3 Gallon Picotope!- Clean Slate

[Justind823]

The tried and true picotope - great little tank! Yours is filling in nicely!

 

3 hours ago, gone_PHiSHin said:

so how is it carrying eggs??

 

how long has it been in there?

 

She's doing her thing it's just there's no male around to fertilize the eggs. 

[gone_PHiSHin]

guessing they produce eggs whether they are fertilized or not?

 

or she was knocked up before she got in your tank

[Justind823]

16 minutes ago, gone_PHiSHin said:

guessing they produce eggs whether they are fertilized or not?

 

or she was knocked up before she got in your tank

Correct, they'll produce eggs no matter what. Free tank food in a few days! 

[JoeR]

Some random update pictures just because I got a new clam a while back;

[Cintax]

Wow! There is so much going on in this tiny tank! Looks good!

[Firefish15]

Super cool little tank! I've been wanting to start a pico for a while now, so I've just been reading and researching.

[JoeR]

This monti has to be my best grower, it’s way too big for the tank now. I can’t even clean the glass cuz of it!

 

makes the tank look good though IMO.

 

And after killing two other Euphyllia, I think I finally got a torch to survive in this. I have no idea why the other ones kept dying, I think that when I do the FWC they get damaged. I’ve avoided that with this guy. I need to find him a better spot though, I hate it ruining the flow of the tank (ha, punny).

 

 

Note the clam that’s, well, happy as a clam. It’s definitely grown, I can see on the Shell where it’s grown and a clean white. I really wish I had waited and got a nicer colored one though, I want a turquoise/ teal one really bad. I just didn’t think it would survive in my tank after all the horror stories I’ve read about them.

 

I CAN NOT GET RID OF THE AIPTASIA. They’re huge and everywhere, throwing babies out. Aiptasia X doesn’t work. Very frustrating they keep popping up and ruining my beautiful pico.

 

 

 

I’m also successfully growing a yellow acro, so maybe I’ll branch out and get another one. It’s always grown well but been brown, now it’s finally yellow. You can also see my favorite coral in here, a painfully slow growing cup coral.

 

[Christopher Marks]

Montipora are satisfying to grow, they really take off in a lot of tanks. The only pitfall is what they end up shading beneath them, but sometimes you can use it to your advantage!

 

Great progress on everything, except those pesky aptasia!

[JoeR]

26 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Montipora are satisfying to grow, they really take off in a lot of tanks. The only pitfall is what they end up shading beneath them, but sometimes you can use it to your advantage!

 

Great progress on everything, except those pesky aptasia!

Any idea on what to do with the nems?

 

This lepto really took off too. Yeah ik bad pic quality..

 

[JoeR]

Is this clam Happy or “gaping”? I’ve never seen the siphon open so wide, I can see the insides of the clam... poor quality pictures but the clam looks otherwise happy and healthy, and nothing has changed other than it’s a couple days passed my usual WC day. I fed extra heavy with some phyto pure, and there’s been a pod explosion so something’s happening that may be related. It won’t stop moving around either, I have two rocks below it and it won’t stay attached to either.

[JoeR]

Bump. No one can tell?

[Nelson]

Hey nice tank you have😎

The siphon should be a slit and not an oval shape. It could be a sign of stress and maybe your water is too clean. Smaller clams rely less on light but more on dirty water. It wants to grow quickly to get to a steady state where it can survive on your lights. Does it still react quickly to shadows? 

Your clam feeds on nitrates and phosphates. What are your parameters? Since you do full water changes I don’t think there is something of in calcium or alkalinity but maybe the water is too clean. You also mentioned a problem with your Euphyllia. They like dirty water as well

 

for couple months they look like happy clams but suddenly die. It is the process of knowing the right conditions to make them thrive in a pico. They certainly can.

 

[Nelson]

Actually being an aquarium a closed system nutrient levels are easy to bring up, having the clam not to rely on phytoplankton. Some people consider their clams part of their filtration setup

[JoeR]

11 hours ago, Nelson said:

Hey nice tank you have😎

The siphon should be a slit and not an oval shape. It could be a sign of stress and maybe your water is too clean. Smaller clams rely less on light but more on dirty water. It wants to grow quickly to get to a steady state where it can survive on your lights. Does it still react quickly to shadows? 

Your clam feeds on nitrates and phosphates. What are your parameters? Since you do full water changes I don’t think there is something of in calcium or alkalinity but maybe the water is too clean. You also mentioned a problem with your Euphyllia. They like dirty water as well

 

for couple months they look like happy clams but suddenly die. It is the process of knowing the right conditions to make them thrive in a pico. They certainly can.

 

Thank you!

 

the condition does not seem to have gotten worse, maybe slightly better if anything. I agree it seems stress induced. But I’ve noticed it won’t “settle” somewhere- every day it’s shifted around a little more. It won’t fully cling to the rocks I have under it, which I think may be stressing it> causing the gaping.

 

Yes it reacts very quickly to light or stomping near the tank. And it could be the clean water, I dose Phyco Pure every now and again but like you said weekly water changes remove almost all the old water. 

