Matt's Filterless 4G Pico - 1 year update

[M&C]

Hello Nano-Reef! I decided to get back into the hobby since I'm so swamped with school and needed a distraction. There is no mechanical/chemical filtration, just live rock. Inspirations: ziareefer, Rehype, Nano sapiens, gena.

 

FTS: 2/4/16

 

 

Equipment:

• Tank: 10" custom cube by PicO Aquariums
• Lighting: Innovative Marine Skkye Light Clamp LED Light 18W - 10K/456nm
• Heater: 25W Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm
• Flow: Vortech MP10
• Salt: Reef Crystals

Rock & Substrate:

• 3-4lbs Gulf Live Rock

Maintenance:

• Daily manual top off
• Monthly 100% water changes

Fish:

• Yellow clown goby (Gobiodon okinawae)

Invertebrates:

• Cerith snails (Cerithium sp.)
• Dwarf Cerith Snails (Cerithium sp.)

Corals:

• Various zoanthids (Zoanthus sp.)
• Various acans (Acanthasthrea lordhowensis)
• Various mushrooms (Ricordea florida, Actinodiscus sp.)
• Grandis palythoa (Palythoa sp.)
• Brown/blue trumpet coral (Caulastrea furcata)
• Colt coral (Klyxum sp.)
• Green duncan (Duncanopsammia axifuga)
• Green star polyps (Briareum sp.)
• War coral (Favites pentagona)
• Purple plume gorgonian (Muriceopsis flavida)

[M&C]

FTS 1/19/15

 

 

[M&C]

My orders from Reefcleaners and Live-Plants both came today. I got some snails, two species of Gracilaria, and some red grape algae. Things are looking pretty good! (but the struggle to take a decent picture under LEDs continues)

 

FTS 1/24/15

 

[DocReef]

This looks neat.

[M&C]

This looks neat.

 

I appreciate it, thanks for stopping by

[skyscraper2290]

Great start, it will be a good distraction while trying to do school work haha. If you are just taking pics with your phone you could possibly find an app that allows you to adjust white balance. I'm currently using a par 38 bulb which has a spectrum of about 14k, I'm not sure what the par 30 is but i imagine it would be close to the same though.

[k4ndyk1ng]

I will be following this, what are the stocking plans?

[M&C]

Great start, it will be a good distraction while trying to do school work haha. If you are just taking pics with your phone you could possibly find an app that allows you to adjust white balance. I'm currently using a par 38 bulb which has a spectrum of about 14k, I'm not sure what the par 30 is but i imagine it would be close to the same though.

Yup, the par30 bulb is around 14k as well. I take pictures with my iPad and use the photoshop express app to adjust color, but it just doesn't substitute for a nicer camera. Everything looks way over-processed, it sucks. Or maybe my PS skills just suck? Either way, I'll eventually ask some friends if I can borrow a camera until I can get one myself.

 

I will be following this, what are the stocking plans?

Thanks for following. Stocking plan includes mostly softies, a few macros which I just added, and 1-2 LPS. I'm undecided on whether to get a fish. It'll depend on how well the softies and macros do without those extra nutrients.

[SebsExotics]

Thats pretty cool!

[Partially Submerged]

Beautiful tank, great start! Is that the Ikea Tertial? If so, see if you can detach the lamp shade and if you like it more that way. It works for the floor version, and I think it looks really good.

[M&C]

Thats pretty cool!

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the start so far.

 

Beautiful tank, great start! Is that the Ikea Tertial? If so, see if you can detach the lamp shade and if you like it more that way. It works for the floor version, and I think it looks really good.

Thanks for the comments! And yup the lamp is from Ikea. It's great. I haven't found another desk lamp with a shade big enough to completely house the LED bulb. I like the look of the lamp with and without the shade, but I prefer having the shade on because the LEDs would otherwise shine into my eyes while I'm sitting at my desk.

[skyscraper2290]

Ya if you end up borrowing a camera definitely shoot in RAW because if you do photoshop should allow you to change the temperature (kelvin) of the photo

[cju84]

 

Hello Nano-Reef! I decided to get back into the hobby since I'm so swamped with school and needed a distraction. There is no mechanical/chemical filtration, just live rock and sand. Current stocking plans include softies with a few select macros and LPS, and 1-2 interesting inverts. I'm still debating whether to keep a fish. If I do, I'd probably stick with either a neon goby, greenbanded goby, or clown goby. Inspirations: ziareefer, Rehype, Nano sapiens, gena.

 

FTS: 1/24/15

 

 

Equipment:

• Tank: 10" custom cube by PicO Aquariums
• Lighting: BoostLED Par30 bulb (3RB, 1CW, 1NW)
• Heater: 25W Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm
• Flow: Vortech MP10
• Salt: Reef Crystals

Rock & Substrate:

• 3-4lbs Gulf Live Rock
• 1lb Tropic Eden Miniflakes

Maintenance:

• Daily manual top off
• Weekly 1G water changes

Invertebrates:

• Cerith snails (Cerithium sp.)
• Dwarf Cerith Snails (Cerithium sp.)

Corals:

 

Macros:

• Botryocladia sp. (Red Grape)
• Gracilaria hayi
• Gracilaria sp.

 

Where in Chicago are you located? I'm looking to get rid of some Frogspawn/xenia/Palys. Overcrowded tank to the max.

[M&C]

Where in Chicago are you located? I'm looking to get rid of some Frogspawn/xenia/Palys. Overcrowded tank to the max.

