where's my LR?

so it begins...nice patio!

Good Luck Tiny

water's in (last night). some of the fiji pink's floating on top. yummy.


rock's in. 'twas a dried-out/nuked-out piece of fiji from the lfs's throwaway bin (cheeep). but not a bad looking/shaped piece imo (hopefully you'll see it soon <insert 'oh: emoticon> .


waiting for the water to clear up again after rock entry. also had some issues with the heater set too high (85F ). pita hagen heater.

already switched out the DW-12 air pump for a DW-18 air pump (i really have too much aquarium junk accumulated thru the years). the dw-12 just wasn't creating the turbulence and flows i wanted. the dw-18 seems about right so far.

but obviously, i'll have to wait for the water to clear some more to adjust/determine the flows and air bubble directions.

so far the acrylic canopy is working like it should, holding in the water splash and letting in sufficient light. we'll see if the placement (northern window) is enough for corals and ilk.

do you plan on using any artificial lighting? from the way you worded your post, it makes it sound like you will be using 100% natural daylight.


if that's the case, this will be the thread that interests me the most...

no, i don't plan on using any artificial lighting. 100% sunlight on a northern window. i'm thinking southern might be too hot, even in winter. it's one of the things i'll be figuring out as we go along.

i was originally considering a LED moonlight but i'll be getting real moonlight (it was very bright last night) so i'm now figuring to skip that as well.

i'm also trying to go without a pump/powerhead (a ugf and randomn bubbles only, a la Eng-method of reefkeeping) but i'm waiting to see how the water dynamics work themselves out before fully committing to that. plus the issue of livestock, which i haven't completely decided on.

so far so good imo, but the water hasn't really cleared completely for me to judge. i also need to put casters onto the shelving unit so i can more easily see the other side. so far i'm really just looking at it from the "back side".

so i may re-aquascape, which will obviously rearrange the water dynamics again. i've already chiseled some of the rock to sculpt the water flow (very minimally though).

you're using a UGF? what kind of media are you using with that?

and by media, I mean substrate

fiji pink from caribsea.

interesting. like I said, I'm going to be very interested in how this turns out...what do you plan on keeping in it, and are you worried about algae blooms what with that type of lighting?

not so much the algae blooms, i'm more concerned if there's adequate flow with only the bubbler.

i do plan on doing waterchanges (instead of going without) so i'm not overly concerned about nutrient buildup. of course, that goes hand-in-hand with the livestock choice. so that's why i'm still considering my choices (verts, invert, etc.).

i'm a little concerned on temp stability tho. i've prepped for a fan/heater to stabilize. probably/hopefully won't need it until spring/summer.

the main thing for me has always been evaporation. i don't really like using a typical ato on a pico (too biggish) but i got one of physh's just in case my acrylic canopy idea doesn't work as well as i hope. (manually topping off is just too much like work to me )

that idea came from brandon's "evolutionary" thought a couple of years back with sealing his picos (his femto-reef to be exact, iirc).

i've had this pitched top concept rolling around my brain for awhile as you can see.

updates


just a shot of the canopy/lid. so far so good on its operation. it's been keeping the water in, self-eliminating salt creep (a big concern of mine due to the bubbling nature of the setup), and still allowing (hopefully) sufficient sunlight thru.


after yet another re-aquascaping session. every day i've been futzing with it. turning the one chunk of rock (which barely fits).

today i chiseled it down to one big part and a billyun little ones. the big one went back in. also swiveled the updraft another direction, again.

btw mickey, i now added some crushed coral to the substrate. the dw-18's larger air production caused the ugf to start sucking up all the sand on its grille. i had little mountains in front of the updraft's outflow. so now i'm using the cc as the layer on top of the grille and spread the sand outwards.

hopefully, i'll leave alone tomorrow to get a good clear pic. one thing about the natural light setup is that nowadays it's dark when i get home. maybe the weekend i'll get a good shot.

temp's been good but unsure about during the day. again, the sunlight issue. added a clump of chaeto (must-resist-impatience). probably test something this weekend.

