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Cultivated Reef

The Girlfriend Pico: Getting Creative With Dongs...


metrokat

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Moving along on the build. We had raised the cloche on a home-made acrylic base/stand that we had pieced together and superglued. It was made up of a lid from some random acrylic container and 4 corner clips that hold a screen on top of a tank. You can see our first stand here - and also the magnet cleaner.

 

rsz_magnetcleaner.thumb.jpg.610f001c652ad9bc1b7f3a2369353304.jpg

 

The new stand had to be bigger so we took that Ikea frame and cut some eggcrate that would be glued to it to raise it off the the bottom.

dremel.thumb.jpg.7eed4105384c00e9c2735edc9df655fe.jpg

 

On top of that Ikea frame we put another random acrylic lid. Drilled holes to prevent trapped air and made some openings on the sides so that Dick could go in and out <--- :D as he pleased. 

pumpstand.thumb.jpg.e35cdfb5b1d3d367796eeb51b1a283a6.jpg

 

While we were taking our own sweet time brainstorming the stand and working on it, Dick needed to get warmed up. <------ :lol:

So we put the heater back in for him.

dickonheater.thumb.jpg.b8db1f8f3e387d63e491780b2387e214.jpg

 

I forgot

 

 

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I mentioned that we made some mistakes when we upgraded - well the Ikea frame was too wide and restricted the water flow out of the cloche. So the 3rd do-over on Sunday was entirely because I had to make a new stand. I cut pieces of acrylic and more eggcrate and had to glue a frag disk sandwich in the middle to prevent it from sagging. But here is the hot mess.

newstand.thumb.jpg.9994c8eb00b33e9f8f012111675e35b8.jpg

 

WELL! After ALL that. this 3rd stand was too tall and the cloche was very nearly out of the water. At least it would be with evaporation. So I took pliers and broke the eggcrate off.

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8 hours ago, metrokat said:

Say hello and goodbye to Lady Bits. She was in the pico for like almost 24 hours. :(

rsz_ladybits.thumb.jpg.1ccabb8e7ec94f0045ad1b18405d28fd.jpg

 

Always a sad day when you lose something. Those sexys are so damn finicky though. 

 

I was gonna add 3 to my tank but only say I actually added 2 so when I inevitably lose one nobody will know :ninja:

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8 hours ago, TheRope said:

Also this build looks amazing, cant wait to see it stacked with coral! ♡♡♡

Thanks Rope!

Just now, TFish77 said:

 

Always a sad day when you lose something. Those sexys are so damn finicky though. 

Very true. Not sure if we will try another one, it was a task trying to get her in the dome because it had to be done while it was still empty.

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32 minutes ago, metrokat said:

Thanks Rope!

Very true. Not sure if we will try another one, it was a task trying to get her in the dome because it had to be done while it was still empty.

 

Can the fish/inverts not go between the dome and the rim? 

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7 hours ago, TFish77 said:

 

Can the fish/inverts not go between the dome and the rim? 

 

Well we know Dick can go wherever he likes, because he's flat-bodied like that and there's plenty of space for him. But I think the sexy shrimp wouldn't think to maneuver itself in between the two. The shrimp is taller than the opening, I'm pretty sure...

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19 minutes ago, Nola Bear said:

Grrrrrr! Why can’t my stupid brain understand this???!??? 

It is the same principle of taking a cup and putting it under water in the bathtub. If you pull it out bottom first the water comes up and it gets hard to pull up until the rim reaches the surface and allows a less dense item into the cup (air).

To get this one going you have to just suck the air out of the dome and the water gets pulled in as it is the only thing to fill the void due to the negative pressure.

 

The crazy thing about this pico is you have to keep an eye on the water level of the outside of the dome. If it gets too low air come pulling in and the water spills out to the out bowl (possibly over edge) and you have to start over.

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5 minutes ago, Boggers said:

It is the same principle of taking a cup and putting it under water in the bathtub. If you pull it out bottom first the water comes up and it gets hard to pull up until the rim reaches the surface and allows a less dense item into the cup (air).

To get this one going you have to just suck the air out of the dome and the water gets pulled in as it is the only thing to fill the void due to the negative pressure.

