Office Pico Gear Recommendations Wanted

[cody6766]

I may be in a position to set up a super simple office pico soon, and want to get a feel for how people are doing this now. I haven't done the nano/pico thing for a few years and am hoping to get some recommendations. 

 

My goal is a few softies with good color in a more or less closed tank. I want top-offs to be minimal, water changes few and far between, and enough simplicity to allow me to take few days off work without it crashing. 

 

I'm thinking about a half gallon jar that will mostly seal. I'll drill a few holes for wires, but I want to minimize evaporation. I'll probably use a small heater and powerhead, or possibly air pump. Quiet is important, and so is minimizing light spill. I also want to do this on the cheap. I think I have the heater and powerhead, assuming both work. I also have the coral/sand/rock/water/etc. I just need to find a light that works (if I don't use my old AI Nano), a proper container and decide on the details. 

 

Can you guys fill me in on the latest and greatest in this little world?

[SeaFurn]

There are several little reef jars and bowls with threads on NR. @Weetabix7 even has a waterfall pico that's really cool! 

 

Several use air pumps (without air stones), heaters with temp controllers, lids to control evap, and par38 bulbs on timers. Most are doing weekly 100% water changes or close to it. 

 

Sounds like you have a good plan formulated. You'll want to make sure your power head isn't too strong and doesn't overheat the small volume of water. It would definitely be quieter than an air pump and I'm sure your co-workers would appreciate that!

 

My reefbowl is so easy to care for.

I have so little evaporation that I barely have to put any water in it over the course of a week. 

And when I travel for work, all my wife has to do is peer into it to make sure the bully trochus snails haven't dislodged anything.

I'm pretty religious about my weekly water changes because I've got several acans and some SPS in it. 

[Weetabix7]

Welcome to the exciting world of Pico Container Reef Gardens!!!

You can easily & cheaply light one of these with a PAR30 or PAR38 led bulb.

Coral Compulsion has some of these. Several of us are using ABI Tuna Blue PAR38 bulbs, I got mine off Amazon for $25. I got a tall Architect's Lamp off Amazon to house the bulb, works great & is practical & inexpensive.

Like SeaFurn, I do 100% water changes weekly, which is actually very simple & keeps things stable.

I use a 1.6 gallon Betta Waterfall that I got off Amazon (see a theme?), Tho the container you're thinking of would work fine & is closer to what most people use.

You should check out @natalia_la_loca's Reefbowl, it has been recently featured in an article & was tank/bowl of the month on NR a couple months back.

[JBM]

If you want your water changes to be few and far between. Your going to have to go larger then .5g Even my 5.5g, with nothing but a few snails, lr & sand. Needs a 25% w/c around the month mark. With coral, that'll reduce to about 2 1/2-3 weeks, bumping from 25% to about 30-35% (maintaining proper trace levels, and zero nh3 no2 & no3 levels). A small notepad, documenting how much you w/c, charting your feeding patterns & water chemistry. Will help you know exactly how much you need to w/c.

 

+ 1 to the ABI tuna bulb. It does a great job. Altho you might be better suited with a diy 3-4 3w led array (2-3 royal blue 1 cool white)

 

 

heres a off the wall idea. Look into a small reptile heating mat, that would keep the heater out of the tank, but allow you to dial in exactly how much heat you want.

[Friendly]

the reptile heater is an interesting thought, JBM. 

 

how big a tank would you be able to go with something like that? 3 gal? 5 gal? or would you need to keep small like the 1 gal range being discussed? 

[JBM]

They come in various sizes, a friend of mine has one on a 75g for his snake (heating half the tank to a toasty 85*) but a quick google on a heating mat & thermostat. Puts you right at the cost of a aquarium heater ($30) however. it is one less thing inside the tank where space is already a huge premium.

[JBM]

here is a promising thread from another forum all the way back in 2004 (a quick google)

 

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/equipment/1007-q-use-reptile-heating-pads-mats-3.html

 

Cliff notes in case anyone doesn't want to read it:

2.5g planted tank, ambient temp 74*

a 4 watt reptile heating pad under the tank (without thermostat) raised the water column 10*f

 

[Draco]

Can't wait to see yours set up!

 

I have a pico in my office, and the hardest part I feel is leaving it for a long weekend when the office closed (like this past weekend, it was closed for 4 days). 

