Dymax IQ3 8.2L Pico

[a-t-m]

On the main page of the pico reef section, this forum was at the top and had 666 views. I felt that i had to change that.

 

So while i'm here, cool stuff! I wish i could afford/have the skills to do an LED fit for any tank.

[henZa]

Alright. Decided to take some pictures to show the progress....

 

Zoos were really stretching for the light before but even after 1 1/2 days they seem to be spreading out a bit more. I also discovered when doing a bit of cleaning that the one up higher hasn't attached itself as I hoped it would so might need to look into the best way to do this. I have heard horror stories of glue melting them so want to avoid this!

 

[zoos stretching for light]

 

Well finally here is a FTS showing the two lights on it now. Zoos also seem to be quite happy and have grown new polyps and got bigger since putting them in. Time to find my clean-up crew (I am thinking a sexy shrimp) and maybe get another soft coral to add some more colour.

 

[superfrog]

Awesome stuff!!! Love your setup. I've just started an IQ3 pico myself and am loving it. Very challenging wrt finding equipment for such a small thing but it's the BOMB!!!!

 

Just curious about a few things though:

 

1) The top cover looks clear in the picture. Have you changed it from the tinted one you mentioned earlier? and does the cover affect the amount of light getting into the tank?

 

2) Does the cover help with evaporation? My IQ3 is losing around 180ml (not sure abou the unit conversion) over 24 hours.

 

3) Does the cover not affect gasseous exchange for oxygen at the surface?

 

4) Does the cover affect the temperature of the water?

[bluecapsule]

Where did you get the cover from?

[henZa]

1) The top cover looks clear in the picture. Have you changed it from the tinted one you mentioned earlier? and does the cover affect the amount of light getting into the tank?

 

2) Does the cover help with evaporation? My IQ3 is losing around 180ml (not sure abou the unit conversion) over 24 hours.

 

3) Does the cover not affect gasseous exchange for oxygen at the surface?

 

4) Does the cover affect the temperature of the water?

Haha. Yeah, forgot to mention the new cover, but good spotting!... To answer your questions;

 

1) Yep, new one. Obviously the clear one is a lot better than tinted and doesn't seem to reflect that much light back. I am planning on drilling some air holes in it to try and prevent as much condensation as I am pretty sure the water droplets that form might be reflecting/scattering some of the light. I will let you know how this goes.

 

2) It does, but I still get some evaporation since it doesn't cover the back sump section. which brings me to point 3).

 

3) Since the back is still open I figure that the trickle filtration system is doing enough aeration. Once I add some air holes though this will help the surface exchange - and the evaporation

 

4) Definitely - First night I put the lid on I almost cooked my fish! (well not quite). I am using the Hydor 7.5W heater which doesn't have a thermostat so the temp got to around 30°C (86°F). I would say for me it increases temp by 3 or 4 degrees ©.

 

Oh and I made the cover from a square of 4.5mm acrylic I bought for AU$7. Got it cut down to size and then rounded the corners and polished the edges myself.

[Dustin11]

I see that in point #3 you mention using the trickle filtration system. This system will cause problems for you if you are trying to keep corals. It will elevate nitrates in your system, although you won't see these effects for several weeks or months. The commonly accepted best practice is to simply take on all the trickle media. If you want to fill the trickle filter area with something useful I would recommend either some carbon or macroalgae.

 

It looks like it's coming along well!!! That's a really quality looking top you built! I'd be really interested to see if you can stop all those annoying droplets on the glass from evaporation. I've had that problem for a longtime without a good solution yet

[superfrog]

Awesome stuffs! Glad it's coming along well here and thanks for the replies. I just might try and make one of those covers myself. Quite worried about 'flying fish' lol.

 

I'm also running 2 of those dymax led units on mine. They quite kewl and look to be plenty bright for a little tank, especially when allowing for the height of the rock/scape and where the corals will ultimately sit. I was looking at adding 1 of those Taam Rio Mini Sun (Deep Sea Blue) led clip on lights between the dymax ones for some supplementary blue and perhaps moonlight effect but from my initial research it seems these lights can't be used on a timer so not sure bout it yet...

How's your led mod coming along?

 

 

@dustin, not sure if Henza still has the trickle media still in there. I've taken it all out so it's actually empty back there while it's cycling. Planning on adding Seachem Purigen, Phosguard and some carbon at the end of the cycle.

[henZa]

Been a little while since my last update so here goes! I'll try and remember everything that has happened since last time...

 

Probably the biggest change my tank has seen since last time is some new livestock. I have since added the 4 red shrooms, The tiny SPS just to see how it goes and a hammer coral. I'm not fully decided yet, but I think the hammer is a little big (it is so hard trying to put the size of items into perspective at the LFS!!). I will probably move it back an inch and down an inch. Failing that I might look into fragging it since I believe it is possible to do it even if it hasn't branched yet?

