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Three Gallon Tester Tank


1Fish_2Fish

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1Fish_2Fish

Hello All,

 

Here is my new three gallon aquarium with one gallon overflow on the side. Originally set up in mid December, my heater burst on Valentine's Day and I had to completely redo everything. There were a few survivors (hermits, snails, and star grass), so I threw the new setup together rather quickly. Naturally, the design isn't perfect, but nothing catastrophic. It has now been up a little over a month, and, as you can see, the water is still quite green.

 

I went with a three gallon partly for the challenge (my last tank was fifteen gallons), but also because I'm in limbo right now and can't afford something bigger/will probably be moving in a year or less. I also want to toy with how I do my supplements, water changes, topping off, lighting, cleaning, aquascaping, and inhabitant selection, which is why I'm calling it a Tester Tank (also a great excuse for why it looks terrible right now).

 

Some lessons from the first month:

1) Low iron glass is totally worth it

2) Drilling holes in glass is noisy and time consuming, but also surprisingly easy (at least when making small holes with a dremel)

3) You can drill holes in old coral skeletons, if you give yourself an hour to do it

4) Water Weld can fix your mistakes, but it looks kind of ugly

5) Put the overflow plumbing on the outside of the tank

6) Hide the return plumbing in the sand and behind the rocks

7) Test your plumbing before adding the sand

8) If you use a tiny heater, you need to get an external controller for it

9) Patience (sigh)

 

If anyone wants to predict why the water is still green, please do so. I'm sure someone's going to say it's the 5000K LED's from Home Depot, or all the light from the windows, but I also feed the hermits and marginella snails a pinch of frozen mackerel three or four times a week and for nutrient consumers I have just two small soft corals, only a small patch of star grass, and no macro algae, so keep that in mind...

 

 

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Nice little tank!  Do you know who the manufacturer is?  I don't know why the water is still green but what is your water change schedule like?  Does the tank get much ambient sunlight from the window that might cause algae growth?  Yikes on the heater exploding!  Do you mind sharing what brand it was that exploded so that others know to be aware of it?  What heater are you using now?

 

No problem with having a tester tank, I've called mine the tank of whatever I want to put in it.  :lol:

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1Fish_2Fish

Thanks! I believe it is a Mr Aqua tank. Hopefully the contents will eventually be as nice as the glass.

 

The heater burst was technically my fault: the cap on the cable end pops off, and I removed it to save space, but it turns out it was structural support and not cosmetic. This wasn't obvious right away and the burst didn't happen until a month and a half after I started. The heater was a TopAqua mini 15W, and I guess it would have been fine if I hadn't touched the cap. That said, I wouldn't recommend it: anything with an essential component that can be popped off that easily isn't quality equipment. Also, it was supposedly set to 77 degrees, but I never saw any evidence of it self regulating. Now I'm using an Aqueon 15W flat heater in the overflow and regulating it with an Azoo Micro Temp Controller. This is working well and I'm pleased with it.

 

I think if I set up again I'd look into this heater: http://www.fish-street.com/aqua_syncro_mh_heater. What's cool is that it's flexible. I know Fish-Street has terrible English, but my experience with their customer support has been great.

 

I just did my first water change today. What's odd is that the first time I set up the tank I did not have a green water problem at one month. I did have a few more corals and more microalgae growth on the glass, though, so maybe they were sucking in the nutrients. Or maybe it was because the tank gets lots of natural light from the windows and the days are longer now.

 

At any rate, I've decided to look on the bright side of the greenish hue: I can feed something that needs phytoplankton. So I found a volunteer sponge in the local store's tank today and brought it home. It's light blue and came with some little shrimp in the shell it's attached to (mysids?).

 

 

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That's so cool, maybe if the sponge does well you can get more filter feeders!!

I love how you are approaching this. 

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Do you have any filtration in the overflow going on? IF not a little carbon reactor or filter floss could help clear it up. But more likely the natural light. Either way as long as you are OK with the look, that is all that matters.

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1Fish_2Fish

I have a filter sponge over the intake on the return pump, but that's it. I'm just going to keep it this way for a while and see what happens.

 

The water cleared up part way over night after the water change, and I'm actually a little disappointed. Shouldn't have don't that the same day as adding the sponge, now I can't tell if the water change did it, or the sponge, or both. I know sponges can filter quite a bit of water given enough time, but I have no idea if a smallish piece like what I have could filter three gallons over night. I'll see if it grows and do some trials down the road if it does.

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Nifty little sponge!  Is the sponge over the intake new?  That is kinda weird that it cleaned the water so fast!

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  • 2 weeks later...
1Fish_2Fish

So it seems the water change was likely the main driver behind the water clearing up, not the live sponge, as it has slowly gotten greenish again with the sponge still there. The (plastic) sponge over the pump intake had been there for a couple weeks so it may add some nitrifying capacity, but not anything to remove nitrates. The sand isn't that deep, or that established, so I doubt there's much denitrification going on, if any at all. This leads me to believe that I simply had a nitrate problem, possibly some phosphate, too, and the water change brought the levels back below the bloom threshold.

 

The sponge is still light blue, hasn't grown any, but is definitely alive: the size of the osculum (out flow opening) changes periodically. I had it fully exposed to the lights, but it started getting a film of diatoms or something on it, so now I've got it in the shade. It's still getting a film, but not as bad. Unfortunately, its new location makes it hard to get good detail in the photos.

 

As you can see from the photo, I've got some new additions: two types of macro algae and some cerith snails, all from Gulf Coast Ecosystems (GSE). The green one on the left is Halidmeda opuntia, and the pink branching algae next to it and to the right of the old coral skeletons is some sort of rhodolith (they call it "Coralline Rigid" on the site).

 

I give GSE 4.5/5: They sent me way, way more than I was expecting, more than I could fit in the tank, actually. (I have a couple mangroves in an unheated bucket of saltwater under a light, so I put the extra in there, just to see what happens.) However, except for the one with the snails, there was no air in the bags, meaning no oxygen reserve, and they smelled pretty bad when I took things out. They use 2-day shipping (for $16.50), so things had been in the dark for 48 hours, and I was afraid the algae would be dead, but so far there's only a little die back.

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I still really like watching what you are doing with this tank. 

I myself have a little Pico that is partially deliberately lit by a generous amount of sunshine. 

I've been looking on the Gulf Coast Ecosystems site lately, so it's nice to see a couple of things from them in your tank and hear about your experience with them. 

Looks like you've got a little bit of icky brown string on the rigid coralline, do have a plan to get rid of that or will you just give it some time & see what happens?

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1Fish_2Fish

Thanks! Nice to hear that someone else gives their tank natural light, too. It's free, after all. I'm still going to supplement with some higher kelvin LEDs, once I get the money, but I bet I can get by with something less powerful since it won't be my only source. I remain unconvinced that natural light causes algae blooms in reef aquariums, at least those that are well maintained. It does add a wider color spectrum, and some algae may use that better, but it seems to me that nutrients should be the limiting factor in algae growth.

 

Do you have any algae "problems" in your pico Weetabix7?

 

I'm going to wait a bit on the icky brown string, it's such a young tank still. I will probably do a water change in a week or so, but I want to maintain some of that green in the water for my sponge.

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1Fish_2Fish

Oh, and the I want to promote the proper term for the "rigid coralline algae", which is "rhodolith" (from rhodo- for red, and -lith for stone). I'm hoping to be able to propagate them, though still unsure how fast they will grow. I know the temperate ones have exceptionally slow growth, but tropical ones should be at least a little faster.

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