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Cultivated Reef

Mini_Matt's 16L Pico reef


mini_matt

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mini_matt

Hi all, I have been on another forum for a while but this one seems a bit more active so here I am

 

first set up 13/09/2011 added roughly 1-2kg of live rock from an already established tank

with some corals and cuc it was looking like this

DSC_0238.jpg

slowly added more bits and pieces and moved bits around, moved house in december and the tank got a little neglected and overrun with pulsing xenia :( but everything was looking good and looked like this

 

EB91C38F-0527-406C-8928-42CB40EF0EDB_zps

E69C8CE5-E314-45DD-B4AE-7E362B553E59_zps

 

After a little TLC mainly getting rid of a lot of xenia and weed the tank was looking like this

 

6E1A5D1B-F069-4A2A-8DDC-0B61473AE784_zps

 

BE7FB4CD-24B6-4DDF-8875-1ECC26AC14B9_zps

 

and to give you all an idea of how big/small this tank is

0F4F3C85-0301-426D-9F07-4BCB7FDA9E66_zps

 

thanks for looking any comments very welcome :) matt

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ThePhilosopher

Your tank looks pretty amazing. My only criticism is that the rockscape seems a little flat. A few rocks placed higher than others will give the tank a more dynamic look, in my opinion.

 

Other than that, all your corals look healthy and I must admit that I would love to have a red mushroom like the one in your tank.

 

Also, how many sexy shrimp do you currently have in there, and are they shy or do they like to hide?

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mini_matt

Hi thanks! like the constructive critisism, I will try and change the scape next time i'm in there :)

 

it has grown huge if you look at the first pic you can see it as a little freebie (think it's the same one)

 

I have two sexy shrimp in there, did have 3 but lost one when moving house and they are out all the time and great fun to watch :)

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ThePhilosopher

Good luck with the aquascaping. I'd tell you to be careful with your livestock while moving rocks around, but you seem to know what you're doing.

 

I plan on getting a pair of sexy shrimp the moment they're in stock, but certain sources claim that they should ideally be introduced in groups of three, and yours look happy despite the fact that they're a pair.

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mini_matt

well they were origionally a group of 3 and still seem happy just the two of them but if you can you might as well get three they are very entertaining :)

 

Haven't moved the scape around yet but thought I would post a pic now the GSP has come out

3B64746E-849C-4A50-ACF4-A4B842881DF1_zps

 

bigger news I have bought some new lighting!! the wait on shipping is painful already!

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mini_matt

My only criticism is that the rockscape seems a little flat. A few rocks placed higher than others will give the tank a more dynamic look, in my opinion.

Just done some re-landscaping :) since you've mentioned it I haven't been happy with how the tank looks! cheers :P

I will add a picture once everything decides to come out again

Edit: Here you go mate

7232B943-3AD9-4ED4-A3EA-9CB36AE8D7FD_zps

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mini_matt

it's up now :) didn't move much just changed orientation of a few bits and moved the pink zoas up to the top and moved my blue sponge that had slipped down the back into its place and moved some other zoas up into more light which my sexys have now decided they are going to eat! Oi!!! (pokes tank)

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Whilst I was away for the weekend the tanks temperature dropped to 23degC (I turned it down as it was at 27.5 which i thought was a little high) and I think it may have killed my leather :( either that or the #insertnameofyellowcoral# has stung the crap out of it since i moved everything :(

 

But for good news, my new Lights have turned up! yay! prepare for some LED Power!

 

PS: What temp should I be aiming for? I usually run at 26degC

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Tank looks great, really like the new scape! What kind of lights did you get? Let's see some pics!

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I have gone for some of these sexy bad boys product-details-icongu10d.jpg GU10 LED bulbs!

 

3xblue 3xcool white all bulbs have 4x1w LEDs with 60degree optics

 

if you're not familliar with these lights TinyGiant has a DIY thread here

 

they show great growth and all 6 bulbs cost me only £22! about the same as new bulbs for my arc pods

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leather seems to be recovering now the stinging yellow polyps have been moved so they can't reach it :)

 

I now have a replacement korolia nano so have upped my turnover again, can't belive how quickly coraline grew on my temporary powerhead though!

 

due to the heatwave in the UK both my tanks reached 29-30degC! have unplugged both heaters just to make sure they wern't adding any heat but tanks are still around 28degrees

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weekly update: Major cleanup today, siphoned out most of water to a large bucket and transferred everything to the bucket, stired up my sand and there was so much cr@p so siphoned out as much as I could, also realised I had so much LR rubble in my tank, and as my tank looks so crowded I took all that out and keeping it in a bucket for the min, been eyeing up my 14L FW tank for another Pico reef sometime in the future, will the LR stay live in a bucket of water without a powerhead?

 

Oh and I tried to change the scape a bit, pictures soon

 

Edit: still waiting on the sockets for my lights! the bulbs and sockets both ordered from hong kong on the same day, the bulbs came within 10days, sockets im still waiting for day 20!!

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opinions on new 'scape? doesn't look quite right yet!

255564_10151772957535150_1925928585_n.jp
terrible phone camera pic but hey im in a rush to get to work lol

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still not yet, i'm assuming it got lost in the post as all his feedback says 'fast postage' yet the seller still asks me to wait, lighting rig all built, just waiting on sockets!

 

seriously considering a sub 1 gallon tank too right now just for fun

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still not yet, i'm assuming it got lost in the post as all his feedback says 'fast postage' yet the seller still asks me to wait, lighting rig all built, just waiting on sockets!

 

seriously considering a sub 1 gallon tank too right now just for fun

 

Do you have any pics of the new rig. Interested in what you came up with. Just about to start mine!

 

Jim

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Your going to use go10 bulbs? or already doing that? Either way. good job on the clean up in there.

I also use gu10 over 3G

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Hi, yeah I will be using 6 GU10 bulbs over this tank once the sockets turn up! Waited over a month now! Won't be using that seller again!

I used 22mm overflow pipe to build the lighting rig, it looks nice and open which is what I like :) I will post up a small diy when I wire in the sockets and i'll post some pics when im home from the weekend! :)

 

Im a bit disapointed due to the heatwave most of my purple coraline has bleached white :( rubbish

 

However, my leather coral isn't dead! Horahh!

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  • 10 months later...

not sure if anyone is still following but lets get this thread up and running again!

 

Lets start with how I spent my weekend, well, seeing as I know I will be moving soon I thought I would spend my Saturday doing some much needed tank maintenance! This involved a trip to my mums to get the water barrels then a trip to the LFS to get RO and Salted RO (to save me having to mix it good.gif ) I also managed to find another nano heater for a bargain £14.99 for a new 50W.

emptied the talk water into two containers then moved all the rock and corals out (removing two big bristleworms in the process gross)

 

I was then left with a tank half full of water and dirty sand so swirled it all up and emptied the water then repeated with salt water till it was nice and clean then went about reassembling the tank and I changed back to my old lights too.

 

They now seem really dim possibly the LED's were a bit overkill, the large ric was doing great before the change and now is a really intensly bright colour but has shrunk down a lot! I think maybe low light might be the best route but will try the LED's in a new array at some point I'm sure.

 

Sunday we visited World of water in Romsey and what a great place that was! Definitely going there next weekend!

I will try and fix all the picture links if I can :(
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  • 1 month later...

Finally moved the tank to its new home :) yay! now the fun starts!

 

need to do a lot of weeding! the pulsing xenia has taken over and tank needs a good clean but it's now back where I can get my hands wet on a regular basis!

 

B4A35B07-3242-4DCE-B452-28F2E98D6099-111

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