 

 

Another issue with the hammer being so close to the others is its sweeper tentacles which it reaches out with to try and presumably sting the zoos thus causing the back polyps not to really open much. This thing is fine in terms of size while it is closed but when it fully expands it it pretty massive. The pic above pretty much shows this.

 

Just prior to adding things I has noticed a peak in my nitrates which was quite sudden (and also caused a red cyano outbreak literally over night! When I moved some rocks to add stuff I discovered a possible cause - a tiny dead crab the size of my little finger nail. He was a bit mushy and sort of fell apart! A hitchhiker I didn't know I had. Since then I have discovered one more tiny crab which is of the same type. Not sure if he is okay to have in here or considered a pest? Just snapped this pic of him the other day.

 

 

In that picture you will also notice the netting. I basically ended up using this to keep the single red shroom on the rock until it would attach. I tell you it took a while to arrive at that solution failing everything else I tried. I also learnt that it is pretty pointless trying to superglue these suckers since they just eject a whole lot of slime!

 

I did use superglue to glue the zoos onto the rock when they came off and almost got gobbled by my green fungia (He was holding onto it and had his mouth open! - that guy has quite the appetite!). Also just recently my green fungia has been getting pretty big. He inflates himself up with water most of the time. Not sure if this is fairly normal?

 

I have also discovered just how hard it is to work in a tiny tank like this with such little manoeuvring space! I think I am going to invest in some long tweezers and some extra dexterity!

[superfrog]

looking good Henza. Not sure what type of crab that is or whether it's reef safe. if he's not doing any harm then let the little guy be...

 

how did the LED mod come out? any progress?

[henZa]

Time for another update...

 

I have changed a couple of things since my last post... Mostly just arrangement of things and that sort of thing; but I did decide to get my firefish a friend - a little yellow clown goby. My nitrates have always been pretty low and I have always had 0 nitrites/amonia so I figure the tank can take it. At any rate I am doing weekly 750ml water changes - which is roughly 10% - probably a bit more than that subtracting the rock etc. I am going to monitor things though and watch for any changes.

 

The main hope is that the clown goby will help to make the firefish less shy - and so far it seems to be working. He is coming out from his 'hole' (read behind the rock!) a lot more.

 

Anyway, in my last post I mentioned my hammer coral and his tentacles. Well one day something interesting happened - it tried to sting one of the closed zoo polyps. In the end I think the zoo won since it ended up sucking the tentacle off and swallowed it! Here is a pic of it in progress:

 

 

Prior to this fight the zoos polyps nearest to the hammer were staying closed, but after winning this round all of the polyps opened up and have remained open. I am still planning on moving the hammer back about an inch. I am also keen to frag it smaller, although considering it hasn't branched at all it wouldn't be a simple thing I imagine. I have heard it can be done, but you just have to watch for infection.

 

My little 'pet' aiptasia is still going. I thought he was dead after being stung by the hammer as his tentacles all looked kind of crispy for a week or so and it didn't move at all, but then sadly he sprung back and is now moving the same as he always was. Oh well. I may kill it at some point, but while it isn't doing anything I am not too fussed.

 

 

Hmm. What else? Well I added some snails to keep my glass a little cleaner including a stomatella; which I saw spawning behind the rock. The tell-tale puffs of 'smoke'. So that what kind of cool!

 

Anyway, I will post new pics once take some.

[henZa]

Here are the pics I promised. Looking back at my previous tank shots I am very happy with the progress so far. Not sure where to go next. Maybe some more zoos of different colours just to add some variety. Need to move the hammer back (and maybe frag it). I'm always on the look out for small corals at the LFS - most of the pieces they sell are just too big!

 

I also am keen to expand my clean-up crew. I am thinking a sexy shrimp could work okay. Thoughts?

 

 

Also spied the little crab again today hanging out under the zoos. So I snapped a pic... Any ideas on what sort of crab he is? And is he reef safe?

 

[Dustin11]

That tanks looking really great!!!

[andrewkw]

Other then maybe emerald type crabs none are reef safe imo.

 

btw I'd get that aiptasia before it spreads. I had one in my tank and got it right away. In such a small tank it's very hard to deal with pests.

 

Tank looks good! I never have luck with the aussie palys here. They always come in so nice, but end up with fungus after a few months..

 

Your yellow clown goby looks 3x bigger then mine!

[henZa]

Update time!

Well a few things have happened since my last update. First and most notable would be my firefish committing suicide. A sad day indeed. It happened while I was waiting for my new heater (with a thermostat) to arrive. Since the day was going to be a warm one I decided to rotate the lid a tiny bit to get a bit of airflow over the top of the water. The gap was less than 10mm and only in the corner so I thought this would be okay.... but apparently not!

