Texas 3.5G Pico

[Builder Anthony]

Well it does look like you can see the skeleton in the center but heres something you may want to try since it doesnt look like it has any disease.Get a clear plastic cup and put in in there and then place the cup in your tank but keep the coral confined to its water in the cup.Dont let it mix with the tanks water.If the coral is fadeing the water in the cup will fowl so you will have to replace it.With no oxygen in there it will also die so replace it with your tank water.If you dont notice any smell in the cup by morning thats a very good sign.You might want to consider putting it back in the tank at that point but if not just keep it in the cup.If its possible try to keep the lights on 24/7 at this point.

[chippwalters]

Well it does look like you can see the skeleton in the center but heres something you may want to try since it doesnt look like it has any disease.Get a clear plastic cup and put in in there and then place the cup in your tank but keep the coral confined to its water in the cup.Dont let it mix with the tanks water.If the coral is fadeing the water in the cup will fowl so you will have to replace it.With no oxygen in there it will also die so replace it with your tank water.If you dont notice any smell in the cup by morning thats a very good sign.You might want to consider putting it back in the tank at that point but if not just keep it in the cup.If its possible try to keep the lights on 24/7 at this point.

I'm not sure I understand. Do I float the cup at the top of the tank? IOW, how do I keep the tank water out of the cup? Does the cup have a cap? I'm not understanding this-- though I would like to try.

 

EDIT: OK, I think what you want is 'a tank in a tank' where the cup doesn't share water with the main tank. So, I should clamp the cup to the side? I suppose what you're trying to do is to make sure there's plenty of light and a stable temperature? I'll try.

[chippwalters]

OK,

Here's what I've got... How often should I change the water? BTW, the middle is still very bright green. I don't know if that means anything...and there is not much of a smell...

[Builder Anthony]

Oh thats like flipen perfect.I would do it twice a day by taking water out of your tank and puting it in the container.BUT i wouldnt take to much water out of the container because you dont want the thing being stressed by being out of the water so just take a air hose and drain it to the top of the coral so it isnt out of the water.If you have a airpump you could throw that in there every now and then.If the water has a sweet smell to it it will be coral dieoff youll know because its a noticeable smell.If you dont smell anything thats good.Which in that case you might want to clip off a little peice of that containers lip so if you pour water in it flows out of the container into your tank.If it doesnt smell like anything other then your tank the water overflowing into your tank from a water change shouldnt really be anything to worry about.

[chippwalters]

Oh thats like flipen perfect.I would do it twice a day by taking water out of your tank and puting it in the container.BUT i wouldnt take to much water out of the container because you dont want the thing being stressed by being out of the water so just take a air hose and drain it to the top of the coral so it isnt out of the water.If you have a airpump you could throw that in there every now and then.If the water has a sweet smell to it it will be coral dieoff youll know because its a noticeable smell.If you dont smell anything thats good.Which in that case you might want to clip off a little peice of that containers lip so if you pour water in it flows out of the container into your tank.If it doesnt smell like anything other then your tank the water overflowing into your tank from a water change shouldnt really be anything to worry about.

Thanks! Is it OK for it to be so close to the LED lights? It's a PanoramaPro and a couple of stunners. I haven't seen it bleaching anything else in the tank, but the Brain was on the bottom, not the top.

 

How can it be alive? I don't really understand much about this coral-- the mouth hasn't changed in a day or so-- just stuck open. It used to open and close.

[Builder Anthony]

The light doesnt really look to bright in that picture but if your worried about it you could throw a peice of plastic over the top.I never had one of those so i couldnt tell you whats going on with it but if you can see the skeleton inside the mouth its not to good of a story.Back to the lights again......they really dont look to bright in the photo.I would want to keep it in bright light.Not burning light bright light.I never used those lights you have so......

[chippwalters]

Well, I think it's gone. The mouth has now all but disintegrated, there's no sign of life, but funny, the color is still VERY BRIGHT GREEN. I wonder, is it possible this thing was COLORED before I purchased it from my LFS? I don't understand why it would stay this fluorescent green color even after it's dead...

 

Still not much of a smell.

 

Right-click on picture to view it closer:

[castiel]

I am no expert but I would say dead.