THat would have been my concern. I've used UGF in the past in FW tanks, and I've noticed that anything smaller than say 3-5 mm would get sucked into the grate and either clog it or cloud the water blowing out the exhaust. This is why I have nothing but HOB's on all of my tanks except the betta tank (which is the 2G hex in my sig...converted to FW).

Where did you get that curved acrylic?

depending on how this setup goes, I'd really like to emulate your tank some time in the future. what is your schedule looking like, as far as maintenance and such? i.e. water changes, etc?

i cant wait to see how your pico comes along. i love the setup. sun and bubbles.good luck.

yep, gravel and cc is what i've used in the past. the dw-12 wasn't really pulling it tho. but i also split the bubbling underneath the grille. some flows up the updraft and some "leaks" out thru the grille. i wanted to try and imitate Eng's reported chaotic bubbling. but the dw-18's output seems to rush to the updraft, very little going thru the grille. <sigh>

made it. i had some extra acrylic lying around. one piece came from an old CSL seabrights unit. clunky pos.

heat bent the middle (it's a little crooked, d'oh) and matched the tank's width and then copied for the 2nd piece. i weld-on the ends and voila! it's a cover. i did two pieces just for the ease of handling.

i dunno yet. i do plan on doing waterchanges but i haven't fleshed out a schedule (weekly? cup or 8~16 oz.). i'll probably lazybutt myself into an ANB (as needed basis ).

the shape of the canopy is basically self-cleaning as far as the salt creep goes. again, that was a major concern of mine actually. top-offs are non-existent but it's still in the process of being setup so i'll see as the weeks/months go by.

nothing else planned so far because i will be doing wc's. eventually.


thanks, shiva! you too!

I hate to say this, but I find this tank much more interesting than any of the high tech tidepool tanks.


how were you planning on having the "chaotic bubbling" through the grate? couldn't you (hear me out on this) block the updraft tube, and just have a small pump blowing air directly through the substrate? you could have a valve to check the amount of air so you wouldn't have "hot spots"...just an idea.

i was trying to leave the "chaoticness" of the bubbles to the water tension and the features of the LR. i.e. catching some here and some there, trying to stay true to Eng's concepts (at least as i sees it ).

couple of reasons why i didn't want to try something like you're suggesting:

one, it would've been a lot or significant modification. and there's that whole question of "Stock" qualifications going on right now.

a possible layout could be: using a perforated sheet (e.g. tank divider sheet) to sandwich underneath the substrate with at least couple of air tubes networked out. otherwise, the bubbles would congregate together and just rise up out of the substrate (tunneling upwards).

you'd probably have to open up some of the holes on the divider sheet too and maybe even distort it a bit for randomnness. i'm not sure the valve would be "selective enough" to give you chaotic results. it would favor the easiest route.

two, i wanted to try and really emulate the Eng method as much as possible. to me, it seems easier to do so in such a small scale than the larger "traditonal" ones that he actually did.

my setup basically has the airstone hidden far into the grille versus at the base of the updraft. this allowed significant air "leakage" up thru the grille so that every few minutes i had a "burp" away from the ugf's outflow. sometimes i got smaller burps elsewhere.

it worked better for the dw-12 than the dw-18. i think the massive amount of bubbles just creates too much of a suction upwards and doesn't allow seepage like the lower volume dw-12 did.

obviously, it wasn't running that long and i switched to the bigger pump. but my initial observations was that the layout and concept could work out like Eng's described. (but with me cheating with a ugf )

thanks for the interest!

