hinnenkm Posted December 18, 2017 Author Share Posted December 18, 2017 8 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said: I love how it looks with the mangroves! It's going to look really cool with coral growing on the rock in between those roots! Thanks! I'm excited I grabbed a couple zoas and then an acan... for now anyway! I will be trimming some stuff from my classroom tank too to put in the pico I think. I'm interested to see how things grow with the light that I ended up getting. 1 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 Just a friendly reminder that if you haven't already, please pm me your December FTS and a link to your build thread by January 5, 2018. Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 Fts for December - took it a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to do much with the tank, nor did I want to because at the moment I’m in Colombia. More updates will happen next week, when I’m back in the US. I did add a few frags, but will be adding more soon and am looking forward to seeing how the tank has done in my absence Also, I spent the morning catching up on some of the pico threads and these tanks are looking great! It gets me excited to see how everything is progressing and really makes me want to get our pico reef stocked full of corals and maybe (finally) a few inverts?! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions! 2 Quote Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Colombia, wow! Thanks for checking in 1 Quote Link to comment
MedievalITGuy Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 I just saw your December shot in the FTS thread. Holy wow this looks cool! Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 On 1/5/2018 at 9:24 AM, Christopher Marks said: Colombia, wow! Thanks for checking in Yeah, I was down there for two weeks and had a co-worker take care of my tanks. Definitely a great trip On 1/9/2018 at 10:47 AM, MedievalITGuy said: I just saw your December shot in the FTS thread. Holy wow this looks cool! Thanks much, I appreciate the compliment! 1 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 Update time As you can see, just a little hair algae took over the pico while I was gone! I don't think much was done for water changes or maintenance except top-offs (which was fine). Honestly, the salinity in this little pico is pretty stable considering how small it actually is. Maybe next time I'll update with a picture of something next to it to give a size reference... Due to the hair algae that had over taken everything, I gave the tank a good cleaning yesterday and will do so again early next week. While moving things around, I realized again just how little space there is in this container. I also found a rock anemone that I forgot I had put in there.... The corals seem to be doing well - at this point just xenia (which has been doing phenomenal), a nice acan frag, and a couple zoas. The light is definitely working as it should, but I wish I could see better coloration - after the contest, the acan will be in my classroom tank and you'll see what I mean. Looking forward to grabbing a few more frags in the next couple weeks and really starting to put some work into this little tank. I'm still undecided if it will be just corals, or if I will maybe put an invert or two in there.... *Also, because of the bubbles in the glass, it's really difficult to good pics of anything close up.... oh well. 6 Quote Link to comment
ChristopherDido Posted January 13, 2018 Share Posted January 13, 2018 26 minutes ago, hinnenkm said: *Also, because of the bubbles in the glass, it's really difficult to good pics of anything close up.... oh well. I have the same problem! But it sure looks good. Yours looks great! I'm Jealous! 2 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 2 minutes ago, ChristopherDido said: I have the same problem! But it sure looks good. Yours looks great! I'm Jealous! Yours looks great too - I've been keeping up with it, just not commenting! I finally have some time to sit down and just relax a bit The rock flowers in your tank look great! I'm wondering if your container is the one that is just one size bigger than mine....? Quote Link to comment
ChristopherDido Posted January 13, 2018 Share Posted January 13, 2018 21 minutes ago, hinnenkm said: Yours looks great too - I've been keeping up with it, just not commenting! I finally have some time to sit down and just relax a bit The rock flowers in your tank look great! I'm wondering if your container is the one that is just one size bigger than mine....? With the rocks and sand in it, it holds just over 3/4 of gallon of water. How much total does yours hold? Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 11 hours ago, ChristopherDido said: With the rocks and sand in it, it holds just over 3/4 of gallon of water. How much total does yours hold? I'll look into it next week, but I know when I did the last water change, it wasn't much at all... 3 Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 I have not yet received your January FTS for the contest. Please pm it to me as soon as possible. Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 On 2/3/2018 at 6:54 PM, Felicia said: I have not yet received your January FTS for the contest. Please pm it to me as soon as possible. Just sent, sorry for such a delay... everything else will be in on time or early! Thank you 2 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 On 1/12/2018 at 9:05 PM, ChristopherDido said: With the rocks and sand in it, it holds just over 3/4 of gallon of water. How much total does yours hold? My container is right at about a quart of water - super tiny! It's really hard to work in there and with the way things have been going, I contemplated just taking it apart, but on Friday I basically did a reset... Quote Link to comment
