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El Jefe's 3.7 Gallon Cylinder Tank - Now With Corals!


El_Jefe

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brandon429

When stacked with coral this w be totm

 

The way the cylinder is clean lines but steam punk, the kessil requires no hanging mounts means it w be viral one day

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jamescstein

Gotta say this is a sick looking tank. Following.

 

 

The only thing I always dislike about encrusting corals is the plug always shows!

 

That is why after they encrust past your plug and onto the rock you just pull the plug off. Sell the plug or move it over to get it started in another spot.

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Thanks for the kind words guys. I've got a really long way to go to even be in the same league as past TOTM selections. I just picked up ten tiny (1-3 head) zoa frags and scattered then across the rockwork. I also added a green SPS frag and a rainbow monti. Hopefully everything does well over the weekend, I can't say I like adding corals to the tank and then not seeing how its doing for a couple of days. Hopefully everything settles in well and things are looking good on Monday. I had the corals out of the tank for quite a while as I removed the frags from their plugs and glued them to the rock work, so a lot of the corals were pretty upset when they went back in the tank. Lots of coral mucus floating around. It was clearing up before I left the office yesterday and most of the corals had started to open back up again. I'll get some pictures next week once the corals start to settle in.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Any updates? I have been following along in the shadows for a while, but I have to say...you are building one of the coolest pico reefs I have seen! Keep up the good work and please share photos as it progresses. You have inspired me to build a pico

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Hey guys. Its been a while since my last update, life has gotten pretty busy and I have not had the time to get some good pictures of the tank. The good news is that the tank seems to be settling in. I've added a number of new zoa frags as well as a rainbow monti and some type of acro that I picked up from a local reefer. I've also re-arranged a number of the corals because they were not doing well in their original spots. The Kessil is pretty intense near the top of the tank, and I think everything on the top level was getting hammered by the light intensity. I've moved my green torch from the top of the tank to the bottom and it seems much happier as you can see.

 

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Here are a few more pics of the tank, please excuse the crappy cell phone pics.

 

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One thing I'm really liking about this pico is just how easy it is to do a water change assuming I don't need to get at the rock work to rearrange things. As you can see I can drain and fill the tank without taking the lid off if I am in a hurry!

 

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When I need to add corals or adjust something in the tank it is necessary to pull out the rock work entirely, since the fit between the tank and rock is very tight. Originally all of my rocks were epoxied together, but one of the bonds has failed so now I remove the rocks in two pieces. This is actually better I think because the single rock was hard to remove without bumping into the glass. With the rocks removed I can remove all built up detritus that settles to the bottom of the tank. Here are some pics from the last time I added corals a couple of weeks back.

 

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Overall I think the tanks is doing pretty well. All of the corals with the exception of my acropora seem to be settling in nicely. I've bleached the tips of my acro, perhaps the Kessil is too strong for it as well. I do still have a PAR 30 Coral Compulsion bulb that I may try out, as it should put less light out and may allow me to place corals at the very top. However, for the time being I think I will stick with the Kessil and see how the corals adjust. Originally I was running the light for 10 hours, but I was starting to get some algae growth on the rocks so I backed the light cycle down to 6.5 hours for now. I had a bit of a diatom bloom about two weeks after moving the tank to the office and running the light, but this is backing off now as well.

 

I'm still on the fence with regard to livestock, but I am leaning towards trying to keep either a yellow or green clown goby along with some sexy shrimp and perhaps a pom-pom crab. I figure if the fish is adding to much bioload and I start to have nutrient problems I can always rehome him to my 60 gallon. One downside to adding a fish is that I will only be able to do 80-90% water changes.

 

I'm excited to see how the coral does in this tank over time. As you can see I'm starting out with pretty small coral colonies, so it is going to take a while for the tank to fill in. I would love to have the majority of my rock covered, time will tell.

 

Thanks everyone for the kind words and encouragement!

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brandon429

That's literally a no biological lifespan limit design, as reefs were intended to be

 

Cleaned, exported fragged as will be needed there's simply no way to store up waste for old tank syndrome. It will be perpetually renewed with each accessed cleaning like that, the corals w be like 'oh, tide again'

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Wow, this looks great! I'm following along now. I used to use the same PAR30 CC bulb you are thinking about, and I agree, it should be a little easier for the higher corals to deal with. But I always found I had to place the builb a good eight or ten inches above the water surface to make all the corals happy. Any lower and they started bleaching. But I think maybe if you acclimate the acros gradually, they'll be OK. Good luck!

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This is the coolest pico! Before I set up my jar I looked pretty hard for something even remotely similar. Looking forward to watching this one evolve.

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Great update! I think your corals will adjust in time. You were smart to make the adjustments you did. The Kessel is a tad overkill, but sure does make your pico a high end tank lol

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That's literally a no biological lifespan limit design, as reefs were intended to be

 

Cleaned, exported fragged as will be needed there's simply no way to store up waste for old tank syndrome. It will be perpetually renewed with each accessed cleaning like that, the corals w be like 'oh, tide again'

 

That's what I'm hoping Brandon. I figure if I stay diligent with my weekly water changes I should be able to keep my nutrient levels in check. I also have the luxury of a couple of additional gallons of capacity compared to many of the air driven reef vases that are doing so well.

