KevinStan Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 I have been doing reef tanks for over 6 years. I recently have started liking the pico reefs more and started into creating some.... My inspiration to start this was from Brandon who holds two of the smallest successful reef tanks I have ever seen. One is the mini tank, the other is the reef bowl (Both can be seen on Youtube) After many conversations with Brandon I have decided to start my own. Aside from my other projects which include breeding amphipods, copepods, mini starfish, bristleworms, feeder shrimp, Opae-Ula, Mysid shrimp, and Rotifers.. along with Live Phytoplankton and creating my own line of marine foods.. I have now decided I am starting my own Reef Vase. Though many have had their say and claimed it is impossible... it is actually very possible with the right care. I am starting this thread to officially announce and introduce myself, and create a place for everyone to follow my progress with this. This is the first of about 8 pico (Under 5 gallon) threads I will be posting on and allow people to follow along while answering as many questions as possible. The current setup I have it on is not permanent. This is more of a temporary home for it that I have created to get it started. I will soon have it more "out and open" to view from all directions. This setup was really just to start it. It has been running now for about a week... and since it is up and going, I figured I would start the thread. Current Specs: Regular Vase (About 2 gallons in size but off-set is only about a gallon after the sand and LR) Air pump running a limewood airstone (Oceanic) For water circulation About 3 lbs of LR 18" Coralife aqualight at 96w (May be too much but it keeps the temp. stable and seems to light it really well.) 1 snail and 1 crab to start taking care of some algae I will start dosing the calcium this weekend and will be doing weekly water changes. So far the top off seems to only be about once every 2 days. LiveStock that will be going in here after it ages well enough will include many types of coral, as well as a pom pom crab, and 1 shrimp (Either a coral banded or Cleaner.. haven't decided yet) Feel free to comment or ask questions. (I hope the photo attachment worked.. if not I will respond with some pictures.. ) Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 This sounds interesting, will follow along... Link to comment
KevinStan Posted October 29, 2009 Author Share Posted October 29, 2009 Here is a closeup of the rock work. I hope to soon have the vase full... I will keep this updated... Link to comment
plantarms Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 cool idea, i'm keeping an eye on this Link to comment
pismo_reefer Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 yay!!! another one!!!!! Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 yeah i'm interested as well... picked up a small Mood Lamp pico altho got discouraged after reading about the failure rates. Link to comment
KevinStan Posted October 29, 2009 Author Share Posted October 29, 2009 The only failure is from not taking care of them. They do require some attention when starting up. Pay close attention to water quality, as well as water movement. Weekly 100% water changes, and the best thing to dose these with is A & B elements. Once you get coralline going and it's established, they are almost rock solid... most people get impatient and ruin it all by adding too much too quick, or by not taking care of it or doing water changes.... I will be adding some interesting life to this one... be sure to keep an eye out... Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 My thought for the water changes was to just pick up the whole tank and dunk it in my larger tank.. of course this means everything has to be secured. Link to comment
systemtool Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I think you would have more luck with doing more frequent smaller changes. Like 60% changes bi-weekly. You end up changing more water out through the course of the week, but never actually draining the system completely dry. It might also limit the amount of sand that gets blasted around the "tank" during changes as well. Link to comment
KevinStan Posted October 31, 2009 Author Share Posted October 31, 2009 The tank doesn't take very long to settle at all.... even when I was arranging rock in there and got it kicked up really good it only took about 15 minutes to calm back down...... Link to comment
systemtool Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Cool.. I was thinkin it might be better to do it that way so you still have lots of water for your shrimp/crabs or whatever livestock you end up with. Can't wait to see the progress on it! Link to comment
KevinStan Posted November 2, 2009 Author Share Posted November 2, 2009 I just got done setting up a custom moonlight for the vase (A single LED I had laying around) This added some good visual for the vase..... so far it is still doing good.... I started adding calcium last nigt and everything seems really well.... Noticed the first signs of diatom last night also.... I might add another crab or two along with another snail to get it under control but at least I know the cycle is going good so far... After next week I will start water test and if all is well, my first coral will be added.... I will post pictures of the moonlight in action... Link to comment
KevinStan Posted November 2, 2009 Author Share Posted November 2, 2009 Picture with the DIY moonlight.... Sorry.. picture was from my cell phone. Might not be the best but you get the point.... Link to comment
kylief Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 Its lookin good! Very cool... I will def keep an eye out for this one. Link to comment
KevinStan Posted November 3, 2009 Author Share Posted November 3, 2009 Just ordered some small conchs to add to the system... I will be adding a shrimp next, along with one frag of some zoas..... Stay tuned for some more photos... I will also be starting up my newest thread of my sub 1 gallon picos I picked up recently... I will start that one tonight for everyone to follow along with also... My LED lights have come in and I will be putting together the setup for the new pico... I am using the Cree XR-E's (With a lot of help from Evil66) Hope to see some followers on this one and my new thread as well... Link to comment
KevinStan Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 Started my new setup (well kindof... more on that thread later) Added the snails to the vase today.... wahooo! Thanks again Adam! Looks like I have found a few more pico tanks to start up some new ones as well... I would like to keep about 6 going.. sounds like a lot but I have had the best luck with the smaller tanks..... and really enjoy them more... I will post some updated pictures tonight of the system as it is now.. I have been dosing very small qty's of calcuium to keep some things going, and thanks to another member on here will soon be seeding some more life of some pods, asterina's, and brittle stars. I ordered a really neat small piece of red palm macro to add in there also. It should be here soon. Stay tuned.... Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.