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Mother's Pico 4.3G - CUC introduction


Sunstar

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20181117_183309.jpg

 

Equipment

Tank: 4.3 gallon 10 x 10x10

Filter: Aqua Clear 20

ATO: Smart Mini ATO

Heater: 15 watt

Lighting: Par 38 bulb

(UV steriliser temp)

 

Substrate: Hawaiian black

rock structure: Real reef rock, Live rock

 

Live stock

GSP

 

 

 

Original Post

 

 


I posted a thread a week or so ago about my intention to start up a pico for my mother as a mothers day present. Don't fret, I live in the same house, so I will be the one taking care of it. its currently in my basement being cycled.

 

I was thinking of a jar, but 1.9 litres seemed like kinda small - I still want a pico, I just wanted something I could play with, so I ended up settling for a glass vase/bowl set from Ikea and chose the largest one.  https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80175091/ See the link.

 

I picked up an aqueon submersible heater and placed it under the sand bed. I may not need to have it on at all times - depends.

I picked up Hawaiian black sand and a two small bits of live rock- I am contemplating sucking out some of my sand and replacing it with the black. I chose some rock and a bit of dead coral that has some character and a lot of holes and craigs.

 

I'm gonna cycle it for a while, and add a periwinkle or two as soon as I start getting algae. Since the rock was from big al's, I'll get a new pack of flatworm exit and dose it later.

 

As for livestock, I will see what I can frag from my own tank, and get them started as soon as things look well and healthy - side note, I need a new pack of putty and superglue.

 

I will be ordering a par 38 or 30 bulb (please recommend which one you like best, and need to get a fixture to shine it in the right place... I want to get the goose neck, however since this is a round vase and the grip on that seems to be straight, this may not work...

 

Since this does not have a lid, I will want to get a piece of glass plate cut to fit it. I did trace an outline of the vase with the outside size, plus a bit extra and I want a small notch cut to allow for wires... that or I go with silicon feet or even airline tubing...hmmmmm around the rim to allow for air transfer.. I got an idea I may play with...

 

What Coral livestock would you folk suggest for her? She generally likes bright colours and pretty things.

 

I would like to get a small shrimp, snoofle tubes (nassarius snails), a small regular snail which ever is tiny at the time, I can swap it for any in my reef, and a hermit crab (my hallowe'en crab might be the candidate.. he's pretty but is hanging out with the gorilla crab - so he is not getting as appreciated as he might be)

 

And now for pics.... it currently is under a plant grow light. I have chaeto to seed the tank with "bugs" - I need to throw half of that out anyway... I got like three pounds of it growing.

mum1.jpgmum2.jpg

 

Sorry for the blurry.  Oh and I found the most tiny thermometer!

... I hate my camera sometimes.

it like to post my pictures sideways... <sob>

Official FTS (albeit at a distance) (retired)

20180513_002005.jpg?width=350&height=467

This tank, sadly had a catastrophic crash  - likely due to dinos.

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I cut a bit of black airline with a slice down the  middle. I think tacking it with a tiny bit of silicon would make it work as a non slip surface for my glass.

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Christopher Marks

Great to see another pico vase! You might have luck finding a clear glass plate that fits over the top, check out local dollar stores, I think someone did that in the pico container contest.

 

I'd suggest mushrooms and ricordea for corals keep, perhaps GSP and zoanthids as well!

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24 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Great to see another pico vase! You might have luck finding a clear glass plate that fits over the top, check out local dollar stores, I think someone did that in the pico container contest.

 

I'd suggest mushrooms and ricordea for corals keep, perhaps GSP and zoanthids as well!

I found a very faded GSP clinging ont o dear life in my crabs tank, so I hope to get that to crawl onto  some other rock.... its stuck to the intake of my former nano tank (20 months ago) (give or take)  I think all of those sound like great ideas.

 

rose coral -  gonna look those up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have ordered the bulb from reefsupplies.ca: par 38.

 

From ikea I likely will grab:  these should easily fit in with the decor in the living room - and we already have some lamps like this.  I haven't decided on a stand, I was thinking of rigging something up using copper pipe. I still need to order the glass lid.

nymo-lamp-shade-yellow__0503225_PE632547hemma-cord-set-black__0479021_PE618039_S

 

 

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I did not get the hemma, but I got its longer prettier and slighlty more expensive sister. Also the bulb arrived. it shipped out monday evening and i got it at around 5pm. So now the bulb is hanging above the MDP I checked out teh shades and I think hte one in the above picture will be good.

 

The Par 38 is... really not quite what I was expecting. its bigger for one, metal fins, actually I find it kinda sexy looking, but mum wouldn't... so the shade will happen.

 

What is the ideal height to hang this? should it be further, closer, kumquat?

 

20180411_194413.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

Edit: I just played with the reef welder - so now my rock is how I intended it to be. I would use it in future for applications where the rock is out of the water. Since my work was small, the use of dental tools (which I use for sculpting, came in very handy to press the material into the nooks and crannies. I tried to use less on the front of the rock and more on the back.

 

I am wondering how else I can use this stuff... I think I could sculpt it, even use it as a base under my putty when I do things like that.

 

 

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Mine is a par 38 and I actually have it 21" above the jar.  I had it closer and some of the coral were bleaching and closing.  Acclimate them slowly.

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Okay, corals have entered the picture.

 

I think I got hte lamp high enough - its at least 20 inches but I am not sure where my tape measure is plus it now has a shade. Nymo (I had to laugh finding Nymo in Ikea :P)

 

Where it currently is is in my basement until the night before mother's day when it gets taken upstairs and setup.