[MatthewStarr]

Thats because it's not dead yet. The coral seems to be super super stressed. And judging by everything you did to it that explains it's appearance. the gaping mouth is a sure sign that it's on it's last limb. a 3.5 gallon aquarium is no home to sensitive corals. Open brain corals are hardy yet sensitive at the same time. It has to be acclimated extremely well and left alone. If your aquarium is still fairly new then most corals are not gonna show signs of happiness. My advice purchase corals that are really hardy. I have a 6 gallon and for a while my mushrooms and zoas wouldn't open up that much. As it started to mature they opened up a lot more. some corals are very demanding on lighting and water parameters, so a close eye on that is also a must with pico tanks. Bacteria additives like stability and microbacter7 is a plus for any tank. Bacteria is your friend in this hobby. I dose my tank with both on a weekly basis and it has never looked so clear and pretty.

[chippwalters]

Thats because it's not dead yet. The coral seems to be super super stressed. And judging by everything you did to it that explains it's appearance. the gaping mouth is a sure sign that it's on it's last limb. a 3.5 gallon aquarium is no home to sensitive corals. Open brain corals are hardy yet sensitive at the same time. It has to be acclimated extremely well and left alone. If your aquarium is still fairly new then most corals are not gonna show signs of happiness. My advice purchase corals that are really hardy. I have a 6 gallon and for a while my mushrooms and zoas wouldn't open up that much. As it started to mature they opened up a lot more. some corals are very demanding on lighting and water parameters, so a close eye on that is also a must with pico tanks. Bacteria additives like stability and microbacter7 is a plus for any tank. Bacteria is your friend in this hobby. I dose my tank with both on a weekly basis and it has never looked so clear and pretty.

 

In particular, for futures sake, what do you mean "everything you did to it?"

 

I do use a once a week bacteria additive called TLC. I feed phytoplankton, coral frenzy, and pellets. I was told by my LFS guy this should work without problem in my aquarium. He did steer me well on the candy canes-- they're going crazy-- along with the torch.

 

Other than more criticism, is there anything I can do NOW for this coral? Should I take it back to LFS?

[chippwalters]

Well, the open brain didn't make it. No amount of water changes seemed to work for it. I talked with my LFS, who seemed to think the brain coral might have had too much light. He also mentioned my tank might have been 'too clean.'--I do change 70% each week, and clean the HOB and all algae as well.

 

Too bad. I finally put it out on the porch and Texas sun dried it out. It's skeleton is pretty...I might wash it and use it someday. RIP.

 

I did get a blue sponge and some kind of ricordia. I'll post pics later. This whole ordeal got me thinking of making a second 'hospital' tank. More on that later...

[ShrimpWhisperer]

Good luck with the saltwater tank' however I would like to chime in about the business venture......DO IT! Take the plunge find the manufacturers for the parts. Create prototypes and send to a few people on here. Collect the feedback and then take a finished product to market. The modding is a lot of fun for some, but I personally dislike it and tanks sometimes look horrible when they do the full tank shots with pvc, wood, and whatever else! So anyways....DO IT!

[chippwalters]

Good luck with the saltwater tank' however I would like to chime in about the business venture......DO IT! Take the plunge find the manufacturers for the parts. Create prototypes and send to a few people on here. Collect the feedback and then take a finished product to market. The modding is a lot of fun for some, but I personally dislike it and tanks sometimes look horrible when they do the full tank shots with pvc, wood, and whatever else! So anyways....DO IT!

Thanks,

 

I've already contacted or have been contacted by a number of LED manufacturers, and am proceeding on several designs. Also, I've breadboarded a thermostatically controlled Pico fan, which I hope to prototype as well. My current Ecoxotic fixture has tested super and now I need to put the final finish on it and will post pictures of it here.

[chippwalters]

For those interested, here's how the Lighting Fixture turned out:

 

[MatthewStarr]

Too clean is one of the factors. Thats kind of what I was trying to say. A tank should be allowed to run a few months before adding corals. Allowing it time to mature a little bit. Brain corals need to be acclimated to the light in small steps. Specially with MH and LED lighting. Always place the coral at the bottom in a semi shaded area, then slowly each week or every 2 weeks move it closer to the light. The best bacterial additives i ever used are the ones I mentioned. I live by them. only do small water changes a week. 10% this allows it to get "dirty" faster. Be extremely careful the amount of phytoplankton and other misc. foods. This will add too much nutrients in the water specially in tiny tanks. and in no time horrible algae will start to appear. The light is all the corals need unless they are really demanding corals or non photosynthetic corals which require food.