[Friendly]

I'm trying to set up a FW tank in the office, but due to extremes in temperature in the morning to when we close, I'm not sure it's going to be feasible. it saddens me...this empty tank, cycling for the last 2 weeks with temperatures going from 70F to 82F when the lights come on at 6AM to when the lights go off at 6PM.

 

it's mostly due to our huge floor to ceiling south facing windows and the broken AC the building management won't fix. might be 25C outside, but close to 40C inside here...it's a cookery!!!

[Friendly]

hmmm...that thread seems to confirm that you can definitely use a heating pad. seems though that the temps do get  bit too high, in the low 80's, so likely will want to get one that has a thermostat so you can set/tweak.

 

can anyone comment on how a 4w heating pad would heat so well while in a 5 gal tank, you'd want at least a 25w heater? surely I'm missing some critical detail that explains a rather extreme delta. 

[cody6766]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll have to get a feel for the new building's temp, but I imagine it's in the 70s pretty constantly. If it's like my current office, temps won't be anything one of those little 4" long heaters can't handle. The safety sissies that inspect the offices will probably have a fit over a heating mat. We can't have a coffee pot on a desk unless it's on a tile or metal surface because it's an "unprotected heating element." The powerhead isn't a big one either. I bought it years ago for a 2.5g pico and it needed some help moving enough water for that. I think it'll be solid for a jar or small cube. 

 

I'll definitely look into that PAR 30. I think it will be better to have more light than I need to ensure I get enough to the coral after going through the lid. 

 

Hopefully I'll be able to make this happen. I think I'll be more limited by desk space and work pace in and out of the office rather than by equipment needs. Keep the ideas flowing if there is anything else. 

[Veng]

A word of warning, if you want a pico, they are not going to be low maintenance and successful.  You'll be able to go much lower maintenance with a 10 gallon tank and still keep it reasonably sized for the office.

[Lula_Mae]

Eh, I find picos to be pretty low maintenance, but they're all I know. 5.5 gallons is the biggest I've ever gone so far. 

 

For heaters--some of the bowls use those little flat heaters hooked up to a temperature controller like the Inkbird one on Amazon--keeps the temp from going over a certain point.  If you're looking a little bigger (2-5 gallon range), Aqua Forest Aquariums has a very slender little 25w heater with external thermostat.  I use a Whisper air pump that comes with the tiniest size Whisper internal filters and find it to be silent unless it's rattling against something.  A lid will minimize evap, especially if it's sealed like Natalia's on her reef bowl.  If you're going under 2 gallons, Reef Radiance makes a 7w bulb that would be perfect for that size tank, and would allow you to put the light closer to the tank and thereby minimize light spillage (the higher the wattage of the PAR bulb, the higher you'll likely need it to be to be able to avoid bleaching your corals).  To keep it low maintenance, minimize your cleanup crew (use something like a few dwarf ceriths from Reef Cleaners) and keep livestock simple and easy--not too much in the way of inverts, and focus on easier corals, so softies and LPS.  Consider maybe adding macros to help with nutrient export--there's a lot of gorgeous decorative ones out there!  Bare bottom instead of sand will reduce nutrients and detritus buildup too, a little bit.

[Veng]

7 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Eh, I find picos to be pretty low maintenance, but they're all I know. 5.5 gallons is the biggest I've ever gone so far. 

He's coming from a 60 gallon, which will have 10X if not more, the water volume of your 5.5.  That means the swing you see in a day, he'll see over a week and a half.   Stability is a lot easier when you've got a week and a half to correct something that needs to be corrected in a day of a pico.  You're probably use to the maintenance requirements, and they are the norm.  He on the other hand is not use to anything like that.

[Weetabix7]

23 hours ago, Veng said:

A word of warning, if you want a pico, they are not going to be low maintenance and successful.  You'll be able to go much lower maintenance with a 10 gallon tank and still keep it reasonably sized for the office.

 

I completely disagree, this doesn't have to be the case at all, it's all in how you do it. 

Please see here: https://reefs.com/magazine/fish-tales-a-different-way-to-reef-213/

[Veng]

7 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

I completely disagree, this doesn't have to be the case at all, it's all in how you do it. 

