My first pico! Dymax IQ3 now 5 YEARS OLD!

[Cameron6796]

Eww. When I change my filter pads I always wash them in the sink with the drain plugged to see how much nastiness I collected.

[brandon429]

hey remember though that not all picos have to be bare bottom, just well exported. its mega easy to keep a six inch sandbed in a pico, you can run them indefinately they just need a good blast clean occasionally lol part of the actual benefit conveyed by a sandbed vs a bb pico is extra pelagic feeding support, its more diverse cast up from the bed.

 

sure there is a catch all tendency, but thats only for those following the normal rules. a fully exported sandbed is no more harmful than a bb.

 

a time where a sandbed is a terrible liability is during a power outage, the extra biological oxygen demand comes at great cost to the rest of the system, in terms of risk.

 

 

if I was doing a large tank id actually go bb, too hard to export

 

but small ones, choose!

[Matthewdvm]

Finally finished reading this whole thread over the past few days! Like everyone else says, it is amazing to see such a terrific and long lived pico tank, and also very interesting to read your thoughts and Brandon's thoughts about keeping little reef tanks. My 6 gallon is only a month old, and only got its first corals earlier this week, but based on the healthy debate the two of you have been having, it has me thinking a lot about the sand bed in my tank. I think I will keep it, but will siphon and turkey baster the sand on a regular basis so it doesn't suck up too much crud, and to get me and my corals used to healthy nano-reef keeping habits from day one. With this strategy, hopefully I won't get a tank threatening crash.

 

Your experience is also making me feel more strongly about doing a coral only tank (though the wife and kids are lobbying for fish already). I think the massive water changes are more than a little unfair on vertebrates...

[iadubber]

very inspirational pico!

[andrewkw]

Not really related to my pico but I just returned from a week vacation. I had someone come by and feed my fish once a day frozen cubes. Everything else automatic. Pico looks the same just algae covered front. My second oldest fish is gone without a trace 7"+ Chevron tang purchased in 2007.

 

 

Pretty broken up about this, when you consider he was years older then the Pico tank and for the first time in a really long time I'm not able to watch him swim.

[brandon429]

I am sorry to hear about that

 

excellent duration for keeping that fellow clearly it would have gone on longer but travel variables are unavoidable. that is the moment which can zap any of our tanks, its amazing how the timing plays out to be only while we are out

[andrewkw]

Thanks. Actually the travel was not the issue. He died from his own stupidity. Right before I went away he decided to try and eat this :

 

 

It's some sort of small clam that closed on his mouth. I was this close to calling in work and draining the 180 to surgically remove it. However he managed to get it off banging it on the rock. There must have been some sort of damage. He was acting fine but didn't really observe him long after this. It's just crazy he is gone without a trace. I thought maybe he died and my aunt removed him and didn't tell me to ruin my vacation. However that was not the case. Just gone and no damage to the tank. I will still do a big water change tomorrow.

 

I also have this guy to replace him :

 

 

Been in QT since black friday. I know 3 tangs in the 180 (Achilles) was pushing it, and the Naso although nowhere near full grown in a 180 is pushing it a bit. I am planning a 300+ 8 foot tank in about 2 years once I move which will be when I get a new chev. Won't be able to add a baby with these 2, but when I get an 8 foot tank I'll probably add 3 tangs or so and just do it all the same time.

[Andrei1234]

Very good aquarium!

[limpert]

update?

[andrewkw]

Nothing has changed I have some mushrooms in my frag tank and I will try and find a spot to add one or 2 to this tank. Otherwise it pretty much looks exactly the same. The GSP is maybe a little bigger. Nothing has died. Nothing has gotten considerably bigger. Knock on wood things are running smooth.

[tibbsy07]

I have to re-read this entire thread now to figure out all that you're currently doing.

 

BB, large water changes (50% iirc), and the rest I'll have to dig back out, lol

[KuyasNanoReef]

how do you get your pictures attached so nicely with such high quality? I have a Canon 70D and would love to post some pictures in my tank journal but I can't get them as nice as this... How do you attach yours? Or get yours down to 1Mb?

[jlangtree]

Hi Andrew,

 

Any updates on the Pico? How is it looking these days?

