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Mr. Microscope's JBJ Picotope


Mr. Microscope

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Funktastic Wint
:happy: Thanks! Thought that would give it a little flare.

 

i always like seeing your insightful posts around on nano reef. :)

youve helped me along in my pico endevours i must say. so thanks!

 

 

 

im actually quite the little photoshop professional as well. seeing as how i get paid to do it. :P i should probly make a sig. haha

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Mr. Microscope
i always like seeing your insightful posts around on nano reef. :)

youve helped me along in my pico endevours i must say. so thanks!

 

 

 

im actually quite the little photoshop professional as well. seeing as how i get paid to do it. :P i should probly make a sig. haha

 

Straight up! :) Are you a graphic designer?

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Funktastic Wint
Straight up! :) Are you a graphic designer?

 

self taught designer. i work for a construction company and i do Autocad floor plans, Photoshop stuff, mostly floor plans. but i also alter building photographs to redisign them and give my .02 on the matter. im also a massage therapist :)

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Funktastic Wint

oh i was also curious about the hydor pico powerhead. does that big thing on the end of the output occilate? that would be cool.

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Mr. Microscope
self taught designer. i work for a construction company and i do Autocad floor plans, Photoshop stuff, mostly floor plans. but i also alter building photographs to redisign them and give my .02 on the matter. im also a massage therapist :)

If you're designing plans, you should check out Google SketchUp. That is the easiest program I've ever picked up. 'Designed a house first time I used it. It's a lot of fun for making 3D models of things. VERY user friendly.

 

oh i was also curious about the hydor pico powerhead. does that big thing on the end of the output occilate? that would be cool.

Yeah, that thing on the end is an optional attachment. It came with the pump as sort of a promotion, but doesn't normally. It's really neat! The attachment spins around powered only by the water being pumped through it. It takes about 30 seconds to make a complete rotation. So, I get some pretty random currents. I wish it didn't take up so much space, but I love that thing. The powerhead itself can be rotated manually about 200 degrees or so. I have the pump mouted to the back wall and have the powerhead turned about 100 degrees pointing to the left and towards the back wall slightly. That feature saves a lot of space. Otherwise, that rotation device would stretch more than halfway across the tank.

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Funktastic Wint
If you're designing plans, you should check out Google SketchUp. That is the easiest program I've ever picked up. 'Designed a house first time I used it. It's a lot of fun for making 3D models of things. VERY user friendly.

 

 

Yeah, that thing on the end is an optional attachment. It came with the pump as sort of a promotion, but doesn't normally. It's really neat! The attachment spins around powered only by the water being pumped through it. It takes about 30 seconds to make a complete rotation. So, I get some pretty random currents. I wish it didn't take up so much space, but I love that thing. The powerhead itself can be rotated manually about 200 degrees or so. I have the pump mouted to the back wall and have the powerhead turned about 100 degrees pointing to the left and towards the back wall slightly. That feature saves a lot of space. Otherwise, that rotation device would stretch more than halfway across the tank.

 

i read on foster smith that u can attach a hydor flow to the end of the hydor pico. perhaps this would save some space? not sure how large the hydor flow is but it might be worth a look into.

 

and on a side note. i think autocad is about the most un user friendly program ever. lol but i took classes on it so i know how to use it.

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Those banners you made for NT are legit! How's it working out with feeding cyclopeeze and coral frenzy? I'm still debating what I'm going to feed my tank....

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Mr. Microscope
Those banners you made for NT are legit! How's it working out with feeding cyclopeeze and coral frenzy? I'm still debating what I'm going to feed my tank....

Thanks MedicBMC!

I've stopped with cyclope-eze. I found it to be too easy to overdo, but I think I might try target feeding a couple of my bigger Magicians with it. Right now I'm using the Coral Frenzy and Reef Nutrition's live phytoplankton. Very small amounts of each. I'm seeing a slow, but marked improvement in the health of all my corals. Hopefully, slow and steady wins the race. Maybe I'll see some actual polyp production by March if I can avoid another crash.

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Mr. Microscope

This is a list of useful links that I took directly from the signature of member carbon-mantis. Most of these I've visited in the past, but it's really nice to have them all in one place. Many times, I'm like, "ooh, I've seen that before on the one website, but what was it? Dave's addiction? Jane's Addiction? D'oh!" I erased a couple dead links and added a couple of my own. I'm posting these links mostly so that I have them in one place that I can find them, but I hope you all find them beneficial as well. Super cred to carbon-mantis! Thanks man!

