Jump to content
Pod Your Reef

.66 gal Sunlit Pico


mmcguffi

Recommended Posts

did you ever know that trick of dosing iodine to a tadpole's water and it keeps it from changing into a frog? wish that would have worked with my chihuahua, he was much cuter and less mean as a baby.

Link to comment
  • Replies 74
  • Created
  • Last Reply

lol brandon...

 

looks cool, idk if 1 hours can sustain all that, but i hope it does. make sure to point the corals to the sun light, they should not be in the shade of the rock formation if the sun hits from the other side.

Link to comment
did you ever know that trick of dosing iodine to a tadpole's water and it keeps it from changing into a frog? wish that would have worked with my chihuahua, he was much cuter and less mean as a baby.

 

It's a much cooler creature as frog IMO ...and why would anyone want a chihuahua anyway?

 

lol brandon...

 

looks cool, idk if 1 hours can sustain all that, but i hope it does. make sure to point the corals to the sun light, they should not be in the shade of the rock formation if the sun hits from the other side.

 

Yea, the original reason I set this up in their house is because I dont have any sunny windows in my apartment. They told me it 'gets sun all day long' <_< slander and lies.

 

Fortunately the scape that I have going on seems to allow light over the entirety of the rock work--even the back side of the 'mountain' not directly facing the sun.

 

So my next step is to buy a lazy suzan for this thing to sit on so it can easily be rotated and all sides can be appreciated while also making it easy to make sure everything gets equal lighting. Im also going to buy a mangrove and plant it in the center of the rock work.

 

I was thinking I might eventually add some kind of goby if this thing proves successful/stable. I feel if the blue ochtodes takes off it will be an awesome nutrient export. That combined with weekly WCs might be able to sustain one...

 

What kind of goby would be suitable? I was thinking maybe catalina goby because they are not tropical water fish and this isnt a heated aquarium. Any ideas on a very hardy, small, and relatively immobile fish?

Link to comment

Yea, who knows.

 

Probably a bunch of people who have never tried anything like this who have strong opinions on how stupid I am :P

 

And yea, good call on the cyano and gha. Ill have to make sure to get the nitrates down to zero asap and Ill probably add some more ochtodes just to make sure they stay at zero. Better to make sure they can never have a chance to take hold. My mom offered to bring it out into the direct sun for the next few days/week or so to make sure everything is 'kicked off' and does alright. I told her no, that it should just stay there so its environment is stable.

Link to comment
garrettparson

This is alot cooler then I thought it would be. The no circulation thing is what worrys me but it seems to be doing okay for right now?

Link to comment

I guess if you are stocking grazers that will eat it then the gha won't matter

+10 for trying new things, we wouldn't even have a nano reef if some guy didn't listen in like 1985 (julian sprung lol)_

Link to comment

I did one of these in a pickle jar utilizing an air pump years ago and had some octocoral grow in it.

Now you are making me want to do a solar powered water pump for a small sunlit pico reef complete with say a small goby or something.

Link to comment

radioshack sells the 10 dollar solar kit, with a little wire with a fan on the end of it. there you go

 

 

seriously, it would help better than no circ and thats a pretty sick idea, I guarantee you no one has a pico powered by solar at all. worldwide.

Link to comment
This is alot cooler then I thought it would be. The no circulation thing is what worrys me but it seems to be doing okay for right now?

Yea everything seems to be doing okay. The aiptasia and majano were stretching for light but other than that everything looks good.

 

I guess if you are stocking grazers that will eat it then the gha won't matter

+10 for trying new things, we wouldn't even have a nano reef if some guy didn't listen in like 1985 (julian sprung lol)_

Im not 100% on what Im going to throw in there for the CUC. Im probably going to try to stick to as few dwarf ceriths as possible and eventually get a couple bristle worms in there.

 

I did one of these in a pickle jar utilizing an air pump years ago and had some octocoral grow in it.

Now you are making me want to do a solar powered water pump for a small sunlit pico reef complete with say a small goby or something.

radioshack sells the 10 dollar solar kit, with a little wire with a fan on the end of it. there you go

 

 

seriously, it would help better than no circ and thats a pretty sick idea, I guarantee you no one has a pico powered by solar at all. worldwide.

