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Myka's 10L Bubble Reef


Myka

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I have this Tank Journal posted up on a couple other sites, but figured I would share here too.  Yesterday The Bubble turned 4 weeks old.  I'll catch you all up...

 

Posted Jan 27th:  One of the local Facebook pages started up a "jar reef challenge".  We're all taking our jar reefs to the local frag swap in April to show them off.  I've wanted to do a pico reef for probably 10 years, and I figured why not now?

 

Of course I am always up for a good challenge, and the first thing was finding a "jar" I liked the look of.  I wanted something that was clear to look through, not wavy and distorted.  I also really like how the 12-gallon IM Cylinder tank looks - the convex acrylic makes the livestock look a lot bigger than it is.

 

My inspiration is from floating flower bowls:

 

 

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Posted Jan 27th:  This is what I came up with, and I'm sure it will take some tweaking to get it right.

 

*** EDIT: 3L Bubble Vase was swapped with 10L Bubble Vase on Feb 6th. ***

- exactly 3 liters actual water volume, filled using water from my reef
- 14 ounces (0.5 lb) live rock from my reef's sump
- 1 1/4 cups coarse dry sand
- 8 watt reptile mat for heat, not adjustable
- Cobalt heater controller
- air pump for water movement, no stone (figuring out ideas to replace this)
- AI Prime HD lighting

So far temp fluctuates between 74.0 to 74.2 F. A little cool, but should be ok. I ordered a tiny DC water pump, not sure if it will be SW safe, but I'm hoping it will help add some heat to the tank, and replace the airline which makes messy salt creep.

Light is AI Prime. I ordered a white one through Bayside Corals (they only have black in stock right now), but don't have it yet.

Honestly, this pico may prove to be too small. I just like the shape. I haven't worked on aesthetics around the tank yet - just set it up an hour ago.

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POST FROM JAN 29th:

I picked up a Fluval 106 canister filter for The Bubble so I can run an in-line heater, and also to increase water volume.  The volume of the canister is actually 3.8L, so it more than doubles The Bubble's volume.


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Posted Jan 28th:

 

I picked up a Fluval 106 canister filter today. The adjustable flow can be reduced all the way from 0-100% so I can actually crank it back far enough to use it. The media capacity of the canister is supposedly 0.3 gallons so this will double the water volume which will help significantly for evaporation. Hopefully it doesn't add too much heat. I won't have time to hook it up for a few days. I'll have to figure out how to hook it onto the tank in a clean manner. I'm going to get some sort of cabinet/side table to set it on so the canister can be hidden. I think I'll probably either put live rock and a filter pad/carbon in the canister or Siporax.

 

Posted Jan 29th:

 

I bought a little cabinet for it today to set it on, and the Fluval canister fits under it. Looks pretty good. The hoses on the Fluval are ugly as all get out though, so I ordered up some glass lily pipes. They're going to take a couple weeks to show up though.

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Posted Jan 30th:

 

The Fluval 106 ran overnight and the temperature this morning is 74.3F, so the heat added by the Fluval is offset by the added water volume. I'm going to look into options for inline heaters.

I'm also tossing around the idea of replacing this 8" bubble vase with a 12" bubble vase which will hold about 3 gallons rather than the current 3 liters. This will allow me more options for fish and invertebrates. I'm not sure it's fair to put any fish in 3L no matter how small they are.

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Posted Feb 3:

 

I took some pics last night.  I stole the light off the Betta tank so I could pretend the bubble was awesome.  The light is super yellow though, so it wasn't awesome.  Haha!

UPGRADES COMING:

AI Prime HD lighting
Cobalt ETH in-line heater
Cobalt Neo-Stat heater controller (the smallest in-line heater is 200 watts lol)
12" bubble vase to replace the current 8" one

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I put a little test frag of Blow Pop Zoas in there and Scarlet is checking it out.  Scarlet gets 1 fish pellet a day.  She's onto the routine pretty fast.  Haha
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Feb 6th

 

The bigger Bubble arrived today, so I upgraded the 8" Bubble to a 12" Bubble.  I added 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of actual water volume to the tank (plus another 3.8L in the canister filter).  I added another 200 mL of sand, and another 14 ounces (0.5 lb) of live rock.