Felicia Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 1 minute ago, hinnenkm said: Just sent, sorry for such a delay... everything else will be in on time or early! Thank you No worries at all! Thank you for sending it! 1 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 I am hardly getting on the forum at all anymore and the pico has definitely been on the back burner, but here are some updates! Because of my neglect, there has been quite a bit of hair algae in the tank and I lost the xenia frag that had been doing well.... Last week I had students start research ways to combat the algae growing and this week I am looking forward to seeing some of the solutions they have proposed (we have a weekly aquarium club on Mondays). I also will be picking up a few captive bred baby tuxedo urchins sometime this week to help combat the algae In the meantime, I literally took the tank apart and did a 'reset' by removing everything and dumping the water, scrubbing all of the rocks, and then putting everything back in with water from a water change I did on my 20. I will see tomorrow how everything is doing. I will also be putting some new frags in there tomorrow and see how they do. On an interesting note, I think the light has done a decent job so far, but don't know if I would ever use it over a reef display because of the lack of pop from the corals, but because of the light, my acan frag is doing some interesting things color-wise (sorry for the bad pic, but it really is hard with the texture of the glass and some of the bubbles that are in it). Hopefully I will have a few more pics to be uploading later this week. Thanks for taking a look and please feel free to comment and/or offer suggestions! 3 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 Oh, I also forgot, I took out the tiny pump that I had running and replaced it will just an airline tube... I'm a little nervous to see how it works in relation to temperature, but that little pump was keeping it a little too warm I think! 1 Quote Link to comment
ChristopherDido Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 3 minutes ago, hinnenkm said: Oh, I also forgot, I took out the tiny pump that I had running and replaced it will just an airline tube... I'm a little nervous to see how it works in relation to temperature, but that little pump was keeping it a little too warm I think! You'll be surprised by what the airline can do... But probably put a heater in there. Bought the 7.5 watt Betta heater and have it in a timer. Works pretty good, 77 when I wake up and 78.2 after the lights end their cycle. 1 Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 On 2/4/2018 at 7:52 PM, ChristopherDido said: You'll be surprised by what the airline can do... But probably put a heater in there. Bought the 7.5 watt Betta heater and have it in a timer. Works pretty good, 77 when I wake up and 78.2 after the lights end their cycle. Thank you for the suggestion about a heater - such small water volume though that it overheats. I ran the airline through the week, no heater because the school is heated, but then for the weekend threw the pump back in.... we will see! Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 This is going to be the coolest update by far to this pico tank! Because there is not much time for extras during the school day, I have aquarium club that I run every Monday during recess. During that time, we do water testing, observe the tanks, and other activities to learn more about what goes on in the aquariums and oceans. Since the pico, due to my lack of maintenance, has been developing quite a bit of algae, we investigated ways to get rid of it. I challenged the students to research what method they would prefer and it was during that time that I remembered we have someone local who has bred blue tuxedo urchins.... they would be the perfect size for the pico! I hinted to the students that it might be a good idea, but that we would have to also get in touch with him and see if he would let them go when they are as small as they are... I also had checked in with him about the urchins and he kindly donated about 12 baby urchins Since two other teachers at school have reef tanks as well, I shared with them and put a couple in our 20 gallon reef (in a smaller container). They are such cool additions!!! Looking for them, it is almost like playing 'Where's Waldo' In other news, due to various issues, the pulsing xenia has not made it through and the zoas right now have quite a bit of algae - which I will look at tackling more this week. The acan frag has been looking good and it has been interesting to see how the coloring continues to change due to the light.... Also thought I would try something new by attaching the pipette to keep up with evaporation over the weekend So much of this pico has just been been trying different things out and seeing what happens! 4 2 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 Ahhh, such cute lil' baby urchins! 1 Quote Link to comment
Clown79 Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Very nice tank. Do you have issues with bubbles attaching to corals from the bubbler? Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 9 hours ago, Clown79 said: Very nice tank. Do you have issues with bubbles attaching to corals from the bubbler? No, not at all. Quote Link to comment
Clown79 Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Every time I try to use one, I get tons of bubbles on everything. Quote Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 5 hours ago, Clown79 said: Every time I try to use one, I get tons of bubbles on everything. I'm not sure what to tell you. I don't have an airstone or anything on the end of it though.... I get more microbubbles in my IM 10 than anything else... Quote Link to comment
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