hcsceo Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 OK guys I'm starting my Picotope 3g. Not real sure where this is going but I hope it doesn't all end up on my desk. Carribean Live rock and Live sand should be here from Aquacon by friday via fedex. Everyone wants to see pics but I'm going to go one step further and let you guys see this thing live. All the specs are below and the live video feed link is there to. Not sure how well the live video will work but we will give it a shot. I do have one question can anyone give me a in idea for my cleanup crew. I definately want sexy shrimp so make sure that makes your list. Picotope 3g Rio Nano Skimmer Rio Mini 50 Stealth 50 Heater Coralife Digital Thermometer Current USA Dual 36w Light $30 DIY Battery Powered ATO 4 Nassarius 1 Red Legged Hermits 1 Nerite Snails 1 Astrea 1 Sexy Shrimp 1 Emerald Crab 1 Yellow Clown Goby RIP Flipper 1 Red Skirt Zoa Frag 1 Radioactive Dragon Eyes Frag 1 Kenya Tree 1 Cany Cane Coral 1 Toadstool Leather 1 Neon Green tip Frogspawn Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 link doesn't work for me... i have been trying to get a live webcam feed up of my tank. But I can't get around a private IP address. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 Yea microbubbles everywhere. I think this rio skimmer is still breaking in so we'll see how we do by friday. I haven't adjusted this thing at all yet. btw added a little nano-reef.com ad to the tank hope you guys like it. Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 The live webcam is such an awesome idea! Link to comment
hcsceo Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 This way if someone steals my tank I have witnesses. LOL The live webcam is such an awesome idea! Link to comment
Lalani Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 Hehe, property of nano-reef.com sticker! Link to comment
BKtomodachi Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 This is such a good idea for vacations, too. I think I may set up a webcam on my nano next year when I leave, just to watch. But then of course if something goes wrong I'll be just as helpless, but also have high blood pressure. Link to comment
do_0b Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 This is such a good idea for vacations, too. I think I may set up a webcam on my nano next year when I leave, just to watch. But then of course if something goes wrong I'll be just as helpless, but also have high blood pressure. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 This is such a good idea for vacations, too. I think I may set up a webcam on my nano next year when I leave, just to watch. But then of course if something goes wrong I'll be just as helpless, but also have high blood pressure. Yea this was actually the reason I put the camera on it. Mainly to check the temp from my cell phone remotely. My office has it's own A/C unit for the server systems but a few times a year the damn thing turns off on it's own (still not sure why this is happening). With 16 servers temps will rise in my office to more than 80 if this happens on a weekend. It's really not a problem during the week as the building A/C system is running at normal cooling but on a weekend the building system is set to 80. If my A/C turned off during the weekend I could have a problem. At least this way I can see that everything is dead and cry before I get to the office. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted March 27, 2008 Author Share Posted March 27, 2008 OK guys I got my rocks and sand last friday and got everything installed that day. So far so good water testing is going as expected. Ammonia has peaked out and started it's down climb and nitrites are picking up as we speak. I've included some picks for you as well as the link to the live webcam. Please enjoy. I'm working toward the free noob frags so cross your fingers for me Link to comment
hcsceo Posted March 30, 2008 Author Share Posted March 30, 2008 OK guys just updating my tank a bit. I can't help it but I Love DIY projects. Today we had a new phone system installed at the office so I had to sit here and basically do nothing for 10 hours so I decided why not build an auto top off system for this picotope. Using some ideas from the DIY section I built a gravity feed autotop off system. I've included pics below. The container is 1/2 gallon and the hoses are 1/4" OD Vinyl air house and 1/2" ID vinyl hose. Total cost was about $15. The container is located on top of my bookcase with hoses running down to the tank on my desk. So far so good. I'll have the video on it tonight and if it overflows during the night then I can cry before I get here and maybe get it cleaned up before work on monday. Link to comment
Knuckles Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Found your thread. I would have posted the answer there if I would have seen it. haha ________________________________________________________________________________ ___________ "Hermits and snails bluelegged hermit: great cleaner, sometimes agressive, will kill snails if theyre overturned redlegged hermit: good cleaner, not aggressive scarlet hermit: good cleaner, not agressive (not as active as other two) make sure you have extre shells for them b/c they will kill snails for shells nerite: great snails, clean rocks, clean glass, very active, they fall over alot cerith: good cleaners, clean sandbed mostly, stirr up sandbed well, they can right themselves, somewhat active astraea: good cleaners, rockwork mostly, cant right themselves trochus: same as astraea but knock frags over more often nassarius: stirr sandbed but are carnivorous, they will need mysis or marine flakes/pellets for feeding. bumble bee snail: not good cleaners, not too active, eat sandbed fauna, but they look so cool and small =) There are more choices of both but these stay relatively small (blue legged grows fast) Once they take care of most of the algae you might think of feeding every few days a quarter cube of mysis. Later maybe pep shrimp or sexy shrimp are an option Many people say that you should have 1-2 members of cleanup crew per gallon; but, the grazers do not add much bioload. I have many snails and they keep the tank pristine. I dont have to worry about a few snails dying and fowling the water since other members of the crew are there to clean it up. No worries Hope this helps ________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Heres the answer to the other question you asked me: ________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Glad I could help. Well you could find them in a few places. For one, when you buy your hermits from your fish shop, there will usually be many empty shells in the same tank as the hermits are in. You can just ask an employee if he can throw some in there so they wont kill the snails (free of charge). Also, some shops sell fancier shells in small bags of 10 or so for a few bux. When the hermits get a little bigger you can get larger shells from hobby stores that sell them or pet stores that sell larger land hermit crabs (walmart, hobby lobby, flee market, petsmart etc.) ________________________________________________________________________________ ___________ Very nice setup Ill keep track of this one Great job -George Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 OK guys the live webcam was down a couple of days. Someone in the office stole my ip address and I had to track them down. Anyway, looks like my cycle is going well. Maybe another week and I'll be ready for my CUC Params: PH 8.2 Ammonia 0 Nitrite >5.0 Nitrate 15 Salinity 1.0245 Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 77.2 Is that too low? I've been reading 75-78 from all the online shops acclimation guides but seems lots of people keep thiers at 80. Not sure if the reasoning on that is cause they have huge ambient temp swings and are erroring on the high side or if the reef inhabitants prefer higher temps. I have a private office with no windows and my own A/C unit for the servers. So my office stays cold all year so I can hold just about any temp in here. Let me know what you think. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Not much to report here. Nitrites are making thier way down and the brown algea is slowly going away and a new green algae is starting to appear. Not sure if I should be worried about this green algae or not but it is very bright and on a few rocks and the glass. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 FINALLY!!! I never thought this day would come. Tested Params today. Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 5 PH 8.3 Temp 79.3 I haven't done a water change yet and will do that first thing tomorrow then retest before I leave work and hopefully will bring the nitrates down. If everything is OK I'll be getting my CUC Saturday at lfs. Right now I'm planning on a couple of Hermits and like 4 snails. Not sure what they have in stock so will depend on that. Then I'll give it a few weeks and it's SEXY time. The diatom brown algae is pretty much gone and has been replaced by a green algae dusting everything. I cleaned the glass today and I think I'm good to go. I feel like I just finished a 20 day interview and passed. Link to comment
Bonsai Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 I See Hands! I see dead people Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 13, 2008 Author Share Posted April 13, 2008 OK I got my CUC added today. Added 2 hermits and 4 snails. My LFS had the hermits listed as "hermits $3" but the legs appear slightly red and the snails were nassarius. I've been watching the live webcam and I see them every now and then on the rocks working over the algae. BTW, when I acclimated the snails and hermits they were in two separate large bags and both bags would not fit in the tank so I decided "lets just put them together in the same bag" Yea I won't do this again... Was an instant caged death match and left me scrambling to pull everyone apart and drop them in the tank. They only got 15 minutes in the bag to get the temp right and one cup of water before I realized things weren't going well in the bag. The snails dug into the sand instantly and I haven't seen them since but the hermits seem fine as can be and are eating like mad dogs. So with any luck I haven't killed everything by the short acclimation. Link to comment
hcsceo Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 OK the gravity fed ATO is basically worthless. Seems to work fine till the water level in the tank gets to half way then it can't stop dripping water into the tank. I'm sure I must have a leak in it but rather than figure out WTH is wrong with it I decided to cut my losses and do a battery powered ATO based on this post Battery Powered ATO Total cost is about $30 with shipping and I already had about $15 in the other so I figured lets give it a go. I'm going to make a couple of changes to it and I'll post that info as I go, along with costs. Everything was ordered today and should be here in a few days. Because of the size of the tank and the amount of evaporation I get daily (about 8-12oz.) the salinity will swing from 1.025 to 1.026 from the time I leave the office till the time I return the next day to add water. Of course if I leave over the weekend I'm pretty much screwed and have had to drive down to the office each day to fill it up (30 minutes each way). So this is completely unacceptable and honestly all the pico reefs without tops probably should have some type of ATO attached to it for this reason. I need to be able to leave the office for a maximum of 2 weeks. I'll post more and pics as I have them. Steve Link to comment
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