So the current stats are:

2.6 gallon Bubble Vase (3.6 gallons net system volume)
Fluval 106 canister filter
1 lb cured live rock
2 cups of sand
Temporary Betta light

1 Scarlet Hermit Crab
Frag of Blow Pop Zoas


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Feb 10th:

 

The light showed up yesterday! So I finally got to add some real stock to the tank!

ORA Chip's Acro
RR Orange Passion Acro
CM Blue Polyp Nasuta
Monti setosa
ORA Long Polyp Toadstool
Purple Candelabra Gorgonian
Frogspawn
Blow Pop Zoas
Sunny D Zoas
Solar Flare Zoas

More to come!!!

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Feb 18th:

 

Today was the first water change. I changed about 95% and vacuumed the sand. I also added 250 mL Siporax and a few pieces of live rock rubble from my reef tank into the canister filter. I also have a filter pad in there.

 

Cleaning the canister is a giant PITA, so I may skip out on the filter pad and just let it run with the rock and Siporax. Then I could clean it out quarterly instead.  I'd probably have to do twice weekly water changes though because I'd be doing less than 50% water changes if I'm only draining the display and not the canister. That would likely be better for the SPS anyway... hmm...

 

Here are some before WC pics and during.  Some diatoms on the glass now. Yippee, that's a good sign. :)

 

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Feb 21st:

 

Significant diatoms growth on the rocks and sand now. I added a Ring Cowrie that I stole from my reef.

 

I have some goodies coming for The Bubble in the next week. Can't wait. This tank has made reefing exciting for me again. :D

 

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Feb 25th:

 

I added 2 Panda Gobies today. I took some photos before adding hem for two reasons. One being I may never see them again, and the other so i could show you guys how tiny they are!

 

I also added a few frags today:

 

Orange Oxide Zoas
Dragon Eyes Zoas
Pink Pocci (for the Pandas to possibly hang in)

I'll get pics later when they open up.

 

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Feb 26th:

 

So the gobies have been pretty awesome. They aren't as cryptic as expected. I can usually locate one or both of them when I look at the tank. The smaller one likes to hang out on the sand, and the "less small" (haha) one likes to hang out under the Long Polyp Toadstool. The Toadstool was just supposed to be for filler and I planned to remove it once everything else grows in a bit, but now I'm torn. Trouble is, I already promised it to someone. Dangit.

When I first added the gobies, the bigger one went right into the rocks, but the smaller one dove face first into the Sunny D palys. One of the Palys was closing up on him, so I used a skewer to pull him out. For the rest of the evening he sat an inch away from the polyps looking dazed and confused, so I was thinking he was a goner. Today he's perky though, so I have hope!

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TODAY:

 

I added a couple more zoa frags, added a Poccilopora frag for the Panda gobies (I might remove it, not a fan of Poccis and the gobies like the rocks better anyway), removed the Toadstool Leather, and added a few Rock Flower Anemones. I still need to put something right in the middle where the Toadstool was. Hmm...what to add??

 

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I found the smaller Panda Goby dead this morning. This is the same one that almost got eaten by the Sunny D polyps, and has been all dazed and confused ever since. I think he got stung. The other one I saw a streak of this morning, so he's still kicking. I'm feeding the tank twice a day with a live baby brine shrimp and PE Calanus mixture - maybe 30 BBS and about 12 pieces of Calanus. The LFS is getting Catalina Gobies tomorrow, so I hope to score a couple! I missed out on the super cool Periclimenes anemone shrimps. They are SO cool!

The diatom bloom is over, and now coralline algae is growing like mad! It's sucking all the calcium and alkalinity out of the water! I am doing 2-gallon water changes 2x per week. This is super easy though, and only takes me about 6 minutes. I keep a 5-gallon pail running with saltwater and a heater, so it's ready to go whenever I have 6 minutes to do a water change (usually while I'm cooking supper).

I can't remember if I mentioned that I got the 1/2" glass lily pipe, but apparently the Fluval is 5/8" hose. Dangit, I even did The Google. Apparently The Google doesn't know everything! So I need an adapter to get the pipe on - this weekend's project! The lily pipe is bigger than expected even though measurements were provided (everything is big when you're talking about a pico tank), so I may try to DIY something different. I really like the Innovative Marine Spin Stream nozzles, but they are kinda bulky for the pico, and not sure the mounting would work out.

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On 2/28/2018 at 9:10 PM, Rene said:

Oh my goodness, all the colors!  What a cute little tank!  I can't wait to see all these little frags grow out for you. 