Updates (Sunlight Tank)


finally had the opportunity to snap a pic without clouds of dust from my constant tweaking/aquascaping. still not 100% happy with the layout though. <sigh>


the "Back" view, the whole setup is on a mini-shelf on casters so it is very mobile. viewable 360-degrees.

ugf, heater, and thermometer visible. readings are a little wacky though, significant fluctuations.


top view, you can see the significant turbulence from the ugf/dw-18 pump. needed the turbulence/bubbling since i'm not employing a surface skimmer and i'm too lazy to manually do it daily.


whole setup view, rolled away from the windofor better angle. still not satisified with the aquascaping though. grrrr.

glad to see a few old timers on here, i may still enter if i get motivated....theres only a few of us left...gotta show em how its done

c'mon in, someone's gotta teach these youngs dogs about talking smack.
Click to view attachment
<tiny-geezing>


Tinyreef's Solar Pico, whaddya think?

very inovative...

tyvm casa. and good luck to you!

Updates


1st coral/invert/whatever. a tiny single polyp frag from my display tank. an orange-eye zoo.

i added it the other night and it seems fine today. didn't have a chance to take a "daylight" pic since i work late. psst..being your own boss means you work more not less. (d'oh)

being the zoo looks ok (most sensitive fugger imo) i'm going to add some more stuff this weekend. i've gots loose frags floating around (literally ).


i've got some evaporation leakage though, as seen in this pic. the opening where the wires and air tube is coming out/in is around 10mm but because the bubbling is so ferocious there's significant (imo) water leaking out.

i'll be keeping an eye on the water level. i had already re-arranged the wires/tube so that most of the splash would/should trickle back in though.


this is a good pic of the condensate forming inside the acrylic canopy.

the droplets sliding down (upper half of pic) shows the self-cleaning aspect i was hoping the design would develop. this self-cleaning action eliminates (hopefully completely, still watching the frame edges if any develop) the salt creep buildup i'm concerned about.

so far so good. the blandness of the white color is beginning to get to me though. bleh. my reefer patience is getting worn down, hence the coral/zoo addition already.

EDIT: arrgh, spelling/grammatical errors. i hate this immediate edit notification. <whine>

Updates



adding coral frags. one polyp of clavularia, one (2nd) zoanthid barely visible at top.



added a capnella frag (he was ill, hopefully he recovers), the greenish rock has a single polyp of erythropodium/stoloniferan, and just to the upper left of that rock is a single blue mushroom.

every frag is a daughter coral and single polyp (except for the capnella). so far, the natural sunlight seems enough. i'll be watching closely this upcoming week though. it's been rainy/cloudy besides the seasonal change.

some salt buildup above the ugf uptake has me thinking of redesigning the canopy with more angles to promote runoff versus the "beading" you see in the "condensate" pics.

could we get an FTS?

heh, i had to think for a few minutes what FTS meant. just as i posted the question i figured it out, Full-Tank-Shot. tiny's geezing again.



here's the tank shot (Front View). i just added the lava rock on the left side. it's that greenish/red mess but it has a small GSP colony on it (3-polyps). i also repositioned the shroom so it's on top of the rock it was sheltered underneath.



this is the Back View with the bubbler on again. i had to unplug it to swing for a Front shot before. too lazy to unwind the power cord.

the lava rock is to the right now and its red is more easily seen this side. the "underneath" for it in my display tank. i wanted some color in there. too white. maybe i should rename my pico Prussian Blue Pico (that's a lounge joke).

Updates


after adding a bunch of frags (yellow polyps, sinularia, blastomussa, and a couple of zoos) i began noticing the clavularia "reaching" and browning up even more. i finally caved in and upgraded to the other side of the house.

the new location of the tank is on southern facing window and should get significantly more sunlight than before. but i really won't get a good gauge of it until the weekend, as i work during the day and don't get back until it's dark. d'oh!


just another shot of the top. a fair amount of condensate is still constantly building up, even though i dropped the temps back down to about 78F.

the little opening where the wires and air hose enter still allows a fair amount of evaporation. i topped off about 10 oz. tonight. that's probably for 3~4 days worth of evaporation though.

i also started dosing b-ionic. about 4-drops of each part per day. i saw the #1 linger a bit longer than i'd like tonite so i may back off of that amount.


back view in the new location. i think it should be better with the direct sunlight. the family room was prone to too much possible interference and oopsies anyways (kids, mine and others ).

more concerned about possible high temps from the additional/stronger sunlight though. we'll see how it goes.

