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Coral Vue Hydros

another 0.7 pico


Roland-Berlin

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Roland-Berlin

Roland since you are fairly close to me and using the same type heater. How do you keep your temp stable? Trying a controller now because not heating or trusting the heater aren't working for me.

Hallo Toon87

 

my heater has a buildt in control. I do not have a clue, whether this ensures stable temperatures. I guess, that in a very small pico, the heating control does not shelter against fluctuating temperatures, since this would assume a very, very high precision of the control mechanisms. But I am not afraid of fluctuating temperatures within an appropriate range. Many people think, that there are stable temperatures in the sea, but that is not reality. Especially near the surface, the place where zooxanthellae corals and clams live, temperatures vary from night to day. Besides the missing insolation, water currents transport colder and plankton opulent water from deeper zones to the surface during night. Corals can cope wiht that.

 

This - of course- does noth mean, that a heater can be renounced. High temperatues are an important requirement for metabolism, but it is not true, that all sea dwellers drop dead, when there is a small deviation in temperature (and other water paramters).

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I know that there are no stable temperaturs in the sea. I just had some bad experiences with heaters <_< . One going bananas in a 30litre tank almost cooking everything. One failing in the weekend on the nano at the office in winter conditions (no heating there in the weekends). And i the one i am using now gets the pico above 27° (without heater it drops to 19°) In a larger tank it gets 24,5/25 as advertised (tested it). and since yours is even smaller i was curious how you kept it in range.

 

What foods are you using?

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Roland-Berlin

I know that there are no stable temperaturs in the sea. I just had some bad experiences with heaters <_< . One going bananas in a 30litre tank almost cooking everything. One failing in the weekend on the nano at the office in winter conditions (no heating there in the weekends). And i the one i am using now gets the pico above 27° (without heater it drops to 19°) In a larger tank it gets 24,5/25 as advertised (tested it). and since yours is even smaller i was curious how you kept it in range.

 

What foods are you using?

I had never any bad experiences with heaters.... but what your wrote sounds alarming... I have heard, that some people change the heaters every year because of attrition. Perhaps I will do such a change after one year as well, but on the other hand: is a new heater really an ensurance against overheating? Do you have any extra controlling unit outside the tank?

 

Food: its a mixture of "microbe lift Phyto Plankton" and "nyos reef pepper". I feed once a week -only some drops- about 5hours before doing a waterchange. Besides this I feed artemia once a week, independent of waterchanges.

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Don't think a new heater guarantees anything. New one could be faulty while the old one lasts ten years... Maybe it was just bad luck? At the moment i'm using an aqualight tc-300 from the nano. Controls the fan and heater. Ordered this one for the pico:

 

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About 15 posted and built in relay so less cables than the aqualight. Still no guarantees but it's a double fail safe.

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Roland-Berlin

Don't think a new heater guarantees anything. New one could be faulty while the old one lasts ten years... Maybe it was just bad luck? At the moment i'm using an aqualight tc-300 from the nano. Controls the fan and heater. Ordered this one for the pico:

 

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About 15 posted and built in relay so less cables than the aqualight. Still no guarantees but it's a double fail safe.

no guarantee - nowhere. But I think, that this could be an good investment. Thank you for this hint.

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Roland-Berlin

Some days ago, I removed the sand out of my tank, because it aggravated the cleaning of the pico and buried the acanthastrea.

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I know, that there are a lot of different opinions concerning sand and its function in self purification of the watercolumn on the one hand, and beeing a warehouse of nutritions on the other hand. I think /hope , that the loss of sand is not a big minus for the reef, since it was only a shallow sand bed-- more decoration than a working (deep) sandbed. Without the sandbed, the amount of detrius that accumulates on the bare glass bottom is asthonishing...

 

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algae: up to now, the algae growing is on a very reducted level. The places, which were treated with peroxide (such as the clam rock) stayed algae-free -- by now.

 

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still looks just great!

 

I think most would agree sand removal is ok by 2015 standards good job going here

 

the feed quality going in and the waste going out makes a sandbed ok to have, or not have, as long as we keep them clean if applicable. you are right, all picos make detritus, even the stilled sealed jar ones with just lr and a macro

 

 

LR is truly live as a colony of living details, whole waste particle producers.

 

additionally, we have just set the upper limits of action for your whole reef and all showed to be tolerant, even the sensitive clam. ruling out hardware failure or bad user errors like pouring in the wrong salinity water, this is how predictability is established for pico reefs to drive them to old age. Your tanks biology will never do anything unpredictable this year, or in nine years. sometimes you might have to whack some algae areas and do a couple big back to back water changes, but thats literally just an ebbing tide as far as your corals go.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Roland-Berlin

During the last days/weeks I had no time to take care about my reef, so I put it in a bigger tank. Initially, this removal was thought to be a makeshift solution. But what I saw, changed my mind: it looked like the reef would take a deep breath, all animals looked "relaxed". Living in the 0.7 pico, animals were growing, and after three month, I think that this growing overexerts the capacities of the small water amount. The question was to thin out the reef in order to reduce the number of animals, or to upgrade the reef. Altogehter, I decided to leave the reef in its bigger home: it is a 10 l (2.6 gallon) tank.

 

Perspectival, the reef could become a reef column. The first step into this direction is, that the reef go a small socket, wich can be extended (and planted) to the bottom in future.

