute period. Sometimes less if I'm impatient or in a hurry. lol

Congrats man. Your my inspiration.

ELSOLUTELY FABULOSO! You make the pico look so big in size. Yes really love it! Very nice!

Oh this just POPS with perfection. Absolutely gorgeous! Congratulations on a job well done!

Thank you all for the kind words!

Fantastic PICO. I noticed in your TOTM piece you said you regretted not painting the back black. I recently heard James Fathery speak on lighting (it was the same talk he gave at MACNA). He showed submerged detector data for numerous different lighting schemes. He also tested light values in various tank setups. His findings were that a major amount of the total light comes from reflection back into the tank from both the inner surface and the outer surface of the glass. By painting the outside you wreck that reflection and lose SIGNIFICANT (I mean like 35%) of youtr light. If you don't believe me think about how bright the inside is, but light isn't pouring out through the sides.

He suggested using a piece of colored backdrop. Even taped onto the tank it prevents the lost reflection.

A tiny bit of added potential for cleaning and maintenance, but you could retrofit that.

BTW, I am very impressed with this. I ran a pico for a while and it became too much of a mess and I eventually moved everybody into the regular tank. I'm inspired to try it again some day.

Mitch

Is that right? I'm so glad you shared that I guess I don't feel too bad after all. I was looking at it strictly on aesthetics but I guess it makes perfect sense. I don't like the way colored backdrops look especially when salt creep starts forming under it so I'm fine with it just the way it is.

You should definitely start a pico again. Be sure to keep sexy shrimps.

Well it's about time Elfab !!!! It is a very sexy month I am feeling !

Congrats. Your tank makes me want to get a pico again.

You have inspired me to put more effort into my pico. It has been sitting with nothing but rocks for months. To give you an idea, it was Christmas or birthday present from last year.

congrats!really awesome pico...

Well done fab!

NICE. I love the monti cap!

Thanks for the all compliments!


Wow. That's around the same time I started my tank! You better get cracking. But seriously though, everyone should get a pico. With sexy shrimps, but that goes without saying.

Congrats! Looks great

Really? Where are you shopping? I haven't seen corals like that around here in a couple years.


Congrats, btw.

cool!

Thanks for all the comments!


Yes, locally.

Lucky Tropical Fish:
• Montipora cap.
• Galaxy coral
• Fungia
• Xenia
• Orange yuma
• Green striped mushrooms
• Zoas

Atlantis:
• GSP
• Daisy polyps
• Palys
• Zoas

Tropical Expressions:
• Florida rics
• Zoas

Green Valley Aquarium:
• Blastomussa merleti
• Palys

Trop-Aquarium:
• Blue cloves

Wow. Guess I should start going on my Monday LFS jaunts again, lol. Kudos.

You should! The prices are disheartening but I like to haggle. I was just at Lucky today and scored a nice candy cane for $20 so I guess I can add that to my list.

P.S. GV Aquarium closed down in case you didn't get the memo.

OMG WHAT?!


I was going to get some LR from them in a couple weeks. They just did that big remodel over to all-marine, too.

Damn shame. Now where am I going to find good Florida rock?

Yes, they closed a month ago due to the bad economy. Of course their location didn't help much either. They had a two-week long closing sale where they sold everything but it was still way too expensive.

Absolutely Incredible, beautiful tank Fabuloso
It's hard to believe its just 3 gals. Looks like a much bigger tank in the photos. Keep up the good work and when I decide to ever set mine up if I can get it to look just 1/2 as good as yours I will be happy.


Cheers

Thanks! And welcome to N-R.

Congratulations, you did an excellent job amigo!

Do you have sumps, fuge connected to your pico other than the Aqua70?

Thank you.

There's no sump connected to my tank, just the AC70.

Hi,
Great looking tank! I am going to try giving this a go But after reading your page I have a question already, Why do you spray paint the back of the tank? And what colour did u choose? Mine will be here this friday and I am wondering if thats something that should be done.
thanks
Bill

all i wanna say is that i was using stumble and "stumbled upon" your TOTM picture..how cool is that huh?