Updates


finally able to take a "lighted" pic of the new location (i.e. living room). the lighting is much more intense/direct and longer duration.

i had to add another level to my stand. (you like it, adin?) btw the top shelf on the stand is purposedly upside down to better support the tank. the stand is still on casters so i can maneuver the setup to view and maintainance.


front view with 10AM sunlight. it's getting the full brunt of the morning sun so the pic's a little exposed. the temp is holding its own tho (~77F) but then again my wife keeps the house chilly. <- also serves as a cold emoticon

probably be doing some waterchange stuff this weekend. i pruned some algae i had hitched in from my other tanks.

i had the salinity decently high since startup (1.029) and just moved it down the other day to 1.027. i'll probably push it further down to nsw level (1.026).

Another neat idea. I wish you all the best with this set-up. I doubt whether it'd work where I live, we have waaaayyy too many cloudy days.

Best regards

Ann

Ok. if nobody else is going to be honest with you, I will. Your tank looks like crap. Get some corals growing in there. The Snoopy lid is ridiculous as well. Sorry for being brutally honest, but its the truth.

Is there really such a thing as a nice barand new tank?

What snoopy lid?

heh, honesty is the best policy, dweak.

the tank's just starting out. if it looked good at this early of a stage it'd be a cheating tank imho.

there are corals growing in there. i'm sorry if my pics look like crap but there's: clavularia, 4-types of zoanthids, green sinularia, blastomussa, gsp, stoloniferan (generic), capnella, blue shroom, and yellow polyps. all of which are propped from my other tanks. in fact, the gsp and yellow polyps are from 8-yr-old and 9-yr-old colonies, respectively.

i did not want to put in ready-made frags/colonies because a big part of this setup is to test growth rates with sunlight. so most of the frags are micosmall (i.e. single polyps) or just smallish (e.g. capnella).

as for the snoopy lid, i never thought of it like that. good point and observation. but it's not a question of ridiculousness. it's a question of functionality. your comment is similar to saying a protein skimmer or calcium reactor looks ludicrous. they look funky but they serve very real purposes.

the lid/canopy is shaped like it is so that it self-cleans itself with the condensation that builds up. my exp with picos/reefs is that salt creep becomes a serious issue in certain cases (this being one due to the bubbles). the clarity of the lid obviously serves to allow light thru and the overall shape and look is just due to my inability to really fabricate with acrylic. sowwy.

thanks for your honesty though. i'd much rather have brutal honesty than polite lies. if i comment on someone/thing, i mean it. i don't sugarcoat it either.

hopefully, in a coupleof months the tank will have "grown in". then i'll be able to add cleaners or fish (yeah, you heard me ). actually, i need the corals to grow in to attach themselves. they're all loose, which is typical of how i frag and "mount". if it don't grow, it dies. a bit harsh but that's just how i reef.

thanks for the comments, come again!

Jez, tiny he's right .....get it together man, I mean it's been what two weeks? You should be fraging stuff outa there already. You are working like this contest is gonna go on for six months or somthin.

IME, this is the most interesting tank in the stock catagory I've seen yet.

I think you are grossly misunderstanding Tiny's intentions, dweak. the pitched tank lid is not a "snoopy lid" as you so idiotically called it, but in fact, it is designed to reclaim evaporation, minimizing the need for top off. Oh, and there are some frags in there, you just didn't read back in the thread far enough to see that he had added them. Unlike so many people (myself included) tiny is thinking outside the reef box, and trying something novel. Sure, his tank might not be glowing with color right yet, but it he is starting with all small frags and seeing kind of growth he can achieve in his unique system.

So, sorry for being brutally honest right back at you dweak, but I think your a short sited trendy jerk, without the respect to look at a person's whole thread before making a comment. Wow... I didn't know I could be so harsh!

