Teenyreef's Teenycookie Jar - Retired! ☠️

[teenyreef]

Psammacora, with a bali tricolor acropora on the lower left. The rainbow monti is on the right, with the purple stylo in the far upper right.

 

California Tort:

 

The bubblegum montipora is coloring back up. The bird of paradise birdsnest is above it.

 

I took more pictures but I need to PM @Felicia before midnight! I'll try to post more tomorrow 

[teenyreef]

Oops, I almost forgot my write-up! 250 words is really hard 

 

Jar and Equipment:
2 gallon Anchor Hocking cookie jar 
ABI Tuna Blue PAR38 bulb
Whisper 10 air pump, no air stone
Finnex 50w heater
Ailink Wifi Power Strip
 
Corals:
Various acropora, montipora, stylophora, psammacora, basically anything that ends in “pora” 
Florida ricordea
Chalice
Favia
Various zoas

 

Maintenance:
100% water change, once or twice a week after stirring up the tank
Feed Reef Roids every two weeks, a few hours before the water change
Spot treat algae with hydrogen peroxide, pick off big pieces with tweezers
Clean the glass with a Nano Mag

 

Goals:
My goal with this jar was to keep a cheap, simple coral reef that beginning reefers could easily copy to learn how to reef without spending a lot of money. To keep things simple, I only kept corals, no fish or inverts. In keeping with the “cheap” theme, I tried to use “free” corals from my other tanks…although I did give in to temptation once at the lfs and bought three corals just for the jar.

 

I met my goal – it’s cheap and easy, and the jar grows corals better and prettier than my other tanks 

 

Challenges:
Smaller rocks outside the tank become huge rocks inside the jar, and once corals start growing, they are hard to remove to clean the jar.
The curved glass, small opening, and blue light make photography very difficult.
Unreliable wifi power strip – the light stayed on overnight once, bleaching corals.
Tweezers are very important 
We need six more months grow-out time!

[SeaFurn]

The jar looks amazing!  I'm also impressed you get such good pictures under that bulb. I haven't quite mastered that yet.

Overall very nicely done!

[ChristopherDido]

Yeah 250 words was difficult. Good write up, do you use a filter for your photos? They look amazing.

[teenyreef]

39 minutes ago, SeaFurn said:

The jar looks amazing!  I'm also impressed you get such good pictures under that bulb. I haven't quite mastered that yet.

Overall very nicely done!

Thank you! 

[teenyreef]

25 minutes ago, ChristopherDido said:

Yeah 250 words was difficult. Good write up, do you use a filter for your photos? They look amazing.

Thanks! I don't use a filter, I adjust the white balance in Lightroom until it looks close to what I see in real life. The pictures are still more blue than real life, but much better than they started.  

[Merthynia]

I didn’t know how to do the write up, now I’m sad I didn’t format it like yours! Very clean and informative!

[ChristopherDido]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

Thanks! I don't use a filter, I adjust the white balance in Lightroom until it looks close to what I see in real life. The pictures are still more blue than real life, but much better than they started.  

I use Snapseed app on my phone after taking pics on my phone.  It's pretty good, not perfect, but what you gonna do, I want to buy a filter, but it can wait. 

36 minutes ago, Merthynia said:

I didn’t know how to do the write up, now I’m sad I didn’t format it like yours! Very clean and informative!

Right! I'm regretting how I did mine now lol.

[teenyreef]

I just did mine loosely based on the TOTM format. But I'm glad there wasn't a set format. Since the theme of the contest is creativity, I like the idea of everybody coming up with their own ideas for the write up. I thought both of you did a great job with yours! 

[DarkMagic]

Amazing! 

[Tamberav]

looks good!!

[seabass]

I have cookie jar envy.  Good work!

[vlangel]

Teeny, I can't wait to see this jar in 6 more months.  You ARE keeping it up, aren't you?

[teenyreef]

On 4/1/2018 at 11:30 PM, DarkMagic said:

Amazing! 

Thanks! 

On 4/2/2018 at 6:33 PM, seabass said:

I have cookie jar envy.  Good work!

Thanks, and I love the colors in yours! 

[teenyreef]

14 hours ago, vlangel said:

Teeny, I can't wait to see this jar in 6 more months.  You ARE keeping it up, aren't you?

Oh yes, it's definitely staying up, at least until the frags get too big! 

[teenyreef]

The cookies are continuing to bake! I am still amazed at how well sps grows in this tank with just a light and a few bubbles from the air pump. I thought this detail shot gives a great view of both good and not-so-good stuff in the jar.

 

At the very top, to the right of the heater, you can see a little clam. He was a hitchhiker on the live rock in my very first tank, the 4g pico, and has stubbornly survived every tank crash, alkalinity overdose, and algae infestation that ever happened. I have even put a drop of peroxide on his shell to kill the algae and he opens back up after a day or two.

 

Just below the clam is a small acro colony that broke off in the 40g tank. In that tank, the skin is green and the polyps are pink. The skin is more bluish green in the jar, and the polyps are a darker pink. 

 

The red montipora is a rescue from the 40g tank. It got badly stung by the blue kenya tree and there was just a little chunk left. I stuck it in the jar and it's rapidly growing back over the dead parts.

 

The blue/green acro in the middle looks just like the california tort on the far left, but it's an Electric Miyagi Tort from @Cultivated Reef. Another broken-off piece from the 40g tank that I just stuck in the jar in case it would grow. 

 

The JF red hot setosa on the lower left is a replacement for the one that bleached and died when the lights stayed on overnight. For some reason, the base bleached out the day after I glued it in. I'm guessing maybe it got some superglue on it 

 

The purple stylo on the bottom is another frag from the 40g. That stylo is indestructible and grows fast. What's not to like?