[karatekid14]

Would a mini protien skimmer factor into this? I think it is a great idea, and if you go through with it you should make a freshwater version with only two strips of LEDs. One stripe could be 50/50 blue and white, the other white. I know I would want one. Also are those real pics or computerized?

[chippwalters]

Too clean is one of the factors. Thats kind of what I was trying to say. A tank should be allowed to run a few months before adding corals. Allowing it time to mature a little bit. Brain corals need to be acclimated to the light in small steps. Specially with MH and LED lighting. Always place the coral at the bottom in a semi shaded area, then slowly each week or every 2 weeks move it closer to the light. The best bacterial additives i ever used are the ones I mentioned. I live by them. only do small water changes a week. 10% this allows it to get "dirty" faster. Be extremely careful the amount of phytoplankton and other misc. foods. This will add too much nutrients in the water specially in tiny tanks. and in no time horrible algae will start to appear. The light is all the corals need unless they are really demanding corals or non photosynthetic corals which require food.

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. It's the only way we newcomers learn.

 

Would a mini protien skimmer factor into this? I think it is a great idea, and if you go through with it you should make a freshwater version with only two strips of LEDs. One stripe could be 50/50 blue and white, the other white. I know I would want one. Also are those real pics or computerized?

from my limited research, protein skimmers aren't much in demand on Picos. The lamp pictures directly above this post are iPhone photographs, taken outdoors just before sunset, on the hood of my wife's Toyota.

 

The whole fixture thread is at:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...280868&st=0

[chippwalters]

ARGH! Just gave my Pico a 2 hour 50% fresh water dip. SH*T! I've very carefully marked my freshwater and saltwater buckets, but for some reason I accidentally filled my saltwater bucket with freshwater JUST BEFORE I did a 50% swap. Two hours later after I figured it out I did a 25% saltwater swap, then waited 15 min and did an 80% swap. The settings are correct now. BUMMER.

 

New RULE: Taste the water BEFORE you put it in the tank!

 

Confirmed Casualties:

• Sexy Shrimp
  
• Ricordea (just purchased on Sat) his mouth is way extended and looks just about to get ripped off from the flow. I ended up putting him in my new Walmart tank which has been setup for a few days now and has less flow-- if he makes it through the night, I'll try him back in the Pico.
  

 

Maybe Casualties:

• Acan-- was doing SO WELL. All puffy and great. Shriveled up pretty bad, but now has decent color and is OK, but lost a slot of slime (does this mean anything?)
  
• Acro-- has been in this tank awhile...doesn't look too bad, but lots of slime coming off the guy. I guess it's alright if I just carefully remove the slime with tweezers?
  

 

Maybe Should Make it:

• Candy Canes-- closed up fast but have kept their color. They were pretty fat and happy before all this and seemed to actually, with the Torch, be most happy in the tank (not counting the GSP)
  
• Torch-- just now starting to extend-- very colorful. Have to say, freshwater really brings out the colors in these guys
  

 

I think will Survive:

• Hermits
  
• Pom Pom Crab
  
• Zoas (heck, they looked like they even liked the freshwater-- unlike anything else they opened up
  
• GSP- shut right down and were the clue things weren't right when I got home from dinner. Usually they retract after a water swap, but then come right back. They didn't this time and I thought it might be because I was using a Chemi-Pure filter bag for the first time. Actually, that's why I thought everything retracted.
  

 

 

My plan is to do another 50% water swap tomorrow, and leave the lights on all night. Anything else anyone can think of?

Any advice (other than quit being a knucklehead) would be wonderful.

[gupebreedr]

ARGH! Just gave my Pico a 2 hour 50% fresh water dip. SH*T! I've very carefully marked my freshwater and saltwater buckets, but for some reason I accidentally filled my saltwater bucket with freshwater JUST BEFORE I did a 50% swap. Two hours later after I figured it out I did a 25% saltwater swap, then waited 15 min and did an 80% swap. The settings are correct now. BUMMER.

 

New RULE: Taste the water BEFORE you put it in the tank!

 

Confirmed Casualties:

• Sexy Shrimp
  
• Ricordea (just purchased on Sat) his mouth is way extended and looks just about to get ripped off from the flow. I ended up putting him in my new Walmart tank which has been setup for a few days now and has less flow-- if he makes it through the night, I'll try him back in the Pico.
  