Please see here: https://reefs.com/magazine/fish-tales-a-different-way-to-reef-213/

I don't consider 100% weekly water changes with peroxide swabbing low maintenance and certainty not something I'd want from a softie dominated tank for my office.   Picos, especially vase tanks are beautiful and some of my favorites in the hobby, but they require weekly care and will likely crash if you go 14 days past when you should do a water change.

 

t’s a combination of generous feeding and complete weekly system renewal through large water changes and aggressive detritus removal

With all corals and rocks exposed to air, I have full access to facilitate pest elimination. I dip the cotton swab in hydrogen peroxide, pick it up with the forceps, and touch it to any nuisance algae that has appeared in the past week. At 35% concentration, hydrogen peroxide must be used with caution, but it is very effective in killing nuisance algae. Most algivores would starve in such a tiny bowl, so I fill the niche of algae predator in this little ecosystem. Although I carefully inspect every frag for pests, my corals have come in with aiptasia anemones, hydroids, and vermetid snails at one time or another. A drop of superglue entombs them in seconds, with no chance of further propagation.

[Friendly]

weekly maintenance is weekly maintenance whether it's 25% or 100% and in the case of a pico, due to the low volume you're working with, it would be ''easy' compared to something 10x the size. 

 

realistically though, unless the op is okay to spend the money necessary to automate as much of the process as possible, they may need to rethink the plan and see if they're willing to do the work that is necessary.

 

I know about auto-top off equipment, but I'm not sure what's out there in the way of automating a water change of any sort. almost like a small sump plus two reservoirs, one empty for the water taken out and then another with the replacement water. 

 

actually, it could be quite the cute setup, if they have the space!  

[Weetabix7]

If I just change out 100% of the water on my Pico, it takes me 10-12 minutes weekly. 

If I do everything including opening up the pump and cleaning it, cleaning/stirring the sand, wiping down inside of tank, etc, it takes about 30 minutes. 

I think that's pretty low maintenance. 

I don't have to dose anything, or even test anything, other than making sure SG is good before WC. 

It's the most low maintenance tank I've ever had. 

I don't even have carbon or a heater on it. 

I feed live phyto every other day and Reef Chili fairly heavily on the day I do the WC. 

[Lula_Mae]

Eh, I think a 1 gallon 100% water change is easier than a 2.5 gallon 25% change no matter how often it's done.  But that's me.  Sometimes I've been known to take a gallon of distilled water, pour a little water out, pour 1/4 cup salt in, shake it up really well, let it sit for a bit, then put it straight in the tank if SG matches.  The lazy reefer way lol.  An ATO would be good for the days I forget to top off but it takes 2 seconds to open the fresh water jug and pour a little in.  I run bare bottom with macros so I don't even do weekly water changes.  YMMV.

[Draco]

I change about 50-75% each week on my tank. Siphon water out, pick up debris at the same time. Pour new water in.. pretty quick and easy. My  filter is now a refugium so I don't imagine I'll be cleaning that out too often, especially when it gets established- if anything, I'll probably swap the pipe part every so often so it won't get clogged.

[ConnorKessler]

Here's a few suggestions I have that have worked out for me.
 

1) Lighting:  I started my pico with a 40 dollar Wavepoint 6" blue/white LED.  It's small, it's simple, it's affordable.  For a tank the size you are looking at, it should work wonders and it makes colors really pop.  There's no light control, though, but thats the price you pay for simplicity and affordability.  If you're doing only softies, this light is perfect in my opinion.  (I did recently upgrade to a Kessil A80 for more control and to help out my SPS frags.

2) I can't say that it is sealed, but if you're looking for something very quiet, I recommend the Fluval Spec III, which is what I use.  It's 2.7 gallons, which is much bigger than the volume you wanted, but the reason I throw it on here as a suggestion anyway is that it's taller than it is long, which gives it the same desktop footprint as a 1 gallon tank or so.  It is also equipped with a decent filter area and good pump.  Best of all?  It is SILENT.  And I mean SILENT.  0 noise.  I sleep with it next to my bed and it doesn't make a bit of sound.  That was a huge selling point for me.  It's also small enough where water changes are still super easy and quick.  

3) If you want top off's to be easy, I enjoy the nano tunze osmolator.  That's what I use.  But before I had it, I lost about a half to a full cup of water a day due to evaporation.  As long as you have a consistent supply of freshwater at your disposal, no harm in just throwing a cup of water (or however much you need) in the tank once a day as your regular routine.