 

On the up side, it has worked out for the better since my little yellow clown is much happier now. He used to hang out with the firefish at the back, but since then has moved to the front and seems a lot less shy. Perhaps he was learning bad habits from the other one?!

The clown has also taken a liking to the zoos I have at the front and likes to nestle in them.

 

 

Other than that I haven't changed anything, tank seems to be doing well with some things starting to grow so may not be too long before I have to frag some things back or swap them out for smaller corals etc. I ended up having to trim off the red macro algae since it was covering the whole tank in the end. I still have it in there, it is just tucked at the back now, although it is still madly growing.

 

Might have to hit up some local forums and see if anyone is keen for some. Anyway, that is all for the moment... still waiting to hear that my LFS has got some sexy shrimp for me and still waiting to mod my LED lights with the blue LEDs I bought. Busy times...

[henZa]

Oh yeah. And forgot to mention I did get a new heater in the end – the smallest one with thermostat I could find (until I found out Dymax had released their own small IQ3 one) which was the Hydor Marina C17 (17W). It has a fixed 26C thermostat – which decided was fine since I have no need to adjust the temp anyway

[Wiilio]

Absolutely love the YCG Glad you made the switch... I had the same thing going on in my 5 gal... used to have a firefish but it kept running up and down the walls. Soon I'll have a YCG too

 

This looks really great!

[Ga_reef]

What's the dimensions on the rear part of the IQ3? I was wondering this since I am thinking of adding a mini fuge(rock rubble mainly with a led overhead) to this part when I purchase one.

[henZa]

What's the dimensions on the rear part of the IQ3?

The rear compartment is in two sections; The larger left hand one measures 100mm(4") x 50mm(2") x 210mm(8.5") [WxDxH] & the smaller right hand one with the return pump measures 50mm(2") x 50mm(2") x 210mm(8.5") [WxDxH].

Hope this helps

[henZa]

Some more bad news! I don't seem to be doing too well with livestock...

 

The other morning when I came to feed my clown goby, it was no where to be seen. I probed around for a bit in case it was hiding right in behind or something but no luck. After that I decided to take the tank apart in case it had got under the LR. No luck finding him though!

 

So my conclusion; something must have eaten him. I am either pointing the blame to the hammer coral (which has become quite big lately) or possibly that crab I spotted earlier has become a bit bigger and dragged the goby into the LR to eat it.

 

The next day when i did some test I detected a small amount of ammonia for the first time ever.

 

So anyone got an idea what most likely happened to it? He couldn't have jumped (lid) or got eaten by the filter or anything like that and the tank is way too small for him to hide anywhere and haven't seen him since...

[.Newman.]

well he definitely died in the tank and I think your culprits sound plausible. what crab is it? the ammonia proves he died and decayed to some extent.

[habitat]

quick question on the tank itself...

 

can the four small supports/risers on the bottom of the tank be removed or "popped off"? thanks in advance.

[henZa]

well he definitely died in the tank and I think your culprits sound plausible. what crab is it? the ammonia proves he died and decayed to some extent.

Not sure what sort of crab he is, but I posted a pic back in post #33 and another one in post #36. See what you think. He doesn't really seem big enough to me but who knows what a hungry crab could devour!

 

quick question on the tank itself...

can the four small supports/risers on the bottom of the tank be removed or "popped off"? thanks in advance.

No, the supports are glued on with an acrylic adhesive I would say. You could possibly try knocking them off but there would be marks left behind.

[.Newman.]

the answer to your question is that a hungry omnivorous crab can eat anything. judging by the claws on that pup, I would be 100% sure he ate the clown goby. carnivorous claws right there.

[henZa]

Hmm. Maybe time for the crab to go then...

 

So anyway, woke up the other morning to discover that my return pump had failed. Took it out, pulled it apart and cleaned it but no go. I tested it for continuity with a multimeter and it seems to have gone open circuit *sigh*. Well I might use the opportunity to get a more powerful pump to increase the flow. The trick will be finding one that can fit in the tight space!

 

In the interim I have taken the pump off the top of my house-mates old AquaOne internal filter. Turns out even though her filter is an AquaOne (301F) and mine is a Dymax (PH-200) they were pretty much exactly the same! I currently have it running with the Dymax front guard fitted. Just goes to show that a lot of stuff is made in the same factory and re-badged.

 

I might also try and get the new heater (at top right in photo) in the back too and overhaul my filter set-up. Might even see if I can source some mangroves or something locally

 

And probably time for an updated FTS... As you can see the hammer is getting pretty big (and starting to harass thing again) so might be time for that to go or might look into fragging it.

[.Newman.]

either move some stuff away from it or frag the hammer and place that frag a bit higher, behind the current hammer.