 

The new freedom gained through this upgrade let me think about keeping some invertebrates. But before the reef gets crowded again, it should recover for a wihle.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Roland-Berlin

Thinking about the clam in the pico, I guess that it is not a very big story. It lived more than three month in the small tank, showing signs of growth and good condition. But : changing the water twice a week makes a pico not a "real" tank (to my mind) but a kind of "flow rate tank". Perhaps the clam could live in a jam jar, when the water will be changed ervery two hours. But this is not how I want to play the reef. There should be a minimum of stability in the tank. Now, I change the water once a week, which means that there still is the need of permanent intervention, but the weekly w-changes can be included more easily in the ervery day live.

 

Although the upgrade has taken place only about two weeks ago, some changes can be detected. The biggest winner so far is xenia, which was suffering in the 0.7 tank, now showing a burst of growth. All the other animals are in a good condition, and seem to benefit from the extension of the habitat. Let us see, how long it will take, that the reef is claiming for more space again.

 

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Roland-Berlin

what's your feeding schedule like? Any growth in the clam and worm?

 

the clam got two new lamellar during the last three month and looks more bellied. The worm does not show any detectable sings of growth, perhaps it is full grown.

Right now I feed once a week in a very bad manner: I just put a frozen piece of mysis in the tank (packaged in a blister). No washing, no temperature matching. The defrosting mysis converts the water in a shadowy slugdge with all sizes of food: dissolved nutritions, very small peaces of mysis and bigger parts for tubastraea. The reef stays about two hours in that disaster of phosphate and other nutritions. Every animal has the chance to get what it wants. Some break open, some hide away. After two hours the whole reef gets sluiced out, and the 100% waterchange takes place.

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I agree with your assessment, any way a reefer can reduce water change work and -still get the same longevity outcome- will forward the hobby. Some are posting this action with hob filters and gfo, its valid science.

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Jellyingabout

Interesting that you do a 100% water change with a clam. Many people stress the importance of never taking a clam out of water, something I don't give any weight considering they are found in the intertidal. Hows does you clam deal with the air, would be good to see some evidence that they do cope with it fine.

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Roland-Berlin

Interesting that you do a 100% water change with a clam. Many people stress the importance of never taking a clam out of water, something I don't give any weight considering they are found in the intertidal. Hows does you clam deal with the air, would be good to see some evidence that they do cope with it fine.

 

people warned me, that the clam could get in trouble because of swallowed air. My clam gets out of the water once a week and I did not noticed any problems up to that point. When you enter "intertidal" and "clam" , searching for pictures, you will see many examples of beached tridacnas, which look quite healthy. I am not sure, wether air can become a problem for my clam, and since it is my first one, I have not enough experience with these animals. All I can say is, that at least my individual can cope with short periods of time, beeing in contact with air-- so far.

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Roland-Berlin

I agree with your assessment, any way a reefer can reduce water change work and -still get the same longevity outcome- will forward the hobby. Some are posting this action with hob filters and gfo, its valid science.

 

gfo is one of the topics I have in mind... right now, the level of suffering in terms of w-changes is not high enough... but it is rising, and I guess gfo will be one of the answers.

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Cameron6796

people warned me, that the clam could get in trouble because of swallowed air. My clam gets out of the water once a week and I did not noticed any problems up to that point. When you enter "intertidal" and "clam" , searching for pictures, you will see many examples of beached tridacnas, which look quite healthy. I am not sure, wether air can become a problem for my clam, and since it is my first one, I have not enough experience with these animals. All I can say is, that at least my individual can cope with short periods of time, beeing in contact with air-- so far.

I believe I'm one of the people who mentioned this, it may never become a problem but it is possible that some clams when air gets in will have a tough time expelling it from within, however most don't and just flex closed a couple quick times and it forces the air out.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Roland-Berlin

Over and over it is astonishing, how much detrius a small reef produces: after two weeks of leaving the reef alone, the bottom was coverd with a lot of detrius, algea was growing rank on the glass (but not on the rocks). On the one hand, the bare bottom tank makes the cleaning much more easier, on the other hand you see every tiny piece of dirt on the bare glass. And of course the detrius production depends on the feeding rate, meaning that a heavy feeding produces a bulk of metabocic products. At the end the insight is renewed, that a reef is not a flower garden, but a crowded place of animals, producing a lot of excrements.

 

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so try to keep your reef clean...

....so that it can grow:

sps: january 2015 sps: may 2015

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Roland-Berlin

I believe I'm one of the people who mentioned this, it may never become a problem but it is possible that some clams when air gets in will have a tough time expelling it from within, however most don't and just flex closed a couple quick times and it forces the air out.

taking the clam out of the water, the shells close very quickly and forcefully, so the clam looses no water, while outside the tank. But: some of this water is used as a defense- the clam spits when its shocked or feels offended. I am afraid, that this missing water -lost through the ejection- could cause trouble when the clam is exhausted. When muscle power declines, and the shell occlusion decrease- could this be the basis of the problem of invading air? Therefore I try to work quickly, in order to minimize the time outside the water, and I hope, that the clam is strong and healthy enough to keep its shells dense.

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  • 2 months later...
Roland-Berlin

During the last month, nothing spectacular happened, except last week, when I saw my clam ejectin clouds of sperm into the water.

By then, I thought it would be a baby clam, but sexual activity disabused me. The reef was transformed shortly into a milky soup, and all animals, including the clam itself hided away. It was pure coincidence, that I was at home when it happened, so I could do an immediate wc. Probably, this occurrence is one more arguement against maintaining a clam in a pico, at least when no protein skimmer is installed.

 


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HarryPotter

This is one of the most interesting threads I've seen- wow! All this discussion on clams, water quality, etc is just fantastic.

 

I'm going to start from page one when I get on my laptop :)

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