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Innovative Marine Aquariums

3.5 gallon mixed pico


Motolife

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Thought I should start this too keep track of my pico ive had going for a little now. All my frags got pretty bleached out when I first added them I had the light set on way to bright, not to mention the light is extreme overkill for the tank. Anyways got the the light dimmed right down and everything is looking a bit better, zoas opened for fist time in weeks. I want to add more frags but want to wait till I see everything is improving as I don't want to bleach anything else.

 

FTS

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Equipment

3.5g rimless low iron tank

DIY LED light (8cw, 8rb, 2db, 2c) Coral Compulsion 14w 18k vibrance

AC 30 (Foam, carbon, rumble, filter floss)

50w heater, on diy controller (stc-1000)

mini pump I got cheap on ebay for extra circulation

Jebao dosing pump- dosing 1.5ml a day of Alk/calc

DIY gravity feed ATO

 

Inhabitants

1 green clown goby

a couple snails

hammer coral

unkown acro

red acan

unkown zoas

dragon soul favia

pineapple blastos

Branching Duncan

Frosty pink acan lord

Grapefruit Zoas

Orange mouth Zoas

Hawaiian Punch Zoas

The mighty ducks Zoas

Neon polyp pink base stylophora

few tiny red mushrooms

unkown hitchhiking green polyps(reminds me of GSP)

2 Air palnts

 

more pics

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pretty bleached out hammer

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thanks for looking

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I wouldn't say killer lol but thank you,I appreciate it !!! It's coming along nicely hahaha. Plan on stacking this thing full or Zoa's and softies or primarily lps ?

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I wouldn't say killer lol but thank you,I appreciate it !!! It's coming along nicely hahaha. Plan on stacking this thing full or Zoa's and softies or primarily lps ?

 

 

Very nice!

I'd love to see some pictures of that light.

thanks, and prob mostly zoas and lps I want to get more sps aswell but not to much till i see how they do and the effect on the water chemistry, want to keep it simple, would rather not dose a bunch. And the light is a 9 by 6 heat sink, driven by 2 Mean Well ELN-60-48P, for the controller im using the rapidLED DDC-01, right now I have 8 cree cool white and 2 rebel cyans on one driver and 8 cree royal blue, and 2 cree blue on the other driver. I did have 2 warm whites and 2 more cool whites in the circuits however considering the coral were bleaching and I wanted a little more blue look I took those out. I did have it in a wood housing but didn't like the look so a right now everything is in a lamp shade which I think il keep it in. Might take out some more CW still but not sure, if I do il have to rewire it all so prob see if I can get it to work out how it is now, here's some pics

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the wirings a bit messy since I took some leds out

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controller mounted on box with drivers in it

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whole top drawer dedicated to the tank electrical, my diy temp controller, light controller and cleaning supplies

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right now I have the whites on 5% and blue on 10% Hoping to get the corals to color up a bit

this it what it was in before the lamp shade

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Nice!

I am currently working on an led build of my own, and I really love how you put it in the lamp shade

right on, it super cool to be able to build whatever you want and to see it work makes it super rewarding, and ya its a super easy way to hide all the wiring ugliness haha and it cuts the glare of the leds down too

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Nice and simple but will grow some coral,that's for damn sure. But just to throw my .2 in there,I'd switch the cool whites for neutrals. It's not the colors bleaching,that'll be a intensity issue,which I'm sure you're aware of. Over all,it's a super solid build,that's for sure.

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Nice and simple but will grow some coral,that's for damn sure. But just to throw my .2 in there,I'd switch the cool whites for neutrals. It's not the colors bleaching,that'll be a intensity issue,which I'm sure you're aware of. Over all,it's a super solid build,that's for sure.

if I can get it not to burn them to crap haha I think I got it figured out now, and ya I took them out mostly because I wanted to get a more blue look out of the light without having the blues ramped right up, i might switch them back in down the road, but for right now im liking the color the fixture is making. and idk if it could be related but i did have a little cyano problem and it went away when i removed them, could have been a combo of there spectrum and the tank going through it stages, not sure but just a thought

I reduced my photo period too 5 hours a day, the light is 12" off the surface. Im going to do this for a week then add a half hour every week till im back up to 8 hours. Hopefully this will help the coral color back up.

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Love the scape :) It's difficult to pull off overhangs in picos but you've done a good job of it!

That hammer should bounce back in no time with regular feedings. Lower light while it recovers might help as well

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Love the scape :) It's difficult to pull off overhangs in picos but you've done a good job of it!

That hammer should bounce back in no time with regular feedings. Lower light while it recovers might help as well

Thanks, ya everything has started to get its color back already, got more frags coming next week!

Did a little rearranging, here's a small pic more next week

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  • 1 month later...

Little update, got 7 new frags in the tank, 4 Zoas, 1 Duncan, 1 acan, and 1 sylophora which didn't take shipping to well and lost some tissue and is pretty brown, hoping it starts to color up soon. I'm slowly ramping my light brightness up every week and everything seems to be doing quit well. Changed 2 of my cool white leds out for Royal blue, and I put the neutral whites back in, have a more 20k look now. Just trying to improve my color and let everything grow out for a bit . Started dosing 20 drops of seachem reef plus every two days and I am also doing 10% water changes every two days. Hopefully this will help color and growth.

Sorry for crappy cell pics, wish I had a good camera.

Zoo garden starting

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Duncan

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Acan

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Stylophora, a small price broke off when I took it off the plug so I glued it in a diff spot

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Loving this set up !!! The scape is awesome too. It's starting to fill in nicely,good work !!

Thanks! Hopefully get some more frags soon, really into zoas, just wana fill it up with them!

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wow your scape is awesome, thats a nice bit of rockwork :)

Looking good and im sure the coral's will colour back up just fine!

Thanks:) so nice having just a single rock, easy clean up and can disassembled the tank in 2mins haha

 

Man get some "designer" Zoa's in there and it'll look amazing !!!

I know! I didn't want to get any because I wasn't sure how everything would do in the tank but so far things are looking good, so gues it's time to spend some real money and get some real colour in there haha, unfortunately I don't have lfs so I have to order everything on line so waiting till it warms up a bit, Canada is cold this time of year.
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  • 2 weeks later...

snapped a rare pic of my GCG today

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also did a water test which hasn't been done in a while and found out my alk is around 6! so guess its time to start dosing, calcium was 450 so that's all good,so dosed 1ml of seachem reef carbonate today and ill do another 1ml tom and see were things are at. hoping to get it around 8-9

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Nice tank! I have always loved picos, and have many times been tempted to build one when multi-tank syndrome kicks in ;) And everyone is right, the scape is sweet. I just got mine sorted...still missing one perfect piece, and it was hell to get it all in place!

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snapped a rare pic of my GCG today

P1060468.jpg

 

also did a water test which hasn't been done in a while and found out my alk is around 6! so guess its time to start dosing, calcium was 450 so that's all good,so dosed 1ml of seachem reef carbonate today and ill do another 1ml tom and see were things are at. hoping to get it around 8-9

 

Zeee war paint goby. Very purdy!

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Nice tank! I have always loved picos, and have many times been tempted to build one when multi-tank syndrome kicks in ;) And everyone is right, the scape is sweet. I just got mine sorted...still missing one perfect piece, and it was hell to get it all in place!

Thanks! Ya scaping is a dark art, even when I get it were I like it, a week later I want to change it haha

 

Zeee war paint goby. Very purdy!

Thanks!
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