Jack's 2G Work Pico

[jservedio]

Happy 2nd Birthday Pico!

 

 

I decided to create a build thread for this since this little tank has blown all of my expectations away. I wanted a little tiny 2g betta tank at work and it ended up turning into a full blown reef. It has been running just 3 months now and I have got to say, it is the easiest tank I have ever run. I have yet to test a single parameter other than Salinity and Temperature and keep to a 24oz WC 2x per week recycling water from my 20g SPS tank. Yea, my water changes are done by the cup!

 

The Setup:

- 2g Aqueon Evolve with the 98gph return pump (since it is too strong for bettas, it is considered "defective" and I got it for 50% off - just $25 for my tank!)

- Ecoxotic EcoPico light with 2x 10K/453nm and 1x 453nm strips.

- DeepBlue Carbon filter Pad

- Bag of Carbon/GFO (currently using Chemipure elite because I had it left over - typically generic BRS GFO and Rox 0.8)

 

To set it up - I brought the entire tank and my hammer to the LFS and just poked around in the LR tank to find a piece that fit nicely. We put around 36oz of sand in, the single piece of LR, and 2 small pieces of rubble and I was off to the races. Everything was from an established system so I filled it with water in the LFS, grabbed my CUC (2x tiny ceriths, 1x small trochus, 1x red leg hermit), and put it in my car. My tank was up and running before I even put it on my desk.

 

The tank is stocked with a juvie clown goby, 3 Acan Lords, a Bowerbankii, a micromussa, 4 chalices, 5 or so ricordea floridas, some zoas, a montipora digitata, and 2 "test" acros just to see if I can use it as a temp holding tank for my home 20g as a quarantine for the acros I order online. I think I am going to replace the 2 acros with a Montipora Setosa and add another morph of zoas but other than that, I think the tank is complete. If the goby gets too big, I'll bring him home but I am hopeful since I have seen them in other picos.

 

I will try and update this thread every month with a FTS. No need to take individual colony shots since it is so damn small!

 

FTS 5/2/2014:

 

 

FTS 11/26/2013:

The Blue/Red Acan up top may look like it is getting smaller, but it is just angry from the goby perching on it right before the picture. If you look closely, you can see 3 new baby polyps on the front that have sprung up in the last week! I am very excited by the amount of growth I have seen in this teeny tiny little tank!

 

FTS 10/15/2013:

 

FTS 10/2/2013:

[Leatherneck3755]

Very cool!!!!!!!!

[jservedio]

Finally cleaned out the pico and got the tank sparkling! I pulled the rock out, emptied the tank, scrubbed the walls, stirred up the sand and pulled the detritus out, glued down all the corals that weren't attached and it isn't TOTALLY haphazard anymore. I got a lot of new growth in the past few months and I am hoping things stay as successful as they have been for the next 6 months now that it is all clean.

Things are a little stressed from being out of water for two hours and moved about yesterday and the monti cap got banged against the wall pretty hard, but it still looks much better than it did just a couple months ago.

Here are some new pictures! Enjoy

 

FTS:

 

Left Side:

 

Top Down Right Side:

 

Top-Down Left Side:

Also, one of my Ricordea Floridas just delivered a baby a couple of weeks ago - you can see it fell from it's mother above:

 

And, another one of my rics is expecting - should be a new mommy any day now:

[dpoltsdsu]

Nice, how are the sps doing?

[jservedio]

Nice, how are the sps doing?

 

The digi is doing great and growing pretty well. It is much more green than it was. I had to frag about half the cap off because it got jumbled up pretty bad during the 950 miles it spent in the cab of a U-Haul truck and I am hoping it recovers. If not, I have a big chunk in my 20g I can replace it with that also broke off in the trip. I did just put an acro in there a few days ago to see how it would handle it.

 

I've temporarily stored acros in there for up to a few weeks because it was on my desk at work and I used to ship everything to my work - but this is the first one meant to stay in there. It is just a no-name stag that when it's colored up is a deep green with a slight shimmer with lime green polyps and blue growth tips - but so far in the pico is a nice shade of brown

 

However, it IS alive and seems to be recovering from the transplant so only time will tell. No more cross-country moving for the next couple of years, so hopefully it'll all come together.

 

Since the 5/2 update, things have grown quite a bit - especially the acans and zoas. The mandarin zoas have reached "critical zoa mass" where they go from producing a head every 3-4 weeks to expanding on an almost daily basis. Still can't get the color I got under the Radion Pros with them though. I might add a 4th ecopico strip to see if it helps.