Jared

thanks, ice.

i'm not sure if he was kidding or not but i have been getting some unusual comments here and there so i figured to take him at face-value and answer his q's.

i guess it's just so antithetical to what has always been preached about aquariums in general that some people don't grasp it yet. (feels like 2001~2002 again

btw ann, Tropicorium (romulus, michigan) does a greenhouse setup (albeit on a commercial scale) but he's about 42-latitude. london's about 51-latitude. you could always supplement with a pc light. sun should be strong enough, it's the temp you have to watch. thanks for your comments too!

edit: thanks jared!

That's interesting. I do have a nano running at the moment with a refugium that is lit by natural sunlight alone. It was a bit of an experiment and I fully expected to have to add on some artificial lighting after it was set up but the algae in there (Chaetomorpha) grows better than it does in the T5 lit sump of my big tank. Mind you that's probably because the nano runs skimmerless.

I would never have considered trying corals without some form of artificial lighting before so your thread is particularly interesting to me.

Best regards

Ann

im intrested in the lighting......... but i think i read somwhere that it wouldent get enough light, but that might have been wrong........... might have said its knot enough lighting for a one sided aquarium to be lighted buy the sun...

Updates (you get more on the weekends! )


view from the "end" of the tank. shows a typical (for me) brownish shroom just beyond the cap frag. fugly little guy, huh?


but, once you turn the corner and view it front the "front" it turns into a pretty blue shroom. it's the same phenomena that occurs from viewing clams top/down versus from the side due to the light source reflection/refraction(?).

it's because in this case, the light source is toward the front (sunlight) so the viewer can see the coloration from the front pane of glass versus needing to view it top/down in a typical tank setting (also avoids those specialized clam tanks).

maybe you can tell already that i've been pondering on adding a baby clam to the system. concerned about ca/alk depletion tho (ime they suck it out like candy) and the feeding baby clams -> more maintenance work issue. bleah.

btw, the checkered effect (seen on the sandbed) in this pic is from the window screen, which has since been removed for additional light.

but to address Open's comment, i don't think it will suffer insufficient light here in front of the southern window. (i hope) it's pretty intense imo. it's also only on a side window with a beam blocking part of the light.

one of the benefits of the setup is that i can continually upgrade the lights. e.g. move from a northern window to a southern window, remove window screen (kinda like the eggcrate-effect method for light acclimation), move higher into more direct sunlight, over to the larger middle window, etc.

perrin's setup (more northernly of me, see latitude comment in the other post to ann) does nicely with muted greenhouse windows, i.e. not 100% clear. he does run mh supps but i think the majority of the light needs comes from the sunlight.

mary at seacrop runs a greenhouse too but she's in socal so you can't count her because she's cheating with that more southernly latitude.


this kinda shows the intense shimmer-effect of the sunlight. i've been thinking about a larger scale tank as this one has shown decent promise so far. i'll have to take over some windows, i.e. home construction, but it shouldn't be too bad.

i'm figuring divorce court ain't as expensive as the new tank could be. and think of all the lighting money i'll be saving. it should come out a wash imo.

no pics today, sorry for the bandwidth stress.

waterchanged 17 oz. again (it's the size of the cup). i noticed the water was a bit tinted green. i thought it was off before for the last couple of days but i figured it was the lighting and the glass. but in the white background of the dixie cup it was definitely greenish.

so i added a big bag of carbon into the tank. i gotta get a couple of those lee's carbon cartridges or those tiny refilleable ones. i'm a carbon user usually anyways so it's not out of my usual weapons of choice.

i'm actually not too surprised at the appearance of the greenish tint. that's always been one of the bugaboos with using sunlight, greenwater.

but i think it's more because i've been adding a fair amount of frags (14) and some of the rocks they've been on still carried nuisance algae form my other tanks. while i scrubbed most of them clean, they're still leaching (bleeding) into the tiny system. i think it should clear up by next weekend.

i've seen some good reactions from the corals already. good expansion/growth versus "stretching growth/expansion" (i.e. insufficient light).

Update time


to combat the greenwater issue beginning to develop (noted in the post above) i've added some carbon.

ok, ok, a lotta carbon.

it was the only size packet i had on-hand. i'll be getting some (much) smaller lee's carbon cartridges later.

so far though, the carbon has cleared up the water immensely. i compared it tonite and the tint was barely noticeable.

