My next project, A 2.5gallon Pico reef!

[DonnieP]

DP I don't know how I missed the thread man with all the pm's

 

the color is fantastic

I can see base plating of the sps you must have been dosing this tank!?!

B

 

 

Brandon

I been dosing C-Balance as you suggested, not quit as much but dosing once to twice a week. I been using Red Sea coral pro salt too. I was kinda concerned about enough oxygen for the Damsel but I guess the Chaeto is putting out plenty, he seems very happy. As soon as he grows a little I will replace him with another small one. Man the Isopods were actually eating my Zoa's, I watched them eating on a healthy one and pestering heck out of my corals, since I put the Damsel in everything is coming out better. I do have sps spreading onto the rocks, I goofed up and snapped that milli in the front right center off the other day when I caught the little Panda Goby out, I glued it back and it looks fine, ticked me off though, there is so little room in there for error when moving stuff.

[DonnieP]

Looks great! And what brand was the silver fixture in post # 15? was it enough light? I'm looking for a premade one :/

 

Gvtv44

I am posting a link to that light but the guy I bought it from is not selling them anymore, you might send him an email, he may still have some, he is a nice fella, even sent me some free coral with the light. If you can not find one, I might be interested in selling mine since I don't use it anymore, I only used it about a month. It was a very bright little light I just wanted more blue. IIf you check, I did find this same light from China, just takes a couple of weeks to get here.Search it on ebay, if all else fails and you want mine, shoot me a line.

 

LED light fixture

[brandon429]

Wow man its smashing good color and system health. I can see the details in the pics, there is not one single spot of algae in the whole tank except for where you put it, a total success. Im linking this to several others who need help w large sealed approaches I'll recommend they copy your salt mix and dosing because this outcome is ideal

 

YAY!

[brandon429]

I wouldn't have guessed a fish would work in it but hey if they keep em in 3 gals and the old rule used to be 10 then whats minus a gallon lol

 

damsels are the goldfish of the reef anyway at least it wasnt a clown.

[DonnieP]

Brandon

Now if you could just tell me why I can't get coralline to grow in there. I have seeded it several times, only thing I can think of is the bright led lights, I have the same problem with my 28 jbj nano and I'm dosing kalkwasser in it now.

[brandon429]

yes thats interesting, coralline goes with c balance hand in hand. If you are keeping calcium above 400 and dkh close to 10/11 consistenly then it matches my params and the seeding should work. Sorry I don't have ml's memorized but I know how to play c balance like the drum solo to tom sawyer so tell me in terms of capfulls, how much are you adding each dosing day and is it always in the mornings before lights on? spaced at least 20 mins apart?

 

also let me go back and reread if you are doing weekly or bi weekly water changes, and of what percentage

[DonnieP]

I dose the c-balance usually twice a week in the morning 3 ml of each, I'm affraid to dose much because when I do check the water it is alway good, 1024, PH 8.1 consistantly, 9-10 DKH, calcium 420-460. I change 80-90% of the water every two weeks. Corraline should grow but for the leds. I have read and seen leds stop coralline growth. A friend of mine had exceptional coralline growth under MH and he switched to led and his coralline on the back glass is disappearing. I love leds for coral growth but I really believe they hamper coralline and you know that may not be a bad thing, I think coralline grows over and plugs the tiny pores of liverock where the bacteria needs to grow. Needless to say I don't spend much time scraping glass either, but I would like to have a little for color on the rocks.

[brandon429]

I agree with that summation good call. Ive not used led's but have read similar effects and the tanks I know that use LED's dont have alot on the glass although I do see it on the rocks in great detail. I find it so strange that coralline doesn't like to grow on the glass in LED tanks what a neat dynamic. Its helpful to know your c balance dosing in this size of a tank thats helpful for my friend with the twin picos a few clicks down in this forum.

[.Newman.]

that is very odd o_o

how long has this tank been going as reef? have you been scraping that back wall at all during this time? it looks very clean.

I havent really touched my back wall in my picotope since i started and it is covered in dark green coralline with some pink splotches too. also that area of my tank is in dimmer light. I find the coralline on my glass grows in the dimmer areas of the tank like the corners. these are also the areas that dont receive any abrasive cleaning.

[DonnieP]

Never scraped the back just run a pad over it to clean it. The pico is 5 months old but I just changed the leds to more 20k in the past couple of weeks, I want to see if that helps. My 28g JBJ led nano has been running over a year and coralline does not grow in it either.

[.Newman.]

5 months is a relatively short time. you should have seen something on your rock by now though... glass coralline will start up randomly, then probably grow unnoticed in some spots until they get big enough for you to find it

 

dont worry about it, you will get coralline eventually. i bet you already have gray/gray-blue/ dark green growth covering the rocks already. some of that may be types of coralline. its not always purple/red/pink, but that one should appear in due time too!

