Midwest Industrial CC Pico Reef - Upsized Pico Now w/Sexy Shrimp

[ChristopherDido]

19 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I use a 24w over mine.

 

I covered up a few of the white leds with electrical tape which helped with how much light it was getting and made it more blue too.

 

Your tank looks great. Love the rfa's.

Thanks! I downgraded to the 12W. Everything seems to be doing well after a week. Here's a quick update pic I took last night! 

[ChristopherDido]

So I think I am going to have to rearrange my rockwork in my Jar.  My Large RFA decided on Thursday to move to the center of the tank between the two rocks and is currently covering and ticking off some of my Zoas... Grrrr... I kinda wish I had known how large this RFA would be when it was fully opened lol.  It kinda looks cool now but just slightly annoying, I will be moving the rock around tomorrow when I do my water change and feeding.  I do my best to keep my hand out of the tank throughout the week unless adding a coral.  Here's a quick pic of it hanging out in the middle, it moved from the bottom of the right rock.  Enjoy!  Hope everyone's Pico's are doing great!

 

[JBM]

Wow. That rfa looks like a giant in your tank

[ChristopherDido]

1 minute ago, JBM said:

Wow. That rfa looks like a giant in your tank

Well yeah when it's probably almost 6 inches in diameter inside a 3/4 gallon jar I would say so lol it didn't look that big in the store!

[Cintax]

The tank looks great. Love the RFA.

[ChristopherDido]

1 hour ago, Cintax said:

The tank looks great. Love the RFA.

Thanks! I'm very pleased with how good it's going! I had a plan and have stuck to it so far!

[Felicia]

Hi!  Just a reminder to please pm me your February FTS by this Friday 3/2/18.

[ChristopherDido]

1 hour ago, Felicia said:

Hi!  Just a reminder to please pm me your February FTS by this Friday 3/2/18.

Will do! I'm waiting to redo my rock work with my water change today and I'll send it in then!  Thanks! :-)

[ChristopherDido]

Alright, so the Water Change and "Rescape" went well.  As I was assuming the large RFA is attached to the bottom of the tank and none of the rocks.  I had know idea how huge it truly was until it was completely open and not tucked half under a rock.  The Zoas that it was covering are opening up already, that has made me very happy :-)  In other news I will be getting another RFA tomorrow and moving around the rocks revealed a few more places that I can put zoas in the tank :-)  Then I will let them all grow in!  Anyway here are a few shots of the redone rockwork.

 

Thanks for Checking in!

 

First of up FJS for February!

 

Two other shots for your Viewing Pleasure :-)

 

And Finally a top down-ish view that shows how large the Green RFA is when it is pretty much fully open.

 

 

[vlangel]

Your jar looks amazing!

[k4ndyk1ng]

Looks so good, always wanted to do a jar pico. 

[ChristopherDido]

Well everything was going great. Came home today to find my Pom-Pom Crab dead :-( did a quick water change and checked all params, everything was normal. Thinking there was just not enough food for him... He seemed fine, saw him out night before last... I'd been too afraid to feed more than once a week. Lesson learned on the small scale reef. Those of you with critters besides corals and snails, how often do you feed? 

[vlangel]

1 minute ago, ChristopherDido said:

Well everything was going great. Came home today to find my Pom-Pom Crab dead :-( did a quick water change and checked all params, everything was normal. Thinking there was just not enough food for him... He seemed fine, saw him out night before last... I'd been too afraid to feed more than once a week. Lesson learned on the small scale reef. Those of you with critters besides corals and snails, how often do you feed? 

I feed at least 2Xs a week but I too have lost critters.

[ChristopherDido]

9 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I feed at least 2Xs a week but I too have lost critters.

I will keep that in mind when and if we add something else in the future. I'm still not sure on how much my rocks and water changes can keep everything else in check. I've only been doing this for less than a year, still a noon. 

[jahnje]

7 hours ago, ChristopherDido said:

I will keep that in mind when and if we add something else in the future. I'm still not sure on how much my rocks and water changes can keep everything else in check. I've only been doing this for less than a year, still a noon. 

I think you'll be surprised how long these systems stay stable. I've been feeding a small amount reef chili every day to my 5L on a two week WC cycle w/o any problems.  I just kept measuring the ammonia everyday until I got comfortable with the idea that there just wasn't going to be any.  Seems that all the algae on my rocks seems to just take care of it.  So you might have a lot more wiggle room than you think. 

[MainelyReefer]

I spot feed a few pellets/flakes at least everyother day to goby/pistol in my pico, and then frozen before my WC.  I do have a lot of big worms/stars to clean up the mess and find massive amounts of detritus each week and end up doing 150% WC’s to flush the sand bed.  Your tanks looking great I imagine one day it might be only RFA once the others grow

[MainelyReefer]

Whoops double post.

[Felicia]

The contest is coming to a close!  March 31st will be the official end of the competition and then the voting will begin.  In order to help the community decide what tanks to vote for, each remaining contestant will need to do the following:

1. PM me three (3) final photos that you think summarize your container reef.  The composition for two of these is up to you, but one of them should be a final FTS taken sometime during the month of March.
2. PM me a written summary of your container reef build and experiences throughout the competition.  This should be no more than 250 words.
3. These items must be private messaged to me by midnight (Pacific Standard Time) on March 31st.

[ChristopherDido]

So I decided I hated not being able to see my really pretty RFA, so I rotated the bowl. This provides a very unique look to the Jar. Here's a quick gif and FJS shot. What do you all think? BTW, when should one trim MacroAlgae? The dragonsbreath  is pretty bushy. 

[vlangel]

I think you should put your jar on a rotating table after seeing the gif.

[ChristopherDido]

13 hours ago, vlangel said:

I think you should put your jar on a rotating table after seeing the gif.

If I could figure out how to do it without getting wires all tangled up I would

[JBM]

5 hours ago, ChristopherDido said:

If I could figure out how to do it without getting wires all tangled up I would

 

 

Maybe a mechanical lazy susan. So that way you could rotate it 90-100*

[Lula_Mae]

On 3/1/2018 at 10:30 PM, ChristopherDido said:

Well everything was going great. Came home today to find my Pom-Pom Crab dead :-( did a quick water change and checked all params, everything was normal. Thinking there was just not enough food for him... He seemed fine, saw him out night before last... I'd been too afraid to feed more than once a week. Lesson learned on the small scale reef. Those of you with critters besides corals and snails, how often do you feed? 

I feed flakes a few times a week for the fishie, everyone else just gets what they can get.  Hopefully it was just a molt but it can be hard to tell, and you never know how old the little guys are when they get to you!

 

On 3/12/2018 at 8:48 PM, ChristopherDido said:

So I decided I hated not being able to see my really pretty RFA, so I rotated the bowl. This provides a very unique look to the Jar. Here's a quick gif and FJS shot. What do you all think? BTW, when should one trim MacroAlgae? The dragonsbreath  is pretty bushy. 

 You can prune your macro whenever it is getting too big for you, there's no real set "rules" on it. Just pluck out what you don't need when it's too big!

[JBM]

40 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

You can prune your macro whenever it is getting too big for you, there's no real set "rules" on it. Just pluck out what you don't need when it's too big!

When you prune. Don't forget to send it to a fellow reefer. ;-)

[Felicia]

Just a friendly reminder that your write-up and three photos are due to me by private message by midnight (PST) tomorrow night (3/31).