Yes, a very large amount of carbon indead! Carbon seems to have magical powers and can make the water sparkling clean in no time.

Hey, I assume you saw this. http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...ndpost&p=639149

A bit of an irratant, but oh well.

yah, i just saw it.


well, at least now i can hook up my remora to the tank.

or maybe i'll upgrade to a super-duper air pump and diy a combo protein skimmer/uplift. hmmm...

Weekend Update


switched out my bag o'carbon with a smallish lee's cartridge. altho it's not as small as i thought.

oh yeah, i also switched stands. happy, adin? actually, there's pro's and con's to the switch. while the new stand is much more stable because it's much heavier, now i'm much more limited in viewing the tank because the old stand was much more mobile (being on wheels). being limited on my light source angle, my front shots are now significantly crappier. (see next pic)


front view taken from an awkward angle, hence the reflection from the window. sorry.

added a couple of corals. not very visible as they're still p-o'ed. a single tubipora (fragged) and a very bright green palythoa colony, both of which i got from seacrop. :thumbsup:

both looked awesome in their transport bags, opening up before i even took them out. but then they hit my toxic tank water and shrivelled like a sac in icewater. btw i just check salinity on my systems and they were a tad off, 1.030. d'oh!


better overall view of the new stand. matches the furniture now.

Its so asian

sorry, it's a side-effect of the hobby.

Update

i upgraded the "lighting" again. i moved the tank to the middle window.

i noticed that the midday sun is blocked by the house. the tank's basically in shadow for half the day (indirect sunlight). i had noticed the corals weren't growing as fast as i'd thought they should (guestimate anyways), then i noticed the sunlight/shadow.

maybe i'll post a pic later. i'm feeling sick. bleah.

but i still went to the lfs!

snagged 5-astrae and a zoanthid-rubble frag from their main display. more for the LR biodiversity injection than the zoos to tell you the truth though. i also got a brittlestar hitchhiker out of it. woo hoo!

btw, for local nj reefers, it was hanover pet that i went to. the gal there is looking smoking cute! woo hoo!

belly shirt. very cool. woo hoo!

side note: first time i've seen the "Live Water" stuff. poor noobs.

Temperature issues

"upgraded" to the middle window and i check this morning (zonked out yesterday with a virus) and the tank was reading 84F at 8AM! dang. up goes the fan to cool.

happened to be in the neighborhood for lunch and check in at 12PM. tank's at 88F! double-dang!

shift the fan closer and crank it up to "HI". yikes!

actually, the corals seem pretty good. only the gsp and tubipora look bad. the snails bulldozed a couple of rocks and frags tho (as i feared). but even those seemed pretty good after being righted. i'm getting a little concerned on coloration though but they may look different under artificial lighting.

the coral growth seems ok. the mushroom was almost double its size since start (which is unusual for me as i'm a shroom-killer).

the gsp and clavularia aren't growing as my other tanks' colonies though. the zoanthids seem to be growing faster though, small buds already beginning to show. the capnella seems to have recovered from its illness too (finally).

i'll probably pull a couple of the snails after a couple of days. they've already mowed down some of the algae. probably end up with 2~3 snails in the tank just to keep it at bay.

Perhaps cooling the air pump would help. I mean, if it is pumping in cold air, that should cool the water some right? Why not try packing the air pump in a cooler packed with ice for a bit.

i go there often my self and she is hot that place use to be alot better

were do u live im in parsippany

hmm, i might try that. the pump doesn't feel hot but you're right, that could be an issue too.

i'll check that tonight.

i'm in livingston.

she's a real cutie. i think she's even slimmed down a bit.

fish-chicks are cool. altho she calls astrae "turbos", i can forgive that.

yeah, i think they've dropped a notch too. jeff's not involved anymore so it's a side biz for a couple of other guys now. the kid in there is basically the manager now. i tell him it's good work experience at least.