 

I will take some pictures when it recovers from the 950 mile move (on 6/5) in a couple of weeks. I did finally lose my booger sized frag of the tye-die chalice, but that was downhill from day 1 so I expected that.

[ElmoC]

How about an overhead shot showing how you got the back chamber set up.

[jservedio]

How about an overhead shot showing how you got the back chamber set up.

 

For sure!

 

Here is the overflow side of things:

 

Directly behind the overflow, I have basic 2-layer cut-to-size bonded filter pad from petco. Normally, I tear apart the 2 layers, but this time I used both since I just did a deep cleaning and had the rockwork out, stirred the sand, and did a 100% WC last week, so I want to capture anything I missed. I change it out once a week (sometimes more if I am making a mess in the tank)

 

In the media bag, I put 2tsp of my pre-mixed media that is 5:3 BRS GFO and ROX 0.8 GAC and I change it out every 3-4 weeks.

 

Between the filter pad and media bag right now there is a piece of the Deep Blue nitrate filter pad that I am testing out. It normally isn't in there, but it's been in there since I moved and I haven't noticed anything yet, so once my pad is gone I won't be buying it again.

 

Here is the return side:

 

On this side of the back chamber, I just have the stock 96gph return pump and a cheapo 50w heater from Petco that I also use as a topoff line.

 

That's all - no secrets or silly tricks. Just a super basic setup. The tank sits around 76 degrees and fluctuates a little bit and I change 48-64oz every week, typically using water from my 20g (sometimes RC ASW if there is some left over from my WC on the 20g). I never tested anything except for SG in this tank ever, so I have no idea what my nutrient levels are - but I would imagine they are pretty high since I occasionally see some algae pop up.

 

I think the reason this pico has been successful and hasn't had any failures (yet) is because the rock and sand both came from a very well established system (from my old LFS main display tank) and there was no cycle at all. Combined with lots of water changes and pulling the tank apart and doing a 100% water change every 4 months prevents any major ionic imbalances and keeps nutrients from getting too bad.

[ElmoC]

Looks good. Very similar to my 4.

 

One thing I noticed in your pictures and I have seen others doing the same thing, is you have the blue side of the pad facing the water source. With the pad I have, the blue side is the finer filtering layer. Wouldn't it be better to put the pad in the opposite way so the water flows through the course layer first? Having it go through the fine layer first means there is not much for the course layer to do and it will clog quicker.

[jservedio]

Looks good. Very similar to my 4. One thing I noticed in your pictures and I have seen others doing the same thing, is you have the blue side of the pad facing the water source. With the pad I have, the blue side is the finer filtering layer. Wouldn't it be better to put the pad in the opposite way so the water flows through the course layer first? Having it go through the fine layer first means there is not much for the course layer to do and it will clog quicker.

 

I rip mine in half and use both halves, so it really doesn't matter to me. You are right though - it would probably be more efficient to go blue side in, but I replace it every week long before it gets filled up (to prevent it from turning into a nitrate factory).

[jservedio]

Decided to post a new update for my little 2g since it is doing really well. I moved some of my Ricordea out so I could add a few new corals in (though I haven't done that yet), but the biggest thing is all of the huge growth I've gotten. Nothing has gone downhill, much of my corals have gotten far better color (look at the difference in the tyree grape cap!), and the growth is taking off. Only issues right now are a little bit of algae I've been battling on and off (though not too bad since I can manually remove it) and my mandarin zoas have thin growth since the algae was mostly between my zoas - but they are coming back nicely.

 

Front FTS:

 

Top FTS:

[jservedio]

Finally got some good pictures after a few months of my little yellow clown goby! He was always super shy and would never sit still for a picture. He is finally starting to warm up and has been out much more (Which makes feeding him 1000x easier and hopefully he will fatten up much more)! Anyway, here is a nice closeup.

[jservedio]

Happy birthday to my pico!

 

 

 

 

 

[jservedio]

It's been 5 years since this tank has been dry, but I thought I'd share an update with how the corals (and rock) were doing since breaking down the tank. Shortly after it's 2-year anniversary, pictured above, it was moved cross-country from Madison, WI to Raleigh, NC and set up in my apartment. Six months later, it was moved again to my new house. A few months after that, I broke the tank down and combined it with my 20g Tall. Here is a list of of the livestock in the tank and where they are now:

 

Clown Goby: Poor guy was eaten by one of the maxi-minis before I even moved.