[brandon429]

one thing Id add is 5 mos is long enough to bleach existing coralline on those rocks, so the fact its holding looks good to me. itd be white if the ion balance was low or the pH kept shifting, the tank really looks ideally colored and you probably won't miss the coralline scraping and scratching of your tank

 

there's probably nothing Id change on this tank currently, its too clean and too balanced. plating corals means hold course!!!

[brandon429]

Donnie I don't think the other sealed tanks I knew of were still up, I don't think garrett still has his but maybe he w chime in. This is a very rare tank you have, is it still goin well

[DonnieP]

Yep, tank is still on track and all is well in the tiny ocean. I have done some experimenting with snails for the pico, I had a tiny amount of some sort of fussy stuff on the rocks. I added a Nerite to clean it up but he was more or less useless so I added one of my Astrea snails from my 28g and man I tell ya, that tank is spotless. Since my last pics I have glued three pieces of GSP to the back wall to get some color there, they are doing fine so far. I'm coming up on six months old. My evaporation rate is still almost non detectable.

[brandon429]

I have heard consistently good things about astreas, even eating the dredded red brush algae, how do you keep them from knocking over your frags!!

[DonnieP]

Well, so far I have had no problem with them knocking over frags in either tank. Only one I had bull dose a coral was my Mexican Turbo "rest his soul" but he did such a good job of cleaning that I let it go, only did it one time. Astreas will not eat the red brush algae but the Mexican Turbo will, he is the only thing I have seen touch it in my 28g nano. The Emerald crab picks at it a little but not enough to make a dent, the Turbo pulls the stuff up by the roots.

[Bill Nye]

Turbos are no joke and they dont bulldose that bad till they get big IMO. Like your build. +1

[DonnieP]

Few new closeups I took today. The lil pico is still trucking, got some sps plating and other growth.

[Cintax]

Tank looks great. Wish I was handy enough with wood to make something similar.

[DonnieP]

Just a pic update taken yesterday.

[brandon429]

Sharp!!!!

here's what I garner from those pics, thats really nice man.

 

look at the top down shot in normal color. patches of yellow and green algae haze/crud/gunk in the corners would pop in that kind of light and there is none. the bulk of 9 mo old tanks that size with that many internal tank divisions/substrates would have some areas of algae/detritus, at least in the corners, havent changed the filters yet but was going to yesterday kind of look-

This tank is as clean as it was on day one

 

you've kept that tank clinically clean of algae and fuel pocketing and I like it. #1 reason your tank can have an indefinate lifespan barring hardware failure, its not storing up unremoved waste. all tanks will accumulate crud to some degree, your tank looks like a dentist with a prophy angle/scaler fixation went to town its nice man. I can tell by looking you aren't feeding the tank too heavy, how and what were you feeding again?

 

I noticed the coralline is not patching even on some of the filter areas you might not cosmetically scrub, we get coralline by month 9 w c balance dosing so im inferring you stopped dosing or what? this is not bad. I can totally see why people don't want the purple patches/scratch your tank while removing/block view of your best coral look of heavy coralline. Those tank of the month all sps tanks online don't have coralline everywhere either the new look is this sps in clean blue bommies formation where the focus is on coral health, your tank is on its way to getting that.

 

is your goal to grow the coral fast or to preserve the look and work load of the tank with slower but consistent growth?

[DonnieP]

Thanks Brandon! I am not trying to grow coral at a fast rate just consistant, I just want to see how long I can make this work. I am still dosing C-Balance, here is about what I do. I change water at 90% every two weeks, should be more I know but hey its working ok. I dose C-Balance at a rate of 5 ml or one cap full of each part twice a week before lights on. At present, I feed cyclo-peeze on the day of water change only. My only clean up crew is one Astrea snail. I had a tiny blue Damsel in there because the pods got so dense they were eating my healthy Zoas, anyway the Damsel did fine in the semi sealed tank with the Chaeto providing oxygen for over three months then I removed him because I was having to feed him after he got rid of most of the pods and I didn't want to foul the tank by feeding him. I may have to put him back in on occasion to take down the pods though.

[brandon429]

Well the tank is in great tune it looks really sharp, thats pretty low maintenance too anyone would agree. tons of coralline also use up more doser, your particular tune for this sealed pico is really working nicely. I can't wait to track its growth and see more care methods in action for the tiny pico reef.

 

I can see some of the sps base plating onto the rock surface you are in the cool club man.

[minime]

me likey you have an awesome tank there donnie! i do find it interesting that you dont have coraline though. il have to do some checking into that:) awsome that you kept a fish aswell, way cool. props u definately know what your doing

[ganja]

What kind of pump are you running in the back and whats its dimensions? Good flow on that thing?