I know reefers love their gadgets but I want to keep this tank as a test of simplicity. If things start to go awry Im going to hook up one of these bad boys

lg-14052-42384-fish-filter.jpg

if I do end up having to hook one one I will try to make it temporary and solve whatever problem made me use it in the first place. Im really banking on not having any trouble though. So far so good.

Link to comment

it looks similar to the stock JBJ picotope HOB that i chose to use on my sunlit marina cubus pico. does a great job on small pico tanks.

Link to comment

yep it would be safe even for them, but in order to safely house their babies even a weak small HOB like this will need a sponge pre-filter add on.

Link to comment
what is the HOB filter called? It looks so small.

Azoo Palm Filter

 

 

So I was talking to my dad today on the phone and he said most of the life in the tank (ie asterinas, the majano, dwarf ceriths) have migrated to the top of the tank and are just hanging out there. He suggested salinity stratification due to lack of water movement. I think it's probably due to lack of oxygen so I told him to throw the two ceriths away as they are probably the biggest bioload (and they could be eating algae that produces O2). When I go back Ill check the pH to see if there is an O2/CO2 imbalance

 

Anyway, hopefully this magro algae takes hold soon and dumps some more O2 into the tank...

Link to comment

dont throw away snails lol.

i think it may have to do with the oxygen issues too. my asterinas always migrate toward the top especially at night time even though i have one of those HOBs running. either that or they are eating surface scum.

 

Once i actually saw a real small fly floating on the surface and an asterina was extending its stomach along the water surface and was eating it...pretty random lol.

Link to comment

eh--Ive got like ~150 dwarf ceriths. I dont really feel like driving an hour and a half to save two of them.

 

I told my dad to stir the tank and look for optical differences to see if there is salinity stratification but Im with you--Im really thinking it's O2

 

...and that's pretty cool about the fly :happy:

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

any updates on this? I am curious as to how viable it is. It has been just over a month since the last update? Good news, bad news, lessons learned?

Link to comment

Well I kind of stopped attending to this guy, and in fact it's only had 1 partial water change since Ive set it up

 

6101640586_0ee53a8545_z.jpg

 

It hasnt been ravaged by cyano or diatoms, but the water is a tab bit scuzzy from bacteria I think. If one was to do weekly water changes I dont think this would be an issue at all.

 

I put a couple halimeda trimmings in there but none of them seems to take hold. I also tossed like ~6 amphipods in there and they have done very very well. They have a stable population. From the shot glass of live sand I also have a stable population of hair worms (and possibly other sand-dwelling critters that make tunnels). I also put in a few asterinas and Ive seen them around but it doesnt appear their populations have taken off like the amphipods or worms. The aiptasia and majano have each divided at least once. I tossed a pretty plain mushroom in there and it seems that it melted away. Im actually shocked it didnt bomb the whole thing.

 

I think ultimately Im going to turn this into a 2.5g frag tank/second tank because I have all the materials to set one up and I think my parents would really like having a 'real' tank after being teased with a little setup like this. Ill just stock it with trimmings from my Edge.

 

But overall I would say this was a success. It's definitely possible and if someone put an attractive, very hardy anemone/coral in there (such as good-looking majano), this would be a pretty cool set up. I encourage anyone who is interested to set one up! Very easy to take care of and a neat little experiment.

 

[photo taken today]

Link to comment

so to sum up ur saying the aquarium above sat three months on a windowsill with only a partial water change and built up no algae on the windows of the tank> why take it down then, its an anomaly, shouldn't be stopped yet

Link to comment

I have, many times, they didn't run clean for long so you should let your project run longer since it seems to have a tune to it that makes it stay clean. ur not defensive right?

 

My rationale is no tank this small needs to be absorbed into a larger tank. Its two dollars of live rock and some sand, just start the new tank and let this one run, maybe its your unique light patterns in the window (to the left it looks like direct sun gets in sometimes) or the salt mix you use, something helps keep it clean and this is helpful to know. Yours and newmans are the only still picos running in this forum, why take it down

 

keep the pics coming

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...