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Wow, this looks great! I'm following along now. I used to use the same PAR30 CC bulb you are thinking about, and I agree, it should be a little easier for the higher corals to deal with. But I always found I had to place the builb a good eight or ten inches above the water surface to make all the corals happy. Any lower and they started bleaching. But I think maybe if you acclimate the acros gradually, they'll be OK. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the info on the PAR 30. I have never used one of these bulbs before. My big concern with using the one I have is that I will need to put the light directly onto the lid, which puts it about an inch from the water. I'm thinking I could get a pretty significant "disco ball" effect with the different colored LEDs. In fact, I get some color separation even with the Kessil because it is so close to the water surface. For the time being I am going to keep running with the Kessil and see where I'm at in a few months time. I have Duncan, Frogspawn and Candy Cane corals all at the 2/3rds mark in the tank off to the sides a bit and they all seem to be pretty happy with the light. Its possible that my acro will bounce back, time will tell. It has browned out, but the bottom half of the coral isnt too bleached out.

 

One nice effect of the Kessil is the shimmer. It is much different than the pattern I get on my cube tank, a much more subdued shimmer. With all the bubbles passing over the light its more of a slow moving shadow effect. It reminds me of what sunlight does on really windy partly cloudy days were cloud shadows pass quickly overhead. Hard to describe, maybe I will try to get a video of the effect and post it...

 

 

This is the coolest pico! Before I set up my jar I looked pretty hard for something even remotely similar. Looking forward to watching this one evolve.

 

Thanks! The setup is pretty unique, I can't really think of something you could buy in a store that would be similar. I guess that's part of why I like it so much!

 

Great update! I think your corals will adjust in time. You were smart to make the adjustments you did. The Kessel is a tad overkill, but sure does make your pico a high end tank lol

 

Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Kessil products. Its just a really nice compact form factor, but overkill for sure. With this tank the exterior will probably always be more noteworthy that what is going on inside the tank, and I think the small Kessil pendant helps keep the "science experiment" aesthetic I am going for.

 

It would have been hard to justify the Kessil at retail price, but I could not pass it up for the killer deal I got it for used. That being said, I would be lying if I said I do not wish I could adjust the spectrum and intensity like you can on the newer models. Maybe a couple of years down the road I will spring for that upgrade!

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This is the coolest pico! Before I set up my jar I looked pretty hard for something even remotely similar. Looking forward to watching this one evolve.

If you find one its not going to be cheap , Bench top models about half that size go for around $5k . And that's IF you can find them without the computer systems that monitor them, they are around $12k when sold as a package deal .

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If you find one its not going to be cheap , Bench top models about half that size go for around $5k . And that's IF you can find them without the computer systems that monitor them, they are around $12k when sold as a package deal .

Haha Yeah I knew the price of the real bioreactor vessels 'Remotely similar' was definatly the key part lol. I had considered modeling and 3d printing something similar in style.

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Here are some shots of the tank that I took a few days back. Not the best lens for this type of shooting, but its probably better than the cell phone pics...

 

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  • Like 10
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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2016/6/aafeature?utm_source=nivoslider&utm_medium=slider&utm_campaign=clickthru

 

 

see what I mean here

 

there is a demand for rocket retro steam punk chrome type pico reefs in lab work. yours beats theirs man.

Nice! Who knew trends were being set on this build!

 

I like it alot. Whats the coral at the bottom of the tank?

 

Thanks Joey! That's a green torch coral. Its usually looking pretty happy at the bottom of the tank. That is until my klutz of a hermit crab crawls all over it every hour or two...

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  • 1 month later...
Deleted User 9

Peace El_jefe,

 

Great looking Reef you have there.

Interesting shape and "steampunk" style.

Very creative!!!

Looking fantastic!!

Great pics too.

Thanks.

Much Success and Happiness.

 

Blessings All.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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  • 9 months later...
11 hours ago, Smithen said:

Was looking for inspiration on Pico's, love what you did. I know it's been a year, do you still have it running?

and if it is still running, did you put in any livestock like the cuc you mentioned way back when you started this project? 

 

also, unless I missed it, I didn't see any comments on whether you had to do top ups due to evaporation or not or whether the weekly water change was enough? 

 

@ Brandon429, your 'oh, tide again' comment was priceless, that totally cracked me up! sometimes we look and think...is this 100% water change good or harmful, and then a viewpoint like yours makes perfect sense and you realize something so extreme is actually fine and could even be considered 'natural', despite it being artificial. LOL!!!

 

 

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brandon429

right now I was just reading A Berry's jar thread and the last post mentions a dead anemone, and the resulting swoop water change / CPR and that's excellent habit. got something offensive in a pico reef's water? hit the reset button, water becomes instantly fresh reef crystals or IO or oceanic or fritz salt etc thank you for feedback!  I used to practice partial water changes too after reading about system upsets etc. then one day I pushed it to 75% and felt like Id cheated doom. im making a video soon that shows me simply draining my whole tank to zero, leaving all corals in the air for 25 mins (vid sped up that segment w time clock in background) then refilled with 100% new water, there's always ways to keep pushing how we condition these little tanks very neat flexibility they have. my current record for drain air time is 35 mins and that seemed to really push things lol, w do 25 for the vid its plenty good enough to show strength in these systems.

 

anyones pico here can do it, mine's not tuned specially. has to be fishless though, for obvious reasons lol

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