 

The greenish acro in the middle is one I got as a freebie from a local reefer when I bought some frags from him. He calls it "green fizz". Since corals seem to color up really well in the jar, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out when it starts growing.

 

If you look really closely just to the left and below the green fizz, there's a mostly dead coral that came from the 10g tank. It started to slowly RTN in that tank, so I moved it into the jar to see if the miraculous healing powers of the jar would work. It kept dying and I thought the jar had failed me, but there's actually a tiny piece of one branch still alive under the algae growing on the rest of it. And it's stayed that way for a couple weeks now, so maybe, just maybe, it will recover someday.

 

You can also see lots of little bits of algae. The one thing the jar doesn't do well is keep the rocks algae-free. I apply peroxide during water changes to keep the worst of it knocked back, and that seems to work pretty well. Hopefully when I hit the one year mark, the rocks will be more mature and the algae will be more under control.

[teenyreef]

I did my regular water change routine tonight:

I turn off the air pump and the heater, stir up the water really well with the turkey baster, then drain it quickly to get as much of the suspended debris as possible. Then I put drops of peroxide on the algae the builds up on the heater and some of the bare rock spots, and used the toothbrush to gently remove the thicker parts, at least where I could get to them. Then I put a drop or two of peroxide directly on some of the blue zoas that seemed to be struggling a bit with invasive algae. Note: I'm very careful to avoid getting any peroxide on the sps!

 

I waited twenty or thirty seconds, and poured about 80% of the old water back in, leaving the detritus that had settled in the bottom of the water change pitcher in place. This cleans off the peroxide and stirs up even more detritus by pouring water all over the rocks. More turkey basting, which helps get all the peroxide off, especially from zoas or any other corals that had direct application (they'll tolerate about 30 seconds at full strength, out of the water).

 

Then I drained the water out again to get everything that got stirred up. I dump the water in the kitchen sink, then walk out to the garage to fill up the pitcher with new saltwater that's heated and circulating in the Brute trash can. I then pour the water right back into the jar. 

 

The corals are out of the water for less than five minutes both times. They can tolerate a lot longer but I try to be quick. Total time to do the whole process is about ten or fifteen minutes.

 

I try to do this twice a week. I could probably get away with once a week or even once every two weeks, but I've found the corals seem to be happier when I do it more often.

 

We denizens of N-R normally only want to post pretty pictures of our reefs, of course, but since I want this jar and this journal to be useful to beginning reefers trying to do their own jar, I think it would be helpful to show the jar under natural light (well, as natural as my 60w desk light gets), right after the water change. All the corals are pissed off, and the yellow light isn't flattering to the corals. But this is the normal post-water change look, and nothing to worry about. The corals will start extending their polyps within an hour or so, and by the time the light comes back on tomorrow, everything will be open and happy again. 

 

I'll post a picture tomorrow so you can see the "before" and "after"

 

 

[teenyreef]

Since I want this journal to be helpful as a guide to others, I've added an index to the first post. It's kind of a combination of an index and a timeline of significant events. I'll try to continue updating the index as I make posts that might be of interest to someone trying to capture the high points of the journal without having to read the whole thread. Since this is the first time I've posted it, here's a copy so you don't have to click back to the first page to see it.

 

TeenyCookie Jar Journal Index:

Initial setup with light, heater and air pump: page 1

First wet Full Jar Shot (FJS): page 1

Gluing the rocks: page 2

First corals : page 2

First algae : page 2

Video of pods in the jar: page 3

PAR38 light socket extender: page 3

Detailed coral pics including the incredible reglued bubblegum monti that I broke again the next day  : page 4

Link to ABI Tuna Blue bulb on Amazon: page 4

Giant bristleworm , more new corals: page 5

My only video of the jar so far (I hate doing videos): page 5

More new corals: page 6

Black Friday - bunches of corals bleached and dead overnight due to the light staying on : page 6

Emergency backup corals to the rescue!: page 7

Final contest FJS : page 7

More coral pics and contest write-up: page 8

Detailed water change write-up: page 8

Ugly post-water change picture: page 8

 

I hope this is helpful!

[debbeach13]

Love it. That index is a great help!

[teenyreef]

6 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Love it. That index is a great help!

Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

[teenyreef]

As promised, here's a picture of the jar about an hour after the light came back on. The blue zoas at the front haven't opened yet because I put peroxide on them last night. They'll probably be back to normal in another day or two. But everything else is opening right back up.

 

 

Here's a close up of the rasta zoas. Some of the polyps are still in the process of opening.

 

[teenyreef]

I'd like to thank everyone who voted for this little cookie jar, and just as importantly, all who followed and offered encouragement and feedback along the way. I really didn't expect to win anything in the contest and would have been happy just with the way the jar turned out. 

 

Congratulations to everyone that participated, I liked every entry I saw. Congrats to @fishfreak0114 for winning "most creative" with that amazing coffee pot, and to @gena and @OldManSea who both could easily have won with just one or two more votes. 

 

I look forward to seeing how the jar matures over the next six months, and I hope all the other jars keep going as well. I think we've really proven how easy it is to keep a reef without expensive equipment and a minimum of setup, maintenance, and know how! 

[vlangel]

Way to rock it teeny.  Good job and well deserved!

Let me know how the hatcher/feeder works that comes with the PJ reefs jar.  I am very curious about that. ? And congrats again.

[teenyreef]

3 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Way to rock it teeny.  Good job and well deserved!

Let me know how the hatcher/feeder works that comes with the PJ reefs jar.  I am very curious about that. ? And congrats again.

Thanks, and I'm very curious too! I guess I'll have to start yet another tank thread 

[pj86]

Congratulation. What an amazing little reef.

 

Can't wait to see what you do with the PJ reefs 2.0.