tibbsy07 5.5 pico reef

[gena]

Right? Ultimately it costs way more to do larger tanks imo bc of the lights. Everything else is similarly priced. Rock obviously is more, too.

Lighting is a HUGE expense with larger tanks for sure.

[tibbsy07]

Lighting is a HUGE expense with larger tanks for sure.

Lighting was what convinced me that ot was ok that my landlords telling me the 20L was too big. Such a critical piece of reef keeping and the most expensive one. Picos can be lit with a nanobox or cc bulb. Not bank breakers. A lot more finicky tanks though. One wrong thing and it's over.

[evanski]

Right? Ultimately it costs way more to do larger tanks imo bc of the lights. Everything else is similarly priced. Rock obviously is more, too.

 

Pico cost per gallon, though, is INSANE!

[tibbsy07]

 

Pico cost per gallon, though, is INSANE!

Yeah it is expensive per gallon, but I tend to think of total cost in these cases.

[Nanofreak79]

Sounds good. I'll see what I can do. I wonder if any place locally sells them (Petco/Petsmart) or if I'll have to order on amazon and wait.

 

Does clipping them really work?

 

I clipped my impeller on my AC70. I used a side cutters to do it, left a nice clean cut. The plastic, at least in my case, wasn't brittle.

[tibbsy07]

 

I clipped my impeller on my AC70. I used a side cutters to do it, left a nice clean cut. The plastic, at least in my case, wasn't brittle.

Gotcha. I ended up finding an AC30 impeller and swapping out the stock 70 one.

[Nanofreak79]

^ might have missed that. Better option for selling in the future, or keeping stock impeller anyway.

[gena]

Lighting was what convinced me that ot was ok that my landlords telling me the 20L was too big. Such a critical piece of reef keeping and the most expensive one. Picos can be lit with a nanobox or cc bulb. Not bank breakers. A lot more finicky tanks though. One wrong thing and it's over.

Those CC bulbs are so the way to go for someone on a budget!

[tibbsy07]

 

Those CC bulbs are so the way to go for someone on a budget!

Yep! For the money they can't be beat.

[metrokat]

Themed tanks are gorgeous. Personally speaking though, you kind of have to get the itch of owning every kind of coral that you like in every variation out of your system (no pun intended) before settling down to have a themed tank. It is no secret that I have never been able to get rid of my frag racks. Recently it has been because I have fragged my colonies but previously it was always the sheer amount of corals I was buying. If you could see my spreadsheet of purchases.....

 

My first influx of corals were bogger sized SPS and one polyp zoas for $7 each, I spent like ~ $200 so you do the math. Over the months I kept some, sold others, probably killed 1 or 2.

 

I've often, now, dreamed of having themed tanks. Feel free to dream with me.

- A huge white anemone or sea of pulsing xenia with a pair of b/w clownfish

- super hero named corals like superman mushrooms, spiderman zoas,

- colored themes: a pico with everything red, one with everything green, yellow, blue, pink, white

- rock flower anemone tank with inverts

oh the possibilities

[tibbsy07]

Themed tanks are gorgeous. Personally speaking though, you kind of have to get the itch of owning every kind of coral that you like in every variation out of your system (no pun intended) before settling down to have a themed tank. It is no secret that I have never been able to get rid of my frag racks. Recently it has been because I have fragged my colonies but previously it was always the sheer amount of corals I was buying. If you could see my spreadsheet of purchases.....

 

My first influx of corals were bogger sized SPS and one polyp zoas for $7 each, I spent like ~ $200 so you do the math. Over the months I kept some, sold others, probably killed 1 or 2.

 

I've often, now, dreamed of having themed tanks. Feel free to dream with me.

- A huge white anemone or sea of pulsing xenia with a pair of b/w clownfish

- super hero named corals like superman mushrooms, spiderman zoas,

- colored themes: a pico with everything red, one with everything green, yellow, blue, pink, white

- rock flower anemone tank with inverts

 

oh the possibilities

Themed may have been a bad choice of word for what I meant, but your point is a good one. What I really meant was a few picos. One would be a zoa ric garden - simple and relatively easy to keep. Another would be my current tank. The third would be a different build that I'm considering and working on, but am not ready to discuss openly yet

 

One tank that I've been dreaming of, and we discussed this a bit, is a long shallow tank (let's say 10gL custom), with an AIO on one side, making it like a peninsula tank. There is a screen cut to fit in the middle of the tank, separating the tank into 3 sections: the filtration behind the AIO wall | the smaller section |screen| larger section. In the smaller section, LR and sand and an aiptasia breeding ground. On the other side of the tank, in the large section, sand, macro, rock and berghia nudis. The screen keeps the berghias from getting sucked into the filtration and protects the aiptasia breeding ground from over-predation. The screen allows flow through the whole tank, though. It would be phenomenally hard to keep and to get going, but there are some folks who have done berghia tanks and been successful.

[DannaM]

I was thinking of something else too but I'm going to keep it under wraps for now...

 

WHAT !!!!! No fair, making us wait !!!!!

[tibbsy07]

WHAT !!!!! No fair, making us wait !!!!!

It's a ways off and I don't even think it'll work well, but I was recently inspired (as I often am). We'll see...