 

I have not tested my parameters in months. I feel like it’s almost pointless with 90% weekly water changes..? I can test it tonight if you think it will be able to help, it’s not had a WC for probably 7-8 days. Maybe I don’t need to change the water so often anymore, it’s not showing any signs of algae at all afyer 8 days and being a year and some months old it seems to be very mature. Good pods. Healthy coral and shrimp. No fish ((yet)).

 

Do you have a successful pico with a clam?

[JoeR]

Clam was looking better a few days ago, and now it looks BAD. It’s gaping much more than I’ve seen before, and not fully expanded like usual. I’d really hate to loose this thing, he did so good for these past few months, even grew  some. It just won’t “get comfortable” on the rocks below it, every day I look at the tank it’s moved around some.

 

what can/should I do??

[JoeR]

As a side note, my hitchhiker Bi-valve is still very much alive- it snaps shut when you block the light. So I don’t know why that thing has made it so long yet my beautiful clam isn’t so happy?

[JoeR]

And it’s been two weeks since a WC, I let the water get dirtier this time hoping to help it out a bit.

[Nelson]

Do you know this topic? 

Maybe you can use it, just a quote:

 

"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."

 

Interesting how he thinks about pico reefing.  I just hope the clam will survive because you have such a nice tank and the clam is a great addition to it.

 

 

[JoeR]

On 5/30/2018 at 5:16 PM, Nelson said:

Do you know this topic? 

Maybe you can use it, just a quote:

 

"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."

 

Interesting how he thinks about pico reefing.  I just hope the clam will survive because you have such a nice tank and the clam is a great addition to it.

 

 

I’ve never seen that thread before, but wow what a tank! Quite the accomplishment being that small. Thanks for the link, I just got done reading every page of it. Doesn’t sound like they did anything much different than I in terms of feeding the clam. I just put a chunk of frozen mysis in and all the coral catch what they can and I assume the clam does too? Maybe my filter is too efficient at catching the shrimp 

[JoeR]

Update;

 

Late August;

 

RIP 9/14/18 -Florence

 

Hired someone to clean the tanks since I couldn’t make it back at the time; they did, but forgot to plug the ATO back in. Picture of tank upon my arrival.

 

 

And a few days ago, after cleanup #2. 

 

While I was cleaning up the disaster I made a shocking yet kind of awesome discovery. My Pom Pom crab was previously still alive and kickin!! I had no idea it was even alive, I hadn’t seen it in months. Unfortunately though it was dead along with everything else due to lack of power.

 

 

I guess all there is to do now is wait for the tank to re-cycle. One thing I will do different this time is make sure NO AIPTASIA make it into the tank. Worst problem for me was dealing with those things.

[Christopher Marks]

1 hour ago, JoeR said:

Wow Joe, it was truly spectacular! Heartbreaking to lose it to the storm, what a bummer 😞. It was a piece of living art!

 

I admire your perseverance, you'll get it back! What did the initial post storm cleanup consist of? Did I miss it in your zoanthid thread?

[JoeR]

19 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Wow Joe, it was truly spectacular! Heartbreaking to lose it to the storm, what a bummer 😞. It was a piece of living art!

 

I admire your perseverance, you'll get it back! What did the initial post storm cleanup consist of? Did I miss it in your zoanthid thread?

Indeed it was! Definitely a total loss and will be missed, unfortunately, but my grieving period is mostly over and I’m trying to think about the future going forward. 

 

I’m not 100% sure what the guy I hired did to clean it, it sounds like he just did a water change and pulled out what was 100% dead. When I got back I pulled all the rocks out, rinsed them, did a full WC and washed the sand a little bit. There’s still a few dying zoas in it that I’ll have to clean off. And now there’s a ton of hair algae, which I’ve never battled before in this tank, so that will be a new challenge. I’ll be prying the dead sps off the rocks too at the next wc.

 

Whats the Zoanthid thread you’re talking about?

[Lula_Mae]

I think he means the one you'd asked for advice on a few weeks ago. I'm so sorry about the loss, Joe. If you're interested, I have a toadstool I've been thinking of getting rid of I'd be happy to donate to the rebuilding. If not, hopefully Nemo's Reef will want it haha. I also have some teeny limpets i could share.  Sorry I don't have more to offer. 

[JoeR]

4 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I think he means the one you'd asked for advice on a few weeks ago. I'm so sorry about the loss, Joe. If you're interested, I have a toadstool I've been thinking of getting rid of I'd be happy to donate to the rebuilding. If not, hopefully Nemo's Reef will want it haha. I also have some teeny limpets i could share.  Sorry I don't have more to offer. 

I appreciate it! I’ve been thinking about a toadstool and in general more softies actually, but this tank will probably have to recycle for a few weeks after all the dead stuff 🙄 not sure how long that will take. I suppose it depends on whether the bacteria in the rock and sand made it or not. If so, it shouldn’t take too long, if not, it might take a few weeks.

[debbeach13]

Dam that August shot was sweet. Sorry about the crash. Looking forward to seeing what's next. Good luck.