 

♦Algae

ThomasD's Green Algae List(Translated)

Reef Cleaner's Nuisance Algae ID Guide

♣Comprehensive

Saltcorner's Species Library

Melev's Reef Visual ID Index

Wet Web Media's Articles&FAQs Index

Fishlore's Saltwater Index

♥Critters

Chuck's Addiction Hitchhiker Guide

Nano-Reef's Ultimate ID Thread

Hermit Crabs

╬Corals&Anemones

Chuck's Addiction Coral ID Page

Coralpedia's ZoaID Zoas and Palythoa

Actiniaria's Anemone Species List

♠Fish

Doctors Foster&Smith Marine Fish Index

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Mr. Microscope
hey the sig are really well done! good luck in the competition

"clownfish should fart bubbles imo.": +1 :happy:

Thanks marc!

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Mr. Microscope

Thanks jdl. I hope they pick mine. Supposedly, the contest ended on the 4th and they will announce winners on the 11th, but then they made a post saying that they might have to extend the contest. Perhaps they don't like any of the entries. I understand if they need to extend it. It is a business after all. 'Kinda sucks cause there were only three other competitors, but if they do extend it I'll probably enter a few more.

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I know I've looked at your tank in the past when doing research for a lamp to hold my par38 (June-July), but I forgot to come back apparently. I love the picture with all the zoa/paly's showing their fluorescent colors. How big does your leather get when it fully expands? I love my leather because it gets so big and makes the tank feel full, but at the same time it takes up some nice real estate. Love the tank though and glad to see it has progressed so well.

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Mr. Microscope

Hi sean151,

 

Thanks for you compliments. I just added some new stuff today. Pics later.

 

I love my toadstool leather. When fully expanded it's a good 2.5 inches in diameter. My purple leather coral on the other hand has been growing very fast. I little too fast for my pico. I think I may have to trade it or something.

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Mr. Microscope

Hello All,

 

I picked up a couple new additions today. Two colonies of palys. One is made up of Crown Royals and the other Green Implosions. These are some of the most colorful corals I'm seen in my tank so far.

 

Here are the Crown Royals under my lighting and RBs:

CrownRoyal02.jpg

 

CrownRoyals03.jpg

 

CrownRoyals05b.jpg

 

CrownRoyals06.jpg

You can see they have neon green skirts and centers and purple bodies. They even look neon when they are closed. That really amazed me during acclimation. Many of the these are at least half-dollar sized. They are bigger than my new mushroom. LOL! :lol:

 

Here are the Green Implosions:

GreenImplosions20110208.jpg

Greeeeeen!!!

Yes, they really do look like this. See coralpedia if you don't believe me.

The Green Implosions haven't fully opened up yet, but I think that was due to me mishandling them a little during acclimation. I think I grabbed the colony wrong cause I felt a couple snaps. I thought that I broke some off, but I think I just caused some internal damage to a couple.

 

The reason I was handling the colony so gingerly was because I got a little bonus with this coral. There was some sort of mithrax crab in there. It looked just like a small emerald, but I'm not sure if it is green. I couldn't tell with the light. I hope to see him out an about soon. I'll post pics if I happen to catch it in action. With luck he won't be a meanie.

 

There were also a bunch of pods with these colonies. I really excited about rebuilding my pod population and getting a better balance with this ecosystem. I think my tank is about fully stocked now. So, my goal is to just keep it healthy in the long term.

 

Here are a couple of FTS.

FTS_20110208B.jpg

Top down:

Topdown20110208.jpg

Hopefully I won't experience another crash. I got extremely paranoid while adding these. I realized that the last few times that I added corals I experienced a small crash. I know that these two times were odd circumstances, but I couldn't help but get that sinking feeling. My tank finally seems stable, corals are starting to thrive, and I added something to the mix.

picard-no-facepalm.jpg

 

However, even though I had to rework the tank a little to fit these monster pieces, everything looked okay afterwords, even my more sensitive corals. Hopefully I'll see the same tomorrow. I made a new batch of water today. So, I'll be doing my normal 4 liter change after feeding my tank tomorrow.

 

One last comment. I recently posted that I moved my fuge light because it was bleeding light into my display during the night cycle. I suspected that this was the cause of my palys stretching out so much. It turns out I was right. I moved it on the 28th of January and it's now Feb 8th. In that short amount of time I noticed a marked difference. The corals are starting to move closer to the rocks.

 

BTW marc3lo19, this was not yet the "VERY big update" that I was referring to. Stay tuned for that one. ;)

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and with these your tank just got much more complete IMO, perhaps even complete if you are willing to just chill and let everything spread like you stated.

I believe you on the colors, mostly because my implosions look exactly like that under RBs. They sure are something :P Btw those palys like to crawl all over the place so dont be surprised to see some leave the colony and go traveling across rockwork. no joke, but they are just mad slow in doing so; will probably take a month for them to move 1cm or so if they really want it :P

 

however w/e that bleached little white thing is on the left, its really looking odd =/ no offence maybe its blue/ green but the camera cant show it.

 

I'd have that toadstool eventually placed on the evo pump's propeller cage thing, and let it grow completely over the right back side, eventually covering the entire pump and blocking it from view. just my opinion.

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