[tibbsy07]

Good read on amino acids and coral growth I saw today: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/3/corals

 

I posted it in the BEST amino acid thread, too. The author here brings up the idea of actually testing the aquarium setting for amino acid effects on growth, but his suggestion leaves a bit out of the picture from what I read. Here is what I propose:

 

• 4 frag tanks, all the same dimensions, all the same filtration/lighting/equipment/etc.
• Live Rock and sand are not used because they can't be controlled.
• Eheim substrat pro would be used instead - from the same batch because this eliminates variables in the rock and sand and from batch to batch.
• Water parameters are kept the same, using any chemicals/dosing/etc from the same batch.
• Water changes always done at the exact same time in the same amounts using the same batch of mixed water.
• Coral frags are cut from a single mother colony, ensuring the same initial organism, and placed into the same part of the frag rack in the tank
• Tank 1 is a control and has light only
• Tank 2 only gets food
• Tank 3 only gets amino acid supplements
• Tank 4 gets both

It would be difficult and expensive, but damn it would be fun.

 

I would love for someone to do this - I'd do it if I have the money, time, and space.

[markalot]

You know about Kent Coral Accel, right? have you tried any? Works better than Amino and the results are fairly quick and amazing. I've had 3 heads of a trumpet (in that family) coral for over a year. Started dosing this stuff and it's forming a new mouth. Shrooms double their expansion, zoas start getting busy, montis show more white edges.

 

You can overdose, but I would totally use it in a pico. Get the 18 oz bottle on Amazon for cheap, dose twice a week, do bigger water changes.

[tibbsy07]

You know about Kent Coral Accel, right? have you tried any? Works better than Amino and the results are fairly quick and amazing. I've had 3 heads of a trumpet (in that family) coral for over a year. Started dosing this stuff and it's forming a new mouth. Shrooms double their expansion, zoas start getting busy, montis show more white edges.

 

You can overdose, but I would totally use it in a pico. Get the 18 oz bottle on Amazon for cheap, dose twice a week, do bigger water changes.

I'm probably just going to feed, maybe use supplements in my pico. I'll look into accel. A lot of folks use beer yeast, which actually makes a lot of sense. Yeast are cheap to grow and have a TON of protein/nutrients/amino acids.

 

I was thinking of actually doing the experiment to test amino acid supplementation so the community would actually have a qualitative measure in a controlled, designed experiment system, instead of just anecdotal evidence from around the internet.

[markalot]

Would be awesome if you can pull it off.

 

Active Ingredients:
Hydrolyzed marine protein, marine lipids, potassium iodide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A propionate, vitamin A palmitate, sodium EDTA, tocopherol.

 

You could probably brew up your own mix. You can see it has some of the same ingredients a lot of people dose separately.

[tibbsy07]

Would be awesome if you can pull it off.

 

Active Ingredients:

Hydrolyzed marine protein, marine lipids, potassium iodide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A propionate, vitamin A palmitate, sodium EDTA, tocopherol.

 

You could probably brew up your own mix. You can see it has some of the same ingredients a lot of people dose separately.

Yeah if I do the actual experiment, I'll probably get a thing of casamino acids and tryptophan to supplement that in (casamino acids have all the essential AAs except tryptophan because of the purification process).

[evanski]

You know about Kent Coral Accel, right? have you tried any? Works better than Amino and the results are fairly quick and amazing. I've had 3 heads of a trumpet (in that family) coral for over a year. Started dosing this stuff and it's forming a new mouth. Shrooms double their expansion, zoas start getting busy, montis show more white edges.

 

You can overdose, but I would totally use it in a pico. Get the 18 oz bottle on Amazon for cheap, dose twice a week, do bigger water changes.

Yep...I have a similar experience in my pico. This stuff is awesome. I also spot feed with Reef Roids.

[tibbsy07]

Yep...I have a similar experience in my pico. This stuff is awesome. I also spot feed with Reef Roids.

Hmmm I may try these.

 

To be honest I'm lost on food sources. Is it fish food? Coral food? Both?

 

Cyclopeeze

Mysis shrimp

Reef Accel

Phytoplankton

Reef Roids

 

[markalot]

Fish get various Flake, corals get Coral Accel, Reef Roids, and Reef Chili.

[tibbsy07]

Fish get various Flake, corals get Coral Accel, Reef Roids, and Reef Chili.

You do this in your tanks?

[markalot]

You do this in your tanks?

 

Yep. I tried frozen for a while but just too lazy, apparently.

[tibbsy07]

My xenia either split or was split by something. Half is on the epoxy and connected by a teensy thread is the other half now connected to the rock. I am hoping this is good.

 

I added almost a gallon of fresh mixed salt water in tonight to raise salinity. I plan on doing my regular water change on sunday, too.

[markalot]

My xenia either split or was split by something. Half is on the epoxy and connected by a teensy thread is the other half now connected to the rock. I am hoping this is good.

 

I added almost a gallon of fresh mixed salt water in tonight to raise salinity. I plan on doing my regular water change on sunday, too.

 

Define good? They will lean into something, put down a new foot, then split. Once this starts it only takes a few weeks before you have 4, 8, 16, 32 Xenias. It's really quite something to see. Bubble Algae kept mine in check for months, then it started to die off and boom, Xenia started spreading wherever it could put a new foot down.