[andrewkw]

how do you get your pictures attached so nicely with such high quality? I have a Canon 70D and would love to post some pictures in my tank journal but I can't get them as nice as this... How do you attach yours? Or get yours down to 1Mb?

 

I upload them to my smugmug account but you can just shrink them down in photoshop or whatever program you use. White balance is the most important thing which can be tricky with led's. I take my pics with a 2.8 100mm macro lens as well as a cheapo 2.8 40mm pancake lens.

 

Hi Andrew,

 

Any updates on the Pico? How is it looking these days?

 

Not much has changed to be honest. I will clean up the acrylic and take some pics this weekend. I should start planning the birthday party as it will be turning 5 in a few months.

[andrewkw]

I can't find my macro lens anywhere. Frustrating but it's probably at my parents house (7hrs away). Anyway I did finally take a few pics. I've been trying to clean things up lately. Have a lot of flatworms but hesitant to use flatworm exit in such a small tank. Also the stupid yellow polyps won't stop growing and taking everything over. Will be removing more of them shortly. It may finally be time to frag the big chalice. It's growing around the back so soon will be double sided and if I don't keep moving it slightly it will reattach to the acrylic again.

 

A lot of things are slighly moved as I'm trying to give it a nicer look with space to grow but its very difficult in a tank this size. Hoping to get things "good" in time for the tanks 5th birthday.

 

 

 

 

[markalot]

Well, I'm glad to hear it's still running! Those pesky flatworms are odd ones. In my 20 gallon they are big enough to see and annoying but seem to come and go. In my big 150 gallon I didn't know I had them until taking a few macro shots and I can see a few, but very very small and don't seem to be increasing in numbers.

[andrewkw]

There are lots of different types. The big orange ones are the ones that multiply like crazy. The odd thing is I started seeing them during a time which I hadn't added anything in ages. All of a sudden they just started covering everything. If the anemone wasn't attached to the back AND the rock I'd just take everything out and blast the hell out of it.

[limpert]

Andrew, can you explain the process you noted below? I'm curious how do you go about cleaning the acrylic without scratching it. Thanks

 

 

...I will clean up the acrylic and ...

[andrewkw]

Andrew, can you explain the process you noted below? I'm curious how do you go about cleaning the acrylic without scratching it. Thanks

 

 

I scratch the hell out of it actually! Sometimes algae gets really bad on the front this is when credit card works the best. Unfortunately not enough room to get a credit card in the tank...

 

I use a combination of a slice of a credit card, a nano mag (which DOES scratch the tank), mr clean magic eraser and anything else I can find.

 

Acrylic is actually real easy to remove scratches from the problem for me is so much is encrusted to the tank itself otherwise I'd just empty it for an hour and buff it out. Still this $50 tank has held up well over the years.

[limpert]

Thanks, this is good insight.

[andrewkw]

Today I decided to put dose flatworm exit. I really don't know how the heck I got flatworms in this tank considering I never get them in my other tanks (at least not the orange invasive kind). I only ever add frags to this tank that are dipped and 95% of the time they spend time in my other systems first.

Over the past few months they have been getting worse and worse. The past few days I removed as many as I could and finally dosed today. I just happened to come across some flatworm exit in my basement so decided to give it a go. The dose I used was 3 drops which is approximately 200% recommended dose. Within 5 minutes the flatworms are dying. I will be doing a 75-100% water change as soon as they all die. I will likely have to repeat this dose in a couple of days but after that I should be rid of them. I am also planning on again cutting back the yellow polyps and hopefully adding some new corals soon.

[markalot]

Those flatworms are odd. I have them in both my tanks and at times they are plainly obvious and then they shrink up to little brown dots that can only be seen as flatworms in macro photos. They are in my 150 but just dots, maybe because phosphate is low?

[.Newman.]

I hope you get rid of all those flatworms! Sounds like the treatment is working

[skibum513]

Looks good! nice to see a Pico up and running after a few years good luck with the flat worms and i'll be keeping an eye out for updates.

[yoshii]

The tank looks great! Good luck with the flatworm exit!

My goodness that chalice is huge lol

 

Always cool to see someone else who has had a "long term" Pico *HI5*