 

I haven't finalized a stocking list for this tank yet, but I appreciate the offer.

[gena]

Looks awesome, Matt!!!!! Excited to follow along with your new build .

 

You should get some little gobies, if you decide to do fish. If you want to of course .

[M&C]

Looks awesome, Matt!!!!! Excited to follow along with your new build .

 

You should get some little gobies, if you decide to do fish. If you want to of course .

 

Thanks for stopping by! I'm definitely leaning toward getting a fish! I think a mated pair of neon gobies would be cool, but a yellow clown goby would add a great splash of color. Touch choice!

[gena]

Thanks for stopping by! I'm definitely leaning toward getting a fish! I think a mated pair of neon gobies would be cool, but a yellow clown goby would add a great splash of color. Touch choice!

Either choice would be awesome! I feel obligated to tell you that there is a possibility, if you ever get a clam, the neon goby CAN irritate it. It's not a guarantee, but it's been documented. I had that experience with mine and had to remove the goby. But other than that...they are wonderful little fish .

[~LadyBug~]

Cool tank! I didn't realize you could screw the PAR30 lights into desk lamp fixtures. Going to file tidbit that away, since I'm thinking about doing a desktop pico system and don't want the light in my eyes either.

Have you considered dragons breath macro? I used to have some and it's gorgeous!

[M&C]

Cool tank! I didn't realize you could screw the PAR30 lights into desk lamp fixtures. Going to file tidbit that away, since I'm thinking about doing a desktop pico system and don't want the light in my eyes either.

Have you considered dragons breath macro? I used to have some and it's gorgeous!

 

I love dragon's breath! I actually have some gracilaria that looks very similar to it, although I don't think it will develop those orange tips. I'm going to keep my eyes out for the real stuff though, it's definitely something I want to add, along with some green algae just to balance the colors out. It's tough to stock a small tank because I'm going to run out of room before I add everything I want to add!

[~LadyBug~]

 

I love dragon's breath! I actually have some gracilaria that looks very similar to it, although I don't think it will develop those orange tips. I'm going to keep my eyes out for the real stuff though, it's definitely something I want to add, along with some green algae just to balance the colors out. It's tough to stock a small tank because I'm going to run out of room before I add everything I want to add!

If you can't find it locally, it is available on eBay. I actually used to sell my excess on there because it was doing a little *too* well. The price seems to have gone up a bit from when I was selling, though . It's a stunning addition, though, especially with the bright orange edging(I found adding iodine really beneficial...accidentally, I was using it to try to coax my third or fourth xenia frag to stick around and grow for me . When the xenia died and I stopped dosing, the dragons breath lost color and didn't grow as fast, and I said to myself, "hold on just a minute...")

[M&C]

If you can't find it locally, it is available on eBay. I actually used to sell my excess on there because it was doing a little *too* well. The price seems to have gone up a bit from when I was selling, though . It's a stunning addition, though, especially with the bright orange edging(I found adding iodine really beneficial...accidentally, I was using it to try to coax my third or fourth xenia frag to stick around and grow for me . When the xenia died and I stopped dosing, the dragons breath lost color and didn't grow as fast, and I said to myself, "hold on just a minute...")

 

Good to know about the iodine. This tank will be stocked pretty heavily with soft corals so I may have to dose it in the future, I'll keep an eye out to see how the algae respond as well.

 

I was looking over your retired macro tank and noticed you kept some red grape as well - was it kind of slow to take off in the beginning? The stuff I got started dying off on me a little bit at first. It's been about a week and it's looking a little better but not 100% yet. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it just didn't tolerate the shipping very well.

[~LadyBug~]

 

Good to know about the iodine. This tank will be stocked pretty heavily with soft corals so I may have to dose it in the future, I'll keep an eye out to see how the algae respond as well.

 

I was looking over your retired macro tank and noticed you kept some red grape as well - was it kind of slow to take off in the beginning? The stuff I got started dying off on me a little bit at first. It's been about a week and it's looking a little better but not 100% yet. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it just didn't tolerate the shipping very well.

The red grape didn't do well at all for me, some reason. Now, the green grape went nuts. Go figure.

[M&C]

I went to Reefwise a few days ago, and it's easily the best LFS I've been to. Great selection, really friendly service, and healthy livestock. It was worth trudging a couple miles through the snow to get there. I picked up a frag of zoanthids, colt coral, and clove polyps. Pictures:

 

 

 

 

Couldn't get a decent one of the colt coral frag, I'll have to wait until it grows out a bit.

 

In other news, for some reason one of my red grape trimmings wasn't doing too well and I had to remove it. I suspect the die-off contributed to the hair algae growth in the tank. I still have a smaller bunch of red grape that seems to be doing okay so I hope it stays that way.

[~LadyBug~]

Ooo, cloves, very nice. I loved mine

[M&C]

It's been an up and down week. I ordered some more snails from reefcleaners and all of the trochus snails ended up dying shortly after going in the tank. Total bummer because those are probably my favorite tank cleaners. I even ordered extra to account for losses during shipping. Oh well. I also removed all of the red grape caulerpa as well. For some reason it never took off and started to decay on me.

 

In better news, the 2 cowries I ordered from reefcleaners are both doing well. I love their shells! I'll try and get a picture posted soon. The gracilaria hayi is growing nicely, and the clove polyps are exploding in growth. Everything else is coming along just fine, and the tank seems to be doing well without chemical filtration.