 

20180418_223229.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

Some blurry pics -  this is not doing well in my tank (shaded)- so I am giving it to her hoping it might have a fighting chance in hers.

20180418_223153.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

Super blurry pic of some GSP - I kept some for myself.

20180418_223142.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

Part of my gorgonian (corky finger) that I clipped off, stripped a bit down, used superglue and my new plastic beads to shape a base, then glued/mollded it onto the rocks. This stuff should grow over the plastic, it did that with my putty on the original coral.

20180418_223148.jpg?width=351&height=468

Mushrooms I had some extras of.

20180418_223200.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

And the end rock layout.  You can see a black plastic tube, that is attached to my pump and allows the water to flow from behind the rock through to the front and really agitates the surface. A tiny nigh useless thermometer and there are a couple hermits and a periwinkle there. One of the hermits is my beloved hallowe-en crab.

20180418_223127.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

I selected a lovely bit of GSP on monday that came complete with a Mojano - that fell off so I added it to my crab tank so it can join the aptasia. Its my tank of loved unloveables.

 

I have some beautiful clove plyps to go in, they are very pretty but I need to get it to cheer up in my tank, and perhaps spread a little.

 

I am trying to figure out how to frag my blasto. But any suggestions? I want relatively easy for her. hopefully some of what is in there now can spread onto the rock by mothers day.

 

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I picked up some craft foam sheets at the dollar store - I have other nefarious ideas for these, but I used two sheets (since they were a bit short) and traced out the container's outline and cut it to that shape, then used double sided adhesive to attach it to the bottom. now the tank isn't resting directly on things.

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On 4/21/2018 at 9:05 PM, Sunstar said:

I picked up some craft foam sheets at the dollar store - I have other nefarious ideas for these, but I used two sheets (since they were a bit short) and traced out the container's outline and cut it to that shape, then used double sided adhesive to attach it to the bottom. now the tank isn't resting directly on things.

That was a good idea.  I glued felt to the bottom of mine.

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Another nefarious idea was to use a plastic cable management solution thing from Ikea -  as seen below.  But I cut it down to size, its not perfectly smooth, the pump cable is stiff. this cleans up the outside. although you can see it from the inside, it is what it is. It looks a lot better than what it was.  I promise, I will get pics of what I had done.

 

Edit, I hope to get glass cut next week.

montera-cable-management-white__0482886_

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Okay... a bit of pics I had promised.

 

I was doing a WC on my display which meant some fragging happened...

 

First of all  my acan is not doing well in my display tank. I think its getting murdered by a mushroom - I am hoping it will do better in mums pico So she has my acan (which was an ultra) Its just not happy there.

 

I fragged off a small bit of my hammer coral and my leather coral fragged itself and the bit was just hanging so it dropped off easily. all three bits are added to her tank. The clove polyps I got, I finally split and put half into her tank and I kept half.

 

I fed the unhappy acan and it was quite eager for the reception of food. So I have hopes. All in all everything looks okay

 

Pics are happening now -  albeit crappy. I'll try to fix up the tank shot.

 the ugly white thing is the cable management.

20180424_123853.jpg?width=351&height=46820180424_130954.jpg?width=351&height=468MDP1.png?width=351&height=468

Colour adjusted.

 

Now I look at the picture, you really do not see the cable management solution because of the rock structure.

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And it has dino's.... I am giving it a blackout -  bummer :( sand removal will not be a problem if I need to do that. I can drain it, dump the sand out, dump the sand, and add it later.

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Okay the 72 hour blackout is over.

 

I have taped out all the white lights, some of the blues and left 2 blue and 2 UV lights on. I have it inside a box to keep other white light out and set the timer on for 5 hours -  so from 5pm until 10pm it will have actinics. I'll monitor.

As for how long I do the actinic, I will play it by ear. I'm thinking over hte next 72 hours I will increase the blues so tomorrow I will add a blue and the next day another one and so on and so forth until I can start adding in the whites.

 

I am also dosing H2O2 and fluconazole and I will go with the 10 day bryopsis-like treatment.

 

I was doing a 100% WC, but I think I will reduce this to 30 -  50% to reduce the potential "shock" that could start the problem (Which I think I did in this case as I was trying to do something and ended up doing 2 100% changes in as many days.

 

If I can get Dino-x I will try that. I understand you need exacting measurements -  I can measure very small increments with some syringes I obtained to kill aptasia (when I didn't want it)

 

So that is what is going on right now.

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Day 2 of actinics completed. I revealed another light this evening so it will have 5 blues and an extra two hours of light. I will increase the light by an hour a day until I get to where I want it.

 

I fragged my trumpet today, so I added a piece to the pico. I would like to get something squishy, like Xenia.

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On 4/30/2018 at 10:11 AM, Christopher Marks said:

How are things responding to the fluconazole treatment so far?

Seems to be okay. Dinos are so far not showing up, and I am sure that the new frags in this tank will be benefiting from any kill of any potential bryopsis. Today is the first white light day.

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Still no signs of problems and another light is being revealed. One light left and its back to full power/time.

 

 

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It needs a water change, I am holding out for a bit still, but Sunday (likely monday as I need to work sunday) is the big day.

 

20180509_195349.jpg?width=351&height=468

 

I am not seeing anything thready-snot like. I removed the bitty hammer because it wasnt' doing anything. I picked up some pulsaitn xenia  - but it looks very unhappy - I may risk transerring it to Nemesis see if i can get it to perk up. All other corals seem to be very okay.

 

Oh and can you see it? its a little rough, but the glass lid has been cut. I want to see if I can grind it smooth later. I had to ask my mother, of all people, to cut the glass. I told it was to keep my betta from jumping out, lol.

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