Thanks Rene!  Me too!  Hopefully it doesn't grow too fast...!

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7 hours ago, Myka said:

Thanks Rene!  Me too!  Hopefully it doesn't grow too fast...!

Hopefully not, but growth is a great excuse to make frags to share with other local reefers. :happy:

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Sweet tank!!!  Seriously it's pretty awesome how you hooked up the canister filter.  For some reason it looks a lot less obtrusive in recent shots compared to early ones.

 

Aren't you concerned about the RFA around the tiny gobies?  

 

I had an awesome tiny geometric hawk a long time ago that was caught by an RFA.  I was super bummed.

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On 3/4/2018 at 1:41 AM, ajmckay said:

Sweet tank!!!  Seriously it's pretty awesome how you hooked up the canister filter.  For some reason it looks a lot less obtrusive in recent shots compared to early ones.

 

Aren't you concerned about the RFA around the tiny gobies?  

 

I had an awesome tiny geometric hawk a long time ago that was caught by an RFA.  I was super bummed.

Thank you!  Well, the Bubble is bigger, so the first few photos show the smaller Bubble.  Maybe that's the difference you're noticing?  Or maybe it's just less obtrusive because there's more to look at now!  Haha.  I do have the lily pipe return now, and a 1/2" clear acrylic tube I'm going to DIY into an intake pipe.  That will look much better.

 

I was concerned about the gobies, but did a lot of reading, and asking people that I know have them living together with RFA.  The consensus is that the gobies know to stay away from the RFA.  Maybe your hawkfish got spooked, or maybe it was unwell (that can happen fast).

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Those Catalina gobies are cute!  I have always wanted some but heard they originate in cool water and don't do well long-term at normal reef temperatures. Do you keep your reef bowl extra cool or are these a different species?

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14 hours ago, Rene said:

Those Catalina gobies are cute!  I have always wanted some but heard they originate in cool water and don't do well long-term at normal reef temperatures. Do you keep your reef bowl extra cool or are these a different species?

Hi Rene, the Catalina Gobies I purchased are captive-bred in water ranging from 72-75F.  I speculate that captive-bred Catalina Gobies are more temperature tolerant than wild-caught species since they were one of the first species to be farm-raised many years ago, so that provides many, many generations of selective breeding.  Catalina Gobies natural life span is only 2-3 years, and I do know of several living at normal reef temperatures (78-80F) that are over two years old.  All that said, yes my Bubble Reef is at 74F as a happy-medium between temperate and tropical.  I think the Rock Flowers prefer the cooler temperature too since they are sub-tropical as well.  :)

I speculate (once again) that it may be easier to maintain a pico at lower temperatures since everything will grow slower.  Since metabolisms will be slightly reduced, organics should build up in the water slower.  Time will tell.  :)

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Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to explain!  If you dont have a lot of equipment adding heat to the tank, it is easier to keep them cool. Good luck with the goby population, you have some cute ones. 

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I put a PAR meter on the tank yesterday and checked everything. The settings I was running on the Prime were putting 200-250 onto the Acros, so I turned it up a bit so the Acros are now getting 300-350. The one RFA (red center) is getting pretty high light too - 300, the others sit more around 250. Out of entertainment, when I turned the Prime up to 100% on all channels the sand was 800!! HA!

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I added a Blue Lagoon Acro frag yesterday, and finally decided on placement for everything I think.  I have two more spots that could use something - one at the very top, and one just above the Frogspawn.  There is also a spot below the gorgonian that something could go, but that is a VERY high flow area and lowish light, so I'm not sure I'll be able to find anything that will be happy there.  The Acros are all growing - encrusting the epoxy, and polyp extension is always good.

The canister is getting air build up in it, and releases a big gust of bubbles every once in awhile which irritates everything.  I'm hoping to find an answer to that problem.  Not sure what to do about that.

 

The 2nd Panda Goby died.  I found his little body when I was rearranging corals.  :( I thought he was doing well, but I found he was much more elusive when I added the Catalina Gobies, so maybe they were harassing him.  

 

The Catalina Gobies are entertaining - they lazily chase each other a few times a day.  Apparently they are hermaphrodites, and any two could breed.  Maybe they'll start laying eggs at some point.

 

I'd like to add a fish that swims around, but not sure there is anything suitably small.  I do plan to add a Porcelain Crab and a Pedersen's Shrimp. Maybe a couple Sexy Shrimp.

 

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