Oops...forgot that the tang police are everywhere...

lol thats just to funny

Might look at something like this for lighting: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-Bulbs-Sup...sQ5fAccessories

That looks pretty cool...

@PATRICK1234.......CAN YOU SHUT THE F*** UP!!!! LET HIM DO WHAT HE WANTS...HES EXPERIENCED AND KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING.IF YOU'RE STILL GONNA POST ABOUT HOW SHORT THIS TANK IS GONNA LAST THEN ILL SAY ITS HIS PROBLEM NOT YOURS...FOR YOUR INFO PEOPLE THOUGHT JUST THE WAY ABOUT NANOS 10 YEARS AGO...
SHAHREZ

shahrezsyed Said



You have no idea what kind of pico pwnage jestersix can deliver.

Current FTS

nice work...like your creativity

This thing is still going haha?

Thats pretty cool.

Wow a bug crawled across my screen and i was like "wtf is in this tank?"

Good to see its still doing great!

Whats next? Windex bottle?

Very creative...cheers to breaking away from the norm

Thanks all...I'm pretty happy with this. The snail has grown, but is only out at night so I don't have any pictures. I added the Zoa about 3 weeks ago, so not sure how that will change things. I have noticed slow growth, I'm guessing because there is really no flow. Funny thing is the inside glass hasn't needed cleaning after the diatom bloom when I first started. The snail keeps it nice and clean!

how many ounces is that?

throw an amphipod and a brittlestar in there and call it stocked....



ew, or ONE sexy.


that'd be great

haha i like it! props to you for being able to do that!

It is 4.5 ounces of water...

Actually there are a couple of amphipods in there - I put a tiny bit of flake food in once a week for them...wish I could find some micro brittles, for some reason I don't have any in my tank! That would be perfect.

Once I get a good macro lens for the new camera, I think I can actually get some interesting pictures from this little beastie.

Tagging along here. Thank you for keeping the thread going even with all the naysayers that keep chiming in. Interesting little project.

Amazing. Please keep us posted and good luck to you.

That is so cute!

Do they really make a 10mm 20k led? I actually googled it with no luck....

really? what is the point of these? i mean....c'mon really?

you should add an aqualifter or at least an air stone just to help with aeration and to give some water movement

otherwise, it looks pretty cool
it'll look even better once coralline starts growing in it

I think its pretty cool. And, if you get bored with it, you just break it down. NO harm no foul. I think some people just love to critize cause the internet makes it safe with no actual chance of meeting the person.

Now, if you wanted to add a fish, that would be another story. This is just algae, a snail (which people feed to other animals) and pods. How can people complain about that?

Hair algae in a jar? Really?

It's not hair algae, looks like some kind of calurpera.

Actually not hair algae - not positive, but I think the stuff on the LR is Cladophoropsis, can be a nuisance algae but in here it looks interesting (at least to me). There is also a few strands of Chaeto growing along with the coralline.

The Zoa is doing fine, actually looks to be budding a baby at this point. The pods are stable, one big Amphipod and some tiny copepods - really this was just a chance to watch a very small system reach stability (if it will). There is almost no time invested...my maintenance takes all of five minutes a week, so why not? Bottom line I did it for me - and posted here in case anyone was interested (thanks to all of you with encouraging words!!).

you guys wanna know what would make perfect circulation in that thing? A magnetic lab stirrer, I used them constantly in my microbiology lab at work...that's when I got the idea, in 1998. You would have to redesign it with a lifted substrate off the bottom, so the ceramic stirrer had room to whirl. For years I toyed with the idea of building an SPS truly truly sealed tank from one of those thick candle jars with the good seal...and this will do it. Your setup is 90% of that already, just need the stirrer!

Im divulging this cuz Im too lazy to roll up that idea and burn it but for this tank it. A magnetic lab stirrer is actually the only device I can think of that can circulate a fully sealed tank with no electricity throughput. yer welcome now go order one from aquaticeco.com and do it right man@!

must have circulation, the first thing that will come will be the cyano and then the hair algae due to dieoff of bacteria and microfauna as the system ages. if you get circulation this will be totally legit for a long term possibility!

Cool idea, used one of those back in college and forgot about them. It would be a bit of overkill on this bottle, but I can see some real potential for a bigger try...

I think alot of people are obsessed with "flow". This bottle has been running 5 months (I know, not all that long) with no flow! Well, actually, I use the turkey baster in it eavery day to move things around a bit + the weekly water change. No die-offs, blooms, or other drama - no spectacular growth or such either. My only concession was temp control now that things have cooled off - the house stays at 68 degrees, so I moved this into a small heated holding tank I use - the bottom stays in the heated water to control it at 78 degrees.

i had mentioned flow because I thought it would have been gone after 5 mos without it, especially for the zoanthids, but if something new pops up from personal experimentation I'd buy that, it doesn't sound impossible. at least that's some form of circulation I had thought you meant capped for 5 mos.

any time you take the lid off for service, flushes, you are refreshing the air space and indeed exporting c02 that may have built up in the mini atmosphere. Also, the depth of the tank makes oxygen saturation very likely because any movement is big movement so if it's working that may be how.

it sure is clean tho and those zoanthids look great...these aren't the 5 month pics above right?

pic update?

Exactly, this is not a true "closed system" - I take the top off to do water changes, etc. Pics above are at about four months - a couple of weeks after I added the Zoa as I recall. I'll post up some new pics tomorrow when I have the ligting to snap some new ones...

Yea, please give some FTS of that thing... I love it

Micro pico is my thing.... and it's great to see others that respect the simple stuff that even other fellow reefer's don't always understand....

I say put a blue ring octopus in it!

Just kidding... great job, and I do want to see a lot of pictures of it....

Oh so sweet! We had to take the tangs out because of the Tang Police, but I don't think there is a "Blue Ring Octopus Police"...

Pics tomorrow, I promise!

I would LOVE to have a pico like that.. I have been searching for a while for a really small container like that... by chance do you know where you obtained that one from? or what it was before it became the micro pico?

maybe looks like an old medicine bottle? Just a guess... but I want one

It is an old specimen jar I picked up in an antique store in San Francisco back in my college days. Good news is that I have seen very similar jars at World Market and other specialty "foodie" stores - they use them for spice jars. I have an old antique acid bottle somewhere in storage, when I find that, it will be round two of the Micro Pico (and that is when I will try a magnetic lab stirrer - I am on the look out for one on eBay).

magnetic lab stirrer for water circulation?

If so, you can find DIY projects on YouTube to build your own

I myself have looked into that....

Just checked that out - very cool! Thanks for the direction. Have you looked at any of Deli's tanks? I would bet he could whip up something awesome for you...

I have been trying to develop a micro sized powerhead for a while now myself.... I have too many pico's and would really like to make something... especially for my 1 gallon acrylic tanks I have (6 of them)

Lab stirrer is WAYYY too much... the concept works.. but not the exact electronics... I saw one used in a 20 gallon and it created a complete vortex still... wayyyy too much....

i like

Hmmm...I know the stirrer we used in collge was variable speed and could be turned down to almost a stop - plus I think you could shave the "stirrer" piece down to slow the motion - sort of like the mod done to slow a HOB. Something to think on for sure. I've been meaning to order a couple of Aqualifters to play with but just haven't had time.

Contractors finally finished our remodel, so I can start putting my study back together so my other Picos will be running soon (fingers crossed)...honestly this one is cool because it is so little work.

I have only recently started learning about the aqualifter... it looks like an air pump... does it suck in water on one end, and pump it out the other? Also, is it adjustable for the speed it does it?

Was thinking of using that for a couple of pico's as well... but I don't have any experience or know much about them... I guess for 15 bucks I should order one to play around with...

Do you know anything else about them?

Only that they pull water in and push it out. I use one on the ATO for the Barracuda but never really checked out what it could do. I'm going to order one to experiment with a bit - most of the tiny systems don't need much flow, obviously I'm not going to try SPS in a 4 ounce bottle (well, probably not...LOL).

Ha Ha!!!! Are you thinking of using the Aqualifter for a closed loop??
That is an awesome idea. It only puts out 3.5 gallons per hour.
Yup sucks up the water on one port, spits it out the other.
I use one, as I think a lot of people do, as the pump for my ATO.

the smallest physical true powerhead currently built and accessible is the jebo water fountain powerhead from overseas. It will sit inside a half dollar, that's dang small. Im sure there are places to find them on the web, look for water fountain parts.

Once, I bought a $75 dollar display from a kiosk in the mall just to get the micro powerhead I saw. I used it to run a water fountain palmtop planted tank, as the waterfall feature, for about 5 years before it went out so there's a longevity test run.

Cool I didn't know there were youtube vids about lab stirrers but id bet a dollar they aren't on micro picos lol

what I would do is go to a craft store and get that rigid plastic material you do hook-and-loop crochet with. Cut it as the floor of the tank, silicone it and inch above the ceramic stirrer and lay the base rock on that so the swirls will travel up. Id rather use the micro powerhead but this still requires wire intrusion and the only way to do that right is to get custom holes cut in the lid and run the wires past through a grommet, more work whereas the stirrer is just bulky. Plus, good stirrers have a built in heater. not thermostatically controlled although Im sure some good ones would be, but they are just as adjustable and can maintain room temp easy I had to do it for titrations and the temps were exact throughout the day. At least the lab stirrers are precise and can run for thousands of hours due to their reliability in the lab...

Interesting on the Jebo, I'll go chase that rabbit when I have some time, but I do agree that it would make more work wiring one in.

The magnetic stirrer has huge potential IMHO, even though a high quality stirrer is seriously expensive. I like the idea of a heating element and I know the more expenisve units offer very temperature stable options...but do I really want to spend $300 or so on a stirrer for a micro pico??

Lights will be on after 1PM and I shoot some pictures.

Any livestock plans for this thing?

okay how about this. Power plug from radioshack, potentiometer, dc motor and you can build you one! for direct drive you just mount a rare earth magnet onto the spindle and one encased in epoxy for the stirrer sick huh lol. you can carve a rotor shape into the stirrer, planing it as needed for current maximums (whereas a flat plane makes the least lift and a sharp angle for the stirrer makes more current, just like a little helicopter blade) this will work easy if you will fabricate just a little and I say you can do it for 50 bucks. come on man this would make a killer tank with a micro stirer do the fabbed rotator trick !

b

heres a jebo

Brandon that sounds pretty cool - I need top go check it out at Radio Shack (after Black Friday!!). That Jebo is sweet...been looking for some online, but the couple places I found were out of stock.