 

The crazy thing about this pico is you have to keep an eye on the water level of the outside of the dome. If it gets too low air come pulling in and the water spills out to the out bowl (possibly over edge) and you have to start over.

So, what you’re saying is that it is some kind of voodoo sorcery...? Got it~

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2 hours ago, Mariaface said:

 

Well we know Dick can go wherever he likes, because he's flat-bodied like that and there's plenty of space for him. But I think the sexy shrimp wouldn't think to maneuver itself in between the two. The shrimp is taller than the opening, I'm pretty sure...

Hey girl. I put the bubbler in and it's kinda fine but the pico was at 75.6 at around 5 am. I put in the heater but it could barely be submerged. I think maybe we ought to consider removing the sand, just leaving a bit under the stand for Dick.

 

Pros would be room in the bowl for water circulation, putting in the heater.

Cons would be less biological filtration and benthic critters.

 

Thoughts? 

1 hour ago, REEFreefLJS85 said:

A tang will fit just fine in there. :lol:

^^ This :D

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57 minutes ago, metrokat said:

Cons would be less biological filtration and benthic critters.   Thoughts?

With the live rock, I wouldn't worry too much about less filtration.  And while a loss, it will do just fine without the critters.

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On 10/26/2017 at 10:36 AM, Boggers said:

 

The crazy thing about this pico is you have to keep an eye on the water level of the outside of the dome. If it gets too low air come pulling in and the water spills out to the out bowl (possibly over edge) and you have to start over.

 

Luckily as soon as the water level gets high enough in the outside section again, it 'seals' the dome, no more water gets in once pressure equalizes, and only a small amount of air is trapped. No overflowing! :P However, we'd probably have a hell of a time getting that bubble out without taking the thing apart...

 

Which wouldn't be too bad! Whenever there's a water change, we get to play with the dongs again! omgomgomg

 

Once our first dongs were fully naked for the transfer (more room for Dick!), we got to aquascape with more dongs!!

 

Top-Down of our cute first dongs and their base:

iZHEfTK.jpg

 

Obligatory side shot, you know:

btN07q8.jpg

 

 

And after much debate over the dongs in @metrokat's tank and how we could place them (then corals to make the Chosen Dongs pretty!) we arrived at this masterpiece! We've got a teeny dong, some multi ended dongs, some chunky ones...

 

P2zAfkS.jpg

Note the base that had to be replaced, and Kat artfully figured it out!

 

 

This dong wound up being way too tall (heh) when we added zoas, so we got to play with it again to move those, but we'll show you that top-down anyway:

bZTpFK9.jpg

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12 minutes ago, Mariaface said:

 

Luckily as soon as the water level gets high enough in the outside section again, it 'seals' the dome, no more water gets in once pressure equalizes, and only a small amount of air is trapped. No overflowing! :P However, we'd probably have a hell of a time getting that bubble out without taking the thing apart...

I assumed you were using something like an aqualifter pump and some combination of rigid and flexible airline tubing to get water and air bubbles in and out of the dome. Maybe it doesn't create a strong enough vacuum to get bubbles out?  

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13 minutes ago, Rene said:

I assumed you were using something like an aqualifter pump and some combination of rigid and flexible airline tubing to get water and air bubbles in and out of the dome. Maybe it doesn't create a strong enough vacuum to get bubbles out?  

 

If we had a contraption set up it'd have to be permanent, since getting the rigid tubing out would be impossible (it has to reach that top, and we don't have that bandwidth for getting it out of the dome). We opted for keeping it simple :) And we learned to turn the pump on for a second while filling so that trapped air in the pump doesn't end up trapped at the top of the dome :P 

 

I think an aqua lifter would do fine getting bubbles out? But with the variables of the pump running, flow, etc, we wouldn't know where to put the end of the rigid tubing to 'catch' the gathered bubbles. When we left pump air in the dome the first time for example, the bubbles were near the side of the curve because the pump was pushing them away from the top.

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Imagine if the tank was like an upside down wineglass without the base- so that it tapered to a airline tubing connection at the top. So all the bubbles would go to that top, and then an aqualifter or BRS Drew’s Doser could be on 24/7 to keep the system “primed”. 

 

An upright overflow? Omg. Water is sucked out of the top and goes to the bottom section. Imagine that. Crazy! 

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