 

Maybe Casualties:

• Acan-- was doing SO WELL. All puffy and great. Shriveled up pretty bad, but now has decent color and is OK, but lost a slot of slime (does this mean anything?)
  
• Acro-- has been in this tank awhile...doesn't look too bad, but lots of slime coming off the guy. I guess it's alright if I just carefully remove the slime with tweezers?
  

 

Maybe Should Make it:

• Candy Canes-- closed up fast but have kept their color. They were pretty fat and happy before all this and seemed to actually, with the Torch, be most happy in the tank (not counting the GSP)
  
• Torch-- just now starting to extend-- very colorful. Have to say, freshwater really brings out the colors in these guys
  

 

I think will Survive:

• Hermits
  
• Pom Pom Crab
  
• Zoas (heck, they looked like they even liked the freshwater-- unlike anything else they opened up
  
• GSP- shut right down and were the clue things weren't right when I got home from dinner. Usually they retract after a water swap, but then come right back. They didn't this time and I thought it might be because I was using a Chemi-Pure filter bag for the first time. Actually, that's why I thought everything retracted.
  

 

 

My plan is to do another 50% water swap tomorrow, and leave the lights on all night. Anything else anyone can think of?

Any advice (other than quit being a knucklehead) would be wonderful.

 

Oh no Chip. I'm really sorry to hear about this and you just lost your brain coral too. We learn from our mistakes and I'll bet you'll never do something like that again. Good thing you had the walmart pico, huh?

Kinda reminds me of when I had my large reef set up a few years back. I had a problem with bubble algae and just kept popping them in the tank, well needless to say I only added to the problem and had a tank that looked like it was full of green marbles. lol

 

Keep the faith, things will get better.

 

Rob

[castiel]

Wow, sounds like you got lucky in spotting this in time, and 'only' changing 50%. I hope everything pulls through, sounds like they all have a decent chance.

 

I would change more than 50% tomorrow just to be sure the balance is fully restored, but others may think differently.

 

Reason for keeping the light on all night? I would think some 'down time' would be more beneficial ...

[chippwalters]

Oh no Chip. I'm really sorry to hear about this and you just lost your brain coral too. We learn from our mistakes and I'll bet you'll never do something like that again. Good thing you had the walmart pico, huh?

Kinda reminds me of when I had my large reef set up a few years back. I had a problem with bubble algae and just kept popping them in the tank, well needless to say I only added to the problem and had a tank that looked like it was full of green marbles. lol

 

Keep the faith, things will get better.

 

Rob

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Wow, sounds like you got lucky in spotting this in time, and 'only' changing 50%. I hope everything pulls through, sounds like they all have a decent chance.

 

I would change more than 50% tomorrow just to be sure the balance is fully restored, but others may think differently.

 

Reason for keeping the light on all night? I would think some 'down time' would be more beneficial ...

Yep. 50% tomorrow for sure.

 

All the corals are photosynthetic, so I suspect good doses of light help the most. Right?

[chippwalters]

Hot Damn! The Sexy is still alive! What I saw was a clear skin floating around of another shrimp, and I thought it was the Sexy. Do they molt? If so, then that's what happened. If not, then it might have been what's left of the old Sexy which went missing weeks ago.

 

That's good news. Also, the Ricordea still seems to be alive in the WalMart tank. If it looks OK tomorrow, I'll put him back in with the general population.

 

I also should mention, the sponge didn't look any worse for the wear. After some research, I did finally turn out the lights, and the Acro showed for feedtime. The Candy Canes weren't hungry. GPS is still only partly showing, but I have faith it will come back strong. Let's keep fingers crossed for tomorrow and survey the damage then.

 

Perhaps...just perhaps... there's zero damage...wouldn't that be something?

[Builder Anthony]

Ya corals are real touchy with freshwater.A freshwater dip will could possibly kill them in about 2minutes and signs of stress will appear within 10 seconds of the dip leaving them shooting out sweepers and creating mucus.

[amiralisomji]

OMG Chipp!!

I hope most of your livestock is able to pull through. Fingers crossed.

[chippwalters]

Well, it's been 24 hrs since the bath, and it appears all of it will pull through. The Candy Canes are still not as plush as before, but everything else seems about right. Lesson learned.