Maxi-Mini Anemones: Both of these guys are still alive and happy living with a couple of huge RBTAs.

2x Blastos: They are both still alive, but they took a battering during the move. They are recovering and starting to grow again.

Leptastrea: Dead - it made it through the move, but never really recovered. Went downhill for 3-4 months and died.

Chalices: There were 3 chalices in the tank, a plain green one, a stunner, and a green/purple. The plain green one I traded to the LFS since it was just too big for the pico. The stunner is still alive and growing extremely well in the 20g, about 4" across now. The green/purple survived the move to my 20g, but couldn't find a good spot and ended up light bleaching it. It slowly died.

Ricordea: Still kicking in the 20g. A couple of them melted away after the move, but a few still remain.

Acans: One of the acans died during the move (the big one in front), the red acans are still exactly where they were on the same rock 5 years later, The blue/red acans did well in the 20g, but my wrasse knocked them off the rockwork and a big echinata got them. Same thing happened to the acan in the back, but I saved a polyp and it's slowly recovering in the 20g.

Blue Polyps: These guys just melted away after the move - didn't last long.

Zoas/Palys: The mandarins are exactly where I left them and still going strong. The red ones were overtaken by the micro, but I was able to save a few polyps and they are now spread out in my 20g. The other three were simply out-competed and overtaken.

Micromussa: This thing is still in exactly the same spot and is an absolute BEAST. It's about 80 polyps now.

Monti Digis, Acro, Birdsnest: All three of these STNd shortly after the 2nd move and moving to the 20g. Too much moving to make it. Should have sold them off like I did with all my SPS in the 20g before the moves.

Purple Cap: This is still very much alive and about 8" across now.

Favia: While this was dying in the pico, it recovered from that tiny half-polyp speck of flesh in the 20g. It's now about 30 polyps and is wrecking everything around it!

 

I moved the entire pico rock into my 20g as a little island. In the 5 years since this tank was broken down, I added a red monti cap, a WWC Yellow Tips acro, and some Hawaiian Ding Dang palys to the island. Here is what everything looks like now, 5 years after the last pictures in this thread:

 

The rock itself from the 2g pico and the original monti cap, zoas, micromussa, and red acan.

 

 

That little tiny speck of favia flesh is now a wrecking ball:

 

 

Maxi-Mini Anemone:

 

 

Hollywood Stunner Chalice:

 

 

Any finally, the corals that got battered and beaten, but are still alive:

 

 

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I think this Pico was a success. My biggest mistakes in the pico were buying the birdsnest and acro - they wouldn't have ever survived long term. I also think getting the Clown Goby was a mistake knowing that I had two fish eaters living in the tank. If I were to do it all over, I'd have gone with some more acans and would have put in the red digi much sooner.

[Christopher Marks]

It’s awesome to see how so many of these corals have grown and changed over so much time. Thank you for sharing your thoughtful updates on each of them, it’s helpful to know what insights were gained from the experience and how it all ended up. ❤️

[jservedio]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

It’s awesome to see how so many of these corals have grown and changed over so much time. Thank you for sharing your thoughtful updates on each of them, it’s helpful to know what insights were gained from the experience and how it all ended up. ❤️

Thank's Christopher, @mcarroll's thread really got me thinking about how most of our mistakes just get swept under the rug and while we individually may learn from them, other people just see the successes and end product without what went into it, potentially leading them down the wrong road. The one thing I really hope this thread, the post in my defunct 20g thread, and of course my current 20g thread is that people just starting out go slow, buy small frags, and learn exactly what it takes to grow out a successful tank.

 

I hate having to see what inevitably happens when people go out and spend tons of money on equipment for their first tank and fill it with hundreds or thousands of dollars of bigger colonies thinking it's going to work out for them, only to have everything come crashing down 12-18 months later. Especially when you know (but they likely don't) that those big acan colonies, those golden torches, that fat scoly were chiseled off a dying reef somewhere in Australia or the Caribbean.

[jservedio]

Six months ago I posted an update with a picture of some of the corals from the pico that were beaten up, but not dead and still hanging on. Well, in that time every one of them has recovered fully and grown quite well!

 

Here is what all the LPS that didn't make it out of the pico unscathed looks like now:

 

 

Compared to how they looked in my last update:

 

While the Toadstool wasn't ever in the pico, it's also recovered very well - here is what it looked like a few months ago: