Well i just wanted to introduce myself. I have been hovering for a while, trying to soak up all the knowledge that i can. i'm kind of a research freak before starting anything. I bought a jbj 3 gal pico. i am in love with everybodies setups. I already had my AC70 on a trade before i even had the pico.

I started modifying the fuge. I will upload pics as soon as i can find my camera cable. It's been painted to block light. I just finished that. Now i am getting ready to mod the lid for my light. Also i am goin to tint the glass on the tank instead of paint. I want more of a smoked look rather than a solid. Plus it's easier to change if i want to down the road. Thanks everybody. I look forward to your constructive critizism and praise.


Nathanael

Welcome to the club !

How about some pics of yoour progress for the memoirs !

here are some pics from my blackberry. sorry. i can't seem to find that stupid camera cable anywhere.

paint and the mod.

well live rock will be here on wed.



i had a question though. is miracle mud (or similar products) beneficial to pico fuges or should i not even bother? i am planning on having chaeto in the fuge and opted not to use lr in there. or should i?
thanks

All I can say on the topic is that I've seen awesome picos with no mud. Whether or not it's worth doing..I can't say.

I personally wouldnt bother. Its a lot of expense.

ok... finally got my pics off my camera and onto the computer (had to buy a new cable.) any here is some updating.

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i need legs for my light. fuge works awesome. can't even hear it most of the time. i have chemi-pure in there and will be picking up some chaeto from lfs soon. it's free there and that is ok in my book.
i am going to be modding the lid on the fuge to fit just the pico bulb. when i get motivated though.


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finally stettled on an scape for now. we'll see if it stays.


potential live stock:
mostly coral for now
lots of zoas and palys
ricordia/yuma
neon candy cane (4 heads sitting in my buddies tank for now)
hammer

although i do have my eyes set on sexies and a possible flaming prawn

nice start!!

thanks. i am super excited.

well my tank has been cycling now for 3 weeks. i used an api test kit and all my levels are at zero. all exept for the nitrate is reading 20 ppm.....ugh! my salinity is reading 1.019 on the hygrometer. i really dont trust those though. but it will have to do until i can get a refractometer. i am going to start adding purple up as well now.


i do however have a film of white floaties in my fuge on both sides of the baffle. my chemi-pure is next to the intake and i am putting cheato in the other side. there is also white floaties on the surface of the tank side as well. the ac70 agitates the water enough. does anyone know what this is? is it from the chemi-pure?

anybody??

I love your scape! white floaties? like surface film? You may be getting a protein skimmer action going on in your tank, i would skim it out by hand and discard. It could just be dust from your sand either way try removing it manually until it subsides.

Also which Hydrometer are you using? The instant ocean one is VERY accurate, I've tested mine against a refractometer and it was dead on(in multiple cases), i am however not sure about all the other hydrometers such as deep six etc.. Whatever you use make sure you get the salinity up to 1.024 - 1.026 prefferably the latter as the ocean is fairly consistent at 1.026.

thanks. i was trying to make the scape look like the rock creature the from neverending story. lol.

it is a deep six. i thought it might be dust or something. thanks for the advice.

my nitrates were low due to the fact that i did a water change yesterday. so i picked up two astrea snails today for a buck a piece and a gob of cheato for free. i some how managed to get what looks like a mantis shrimp. either he was already in the tank from the live rock or he came with the cheato. he is burrowing a whole in front of my live rock. pretty cool for now but will eventually go into my 10 gallon frag tank (once it is setup.) i don't need him eating my future sexies. also the cheato brought in a ton of pods some astrina stars and bristle worms. there is a ton of things going on now.

thats awesome!!!

well. here is an update. i had some what of an diatom outbreak. weird since all my params dropped to 0. oh well my snails on working on it. sorry...... snail. one evidentally fell of the rock while i was at work and wedged himself upside down between two rocks. he hasn't moved in a couple hours. he is presumed dead.

on a good note i have two new additions

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under actinics
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the candy had three heads when i picked it up but since it's been sitting in my buddies tank while mine was cycling. now one is getting ready to split.

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i picked up 3 ricordea today from a local reefer for $10 each. not bad. he had one of the sweetest bow fronts i have ever seen. half of it was a ricordea garden. he had all kinds of stuff for sale.

one i got is whitish with an orange mouth and edge. one purple and blue, and one green yellow and purple.

i also picked of a head of branching hammer for $10 also. i will post pics when they settle in. i dont like the way he glued them though. one is half hanging off. it has two mouths so i might split it later down the road if it doesn't drop itself.

the hammer has two dead heads on it and i am afraid to cut the good head off because it is so close to the others. i'll let you guys see what i am talking about tomorrow.

forgot to mention, i picked up 2 nass snails yesterday and hand fed them today. these guys have so much character. also the guy at the lfs threw in 3 stomatellas for me. i love my lfs. free cheato and stomatellas.

the new pics i promised. i'm working with a kodak 8.2mp so bare with me
i adjusted the saturation a little. the blurriness was taking out the color.

3 ricordea

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hammer

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well. thank goodness i was still up. my ac70 started growling and gurgling. then stopped. i removed my chemipure to see hundreds of little gold balls everywhere. i wondered what they were. then i look in the tank and what do i see. my nass snail wiggling it's butt directly under the intake tube. so i am assuming that they were eggs and it decided to rebel and shoot them directly ( and i mean directly - less then a cm) under the tube. wow!!! what a night.

are nass snails asexual? there are a ton of eggs in my fuge and was wondering the surival rate. i really dont need 10 - 15 nass snails in my pico. looks like early christmas presents. lol

your new mantis will enjoy them id let them grow a little and then put them in your 10 when you get it going

i can't find the little guy any more... he made a burrow in front of my live rock but i haven't seen him since. it would have been a buffet for him.

well i don't know what these little orange balls are. i thought they were from my nass snail since it was directly under the intake tube. but i read that they lay their eggs on the glass. any ideas what they might be? they are all over in my fuge and chemi-pure bag. i don't know if i can get a pic because they are too small. but i will try.

some awesome updates. it seems those are eggs. beings i found a baby nass today on my glass. man is he tiny. it's also a good thing i didn't cut off the stalk of dead heads of hammer for 2 reasons
number one there is a micro brittle star in the biggest one. and second there is a tiny head of hammer growing on the stalk. awesome. not only is the one i paid for splitting but know i have one growing. also i have tiny tubes with long hair-like tentacles coming out.

wow, tough crowd......


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disregard this if you've already said it, but what type of lighting do you have on your pico?

current usa dual 36 watt

hahaha. guess what fellas. i just picked up a 14 gallon biocube stand, new in the box, for $45. i will upload pics once it gets put together and the tank on it.

pics!!!

tank on new stand

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and here are those eggs. i have thousands!!!

hey there....the tank and stand look great together! Those eggs are crazy! I've never seen that before. I noticed a baby nass snail in my 35g tank a few months ago. I never noticed any eggs prior to that. You'll have to let us know what happens with those.

thanks gena. glad you stopped by. i saw a tiny baby snail yesterday. it had the shell like a nass but not a long foot. maybe it is a baby nass and hasn't fully developed. i also found a tiny shell like one didn't make it. but i will definately keep and eye out. since it's next to my bed it's hard for me to fall asleep. i stare at it for awhile at night and see all sorts of new stuff

I'm hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those eggs are that of the dreaded "Mind Eater" Annelida. It's a phenomena that only occurs in the enclosed aquarium environment. They hatch late at night, then leave the tank in search of the nearest sleeping human host (preferably an aquarist) where they burrow into the brain and, as their name implies, eat it from the inside outward. In the final stages, before the host succumbs to the loss of brain tissue, they release spores at a LFS which the host has been compelled to go to. Luckily the spread of online shopping has helped to inhibit their spread.
If you send me all the eggs, I'll dispose of them properly (free of charge). You should send the whole fuge to be on the safe side.
Until then, sleep with baby carrots in your ears, and a 50/50 mixture of vaseline and thousand islands dressing on your lower orifices. You can't be too safe.


-Honest Gimp

lol. that is stinking hilarious. but i'm still a little paranoid. although, i think i have found a solution by accident. when they burrow into my head they will soon find out that the only thing there is my pico again. therefore they will be in the twilight zone and eventually starve to death. lol

but to be on the safe side i will by some baby carrots tonight. but i don't know if i can justify the thousand island dressing. my dog might just get a little too friendly while i sleep.

Dude. They don't go in through your head.

well, just somethings new i found today: pineapple sponge, red worm-like creatures on the class, tiny baby snails.......oh ya and FLATWORMS!!!!!

I found a flatworm on the glass in my pico too. A hitchhiker from my 10g. I feel your pain.

i only saw 5 on the glass so i pulled them out. i might have to treat. that what i get for not dipping.lol good luck with yours.

some updates. picked up three heads of orange acan. got some free zoos with it. also have alot of stuff coming next week. i'll get some pics once everything is in and open.

Any chance you ripped your bag of chemi-pure a little? One of the constituents of the chemi-pure is little orange balls that look exactly like that.

that would be correct. i assumed thats what it was. nothing ever hatched from it....lol

That would have been pretty cool if they did hatch though, if the babies all grew up into full bags of chemi-pure you would be set for life, you could probably even trade/sell off a bunch for profit

I only knew what it was because I've had that stuff (and the black part too) all up in every crevice of my picotope once lol. You got off easy

there is some in my sand bed. sux. it would take forever to get it all out. my nass snails move the sand so much that it just gets buried though. ya, i wish i had infinate supply of chemi-pure.

got some mysis today. the acans and candy snarfed it down. looks like i will have a colony in no time! got some stuff coming over night. should be here wednesday....can't wait!

This thread needs way more photos Maybe a new fts?

i have some photos but they are from a crappy kodac digital. not the most appealing but i will get some on here. we are goin to be moving soon and my grapa has brain cancer so i have been caught up in alot of stuff. tank looks good though. i'll get some up asap. lol

so sorry to hear about your grampa take your time on the photos..you have a lot on your plate right now!

thank you. he is doin pretty good with the treatments. we will at least get one more christmas with him. i took some pics but i still have to upload them to the computer.

thread needs moar pichers

Hope you have he best Holidays ever with Grandpa. Sorry to hear about his cancer.