4l/1gal Soft pico reef jar

[bobi1x1]

Hello everyone

I started building my pico jar reef and currently I am in preparation and equipment

collecting phase. This will be slow build, I am saltwater beginner and my first

salted tank (25l/6gal) was started just recently.

I had plans for miniature aquarium in past, it was freshwater crayfish, shrimp

and snail tank. Smallest tank that I had was 10l (2.6gal) running for 8 months,

replaced with larger 25l (6gal) tank.

Jar is 4.25l (1.1gal) "orcio" style. It has ugly seam in middle and view

is fairly distorted, but this is the best I could find that has big enough lid

to fit hand. Right now I am using cellophane and rubber band instead of lid,

but I will have to cut hole in metal lid and place glass or acrylic.

Also need to drill holes for air tube, heater cable and temperature probe.

I have completed diy led light. There are 6 led diodes: 3up RB+NW and 430nm violet from

ledgroupbuy and cree cool white and royal blue from ebay, connected to 2 meanwell

ldd 350ma drivers. One channel is for royal blues and other for white and violet.

Diodes are mounted on 6x6cm (2.36x2.36") heatsink with 40mm fan.

When both channels are at 100% and fan is at 100% heatsink doesn't get hot.

I will use arduino as light and fan controller.

Light and fan use 0.7a 12v.

This is my first diy project (that I actually completed).

For circulation I am using regular air pump right now, but I will switch to

12v air pump from ebay.

For one week I used 12v powerhead (240l/h 60gal/h) but I did not like it, takes

too much space (even the small one 4x4x3cm 1.5x1.5x1.18"). If air pump doesn't

work as planned I will return to powerhead.

I had sand for three weeks (jar is running with rock and airpump for more than

a month now), and removed it. I am not sure that I can clean sand properly, and

it will be easier to take everything out and clean jar without sand.

Pets:

- Hermit crab (Calcinus Gaimardii) - I have 4, one will be moved to jar. They

look very similar but I have selected one by shell. Who ends up in that

shell will be moved to jar

- Green neon caulastrea (Candy Cane? Trumpet?) I have one not great looking

(picture with crab) and one better looking. I will see which one will go to jar

- Purple mushroom - small mushroom is prepared for jar, got big mushroom for

other tank. There is baby mushroom next to big mushroom (not visible on pic).

- Green star polyps - I sliced part of my gsp frag that was hanging

from rock. It is tiny frag and both main part and frag are now open.

- Green and brown, green and yellow, orange purple, orange blue zoanthids -

I will have to frag each of them. I intend to take one polyp from each and

glue them to jar's zoa rock. Want more zoanthids

- Toadstool - I have yellow (not confirmed yellow) toadstool and I will either

take it to jar and buy new for other tank, or buy new for jar. I might put

two toadstools in jar

- Stomatella snail and cerith snail - I will probably ask lfs for stomatella

I know they had them before, and will buy cerith if available

- Asterina starfish - already have few. Mini bristle starfish would be nice as well

- Macroalgae - Not available but if lfs gets them

- Mini featherduster worm - If I can get one, I seen people that buy from same

lfs got few from live rock, I don't know if its possible to detach them from

rock and if somebody would like to sell me one. We will see.

I will add mushroom and gsp first, as soon as I get arduino light timer working.

Before that I will start fragging zoanthids and gluing them to rock from jar,

but I will keep that rock in tank for some time and move it to jar with toadstool.

Candy cane will move with crab once I am sure that everything is working.

Heater is not solved yet, I am looking for solution.

[ReefJar]

Right on!

How was the temperature when using a power head?

 

It's one of the downsides in such a small system. I see a lot of cool little brush-less motors (I mean really tiny that use like 1w or less that look strong enough for a jar or vase), but none fitted for aquatic use.

[bobi1x1]

I did not measure temperature but jar was warm

If I end up using powerhead I will try to pulse few seconds on and few off and see

if that reduces heat.

 

Another plan (which I did test partially) was to use venturi on power head's outlet

to bring air from outside of jar into the jar.

 

How much air flow is needed?

 

 

 

 

 

[bobi1x1]

I returned power head to test how much it raises temperature.

Room temperature is 24C and after three hours temperature went to 26.7C.

I will measure every few hours to see change.

 

 

On picture you can see pumps that I tested so far. There is one more which is just

smaller than middle pump (doesn't have in pipe and just hole like right pump) but

I gave it to friend. Smallest pump on left is not useful - it has just 500 continuous

hours expected. Right pump is ac pump and middle is one that I like the most.

 

 

Here you can see air pulled into jar. I think that this could provide some aeration

to sealed jar. I need to use some 90 degree pipe to aim up.

 

Also fragged zoanthids for first time. It was not fine experience and I hope that I did not kill my corals.

I was cutting few zoanthids from tiny frags. One frag had three zoas I and took one for jar, from other

which had many more polyps I took four. There are two more to take one polyp from each.

Zoas are glued to jar's zoa rock which will stay in tank for some time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bobi1x1]

 

My zoa fragging attempt was a disaster. ALL green and yellow zoas are dead, half

of green and brown, few orange purple. Only orange with yellow dot (previously

called them orange and blue) had no losses. There is free space for at least

3 types of zoas.

Lfs gave me some sample palys that don't have mat just stalks (protopalythoa maybe?).

Palys were in low light ultra flow and less maintained tank, lfs expected them to look blue instead of

brown with normal light. They do look blue but are now much larger with uglier

stalks (used to have pretty white stalks), I liked them more before. I am hoping to

get nice palys with stalks only but not too large ones.

Then I got new pink toadstool (it doesn't look pink now but its source coral is

pink) which I fragged because I did not like its shape and now I have three

small frags which need to grow stalks. I will certaintly add at least one frag.

I will try to get blue or orange toadstool, or frag my yellow(or green) when it

is big enough.

Tiny feather dusters started appearing in my tank, they are mostly pale yellow.

I seen few long ago but I did not know how to take them off the rock. Then

I found crab carrying one in claw but crab did not want to kill worm just it

was stuck in claw and I took it from crab and placed into the hole on zoa rock.

Later I found buch on sand below flow pump and took one large. I will add

more, I am hoping to get blue one. One crab's shell has something that

looks like feather duster (also lives in tube) and its really nice red colored.

New coral on wish list is blasto, as soon as lfs gets it I will take one, pink and

blue is preferred but pink and green would be fine as well. I did like it before,

only I did not know that they are not hard to keep.

I am considering to add xenia. There is empty space on back part

of bottom rock and I have no other plans for it, it will be either gorgonian or xenia.

 

Zoa and paly rock rock:

 

 

 

Pink toadstool frags - I will pick one for jar:

 

 

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