Jake's 3G Desk Pico

[jSully]

Hey all,

 

Been out of the reefing game for a long time and finally found a chance to get back in. Starting up a 3G pico on my desk here at working. Eventually I'd like for this to be a mixed reef, but we'll see how much upkeep this requires before making that commitment. Wanted to get something up here so I have a log of what's going on with the tank and if something happens I can seek assistance.

 

So far here's what I've got:

 

Marineland 3G Contour Glass Kit w/LED rail light (AIO)

Removed floss/bio filtration

Swapped out the return for a Aquatop NP-302 (130gph)

100W heater

1.14lb live rock

~2lbs CaribSea Arag-alive sand (1/2" deep)

 

Nothing extraordinary at this point. My father-in-law has a couple hundred pounds of dry rock I'm going to sort through to add for a total of 5-7 pounds that the current LR/LS will seed for me. Hopefully the cycle will be finished by early June. Stocking plans are a YCG, Cleaner Shrimp and a couple hermit crabs. One I've assessed the husbandry requirements I'll devise a plan for the reef. I'd like to do a little bit of each soft/LPS/SPS but we'll see how that goes. I've always been fond of GSP and pom-pom Xenia (I know they are weeds to most people, lol) as well as frogspawn and acros. I'll figure something out. I'll need to upgrade lights before any of that is considered but I'm optimistic.

 

Plan at this point will be to do bi-weekly water changes at about 75-90% with large feedings approx 3-4 hours prior. I'll blast the rocks to get everything in suspension then drain it out. It's been a while since I've kept a SW tank so I'll have a lot of re-learning to do, but I'm excited.

 

 

[Raindog3030]

Those are cool little AIOs, welcome back to the salty side!

[jSully]

Thanks dude, looking forward to seeing how far/long I can push this. I had a beautiful 20H nano before (2008-2010) which I ended up abandoning because I allowed other things to be of higher priority so I'm happy to jump back into this on a scale that seems more manageable (less time w/more frequency vs less frequency w/more time).

 

Added some dry rock for the LR to seed and have a pleasing cove look. Evaporation is pretty fantastic, I'm only losing a couple ounces/day. I don't plan on setting up an ATO so that's a win, however, I fear the glass lid is causing the temp to rise. Sitting around 80.9deg right now and ambient temp in the building is about 74-76 so either my powerhead is generating that much heat or the glass lid is creating a heat wave. I took the lid off about 10 mins ago and its already down to 80.4deg. If this solves the issue then I'll need to build a screen to put over the top while I'm away to prevent anything from getting in there.

 

Mixing up a batch of SW last night, I got to use my refractometer for the first time (I used a hydrometer before), however, since I don't keep it 68deg in my house I don't think I got it properly calibrated. At lunch today I'm going to go buy a gallon of SW from the LFS and just sync my refracto to their salinity.

 

Next order of biz is the light. Looking to move to the PAR38 ABI Blue Tuna but I'm unsure if I need the 12W or the 24W, any insight on which would be better? From what I understand the 12W has 30deg lenses and 24W has 60 deg. Would be hanging 12-15" above the tank. Goal is mixed reef, so not necessarily SPS dominant but I def want to grow some acros. Thoughts?

 

[jSully]

The glass lid has been off for an hour now and the temp is 79.3deg. Interesting.

[SeaFurn]

1 hour ago, xtra0t said:

Thanks dude, looking forward to seeing how far/long I can push this. I had a beautiful 20H nano before (2008-2010) which I ended up abandoning because I allowed other things to be of higher priority so I'm happy to jump back into this on a scale that seems more manageable (less time w/more frequency vs less frequency w/more time).

 

Added some dry rock for the LR to seed and have a pleasing cove look. Evaporation is pretty fantastic, I'm only losing a couple ounces/day. I don't plan on setting up an ATO so that's a win, however, I fear the glass lid is causing the temp to rise. Sitting around 80.9deg right now and ambient temp in the building is about 74-76 so either my powerhead is generating that much heat or the glass lid is creating a heat wave. I took the lid off about 10 mins ago and its already down to 80.4deg. If this solves the issue then I'll need to build a screen to put over the top while I'm away to prevent anything from getting in there.

 

Mixing up a batch of SW last night, I got to use my refractometer for the first time (I used a hydrometer before), however, since I don't keep it 68deg in my house I don't think I got it properly calibrated. At lunch today I'm going to go buy a gallon of SW from the LFS and just sync my refracto to their salinity.

 

Next order of biz is the light. Looking to move to the PAR38 ABI Blue Tuna but I'm unsure if I need the 12W or the 24W, any insight on which would be better? From what I understand the 12W has 30deg lenses and 24W has 60 deg. Would be hanging 12-15" above the tank. Goal is mixed reef, so not necessarily SPS dominant but I def want to grow some acros. Thoughts?

 

The 12w bulb would work. 

I using it on my 2.5 gallon bowl of about the same size as this.

 

I was able to grow acros with the bulb but they’ll need to be near the top of the rocks. I think I had my light 13-15” above my bowl. 

[jSully]

Cycle has finished. New residents today. Did 90% WC today in less than 5 minutes. Excellent.

 

1 shrimp, 1 blue leg hermit, 1 red leg hermit.

 

Next up, ABI 12W Par38 bulb and some softies/lps to start out sometime in the next 60 days.

 

[SeaFurn]

Looking good! Much more exciting with critters in it! 

What kind of softies are you considering? 

[jSully]

2 hours ago, SeaFurn said:

Looking good! Much more exciting with critters in it! 

What kind of softies are you considering? 

Thanks, boss. I thought the hermits were going to kill each other during the acclimation but they seemed to settle in nicely. We'll see if both are alive when I get in the office tomorrow. 

 

While I love furry sticks, I'm a sucker for stuff that waves around in the current. I've always been fond of pom pom xenia and neon GSP so those will likely be the first. From there either a frogspawn or hammer and a duncan. I'd prefer a torch but it's an awfully compact space.

[jSully]

Two questions:

 

1) How often should I feed the tank? I have one shrimp and 2 hermits. I don't want to feed them every day only to have them starve on the weekends. Should I feed every other day?

 

2) I can't keep temp stable. I'm ranging 78.4-80.4 throughout the day, sometimes it dips to 77.8. I know this won't fly when it comes time to add in some SPS. Only thing I can think is to point a desk fan toward the surface, however, that just seems like it's going to make the heater run all the time. Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[SeaFurn]

22 minutes ago, xtra0t said:

Two questions:

 

1) How often should I feed the tank? I have one shrimp and 2 hermits. I don't want to feed them every day only to have them starve on the weekends. Should I feed every other day?

 

2) I can't keep temp stable. I'm ranging 78.4-80.4 throughout the day, sometimes it dips to 77.8. I know this won't fly when it comes time to add in some SPS. Only thing I can think is to point a desk fan toward the surface, however, that just seems like it's going to make the heater run all the time. Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

I’ll let others chime in on the feeding but I feed my porcelain crab once a week. 

 

I’d recommend getting a temperature controller to help keep the tank temp steady. I use an Inkbird. It has outlets for both heating and cooling. You could use the cooling outlet for the fan. 

[jSully]

Casualty report: seems the red hermit offed the blue one. I guess we'll call him Red Dragon now.

Nothing else new to report. Kind of taking my time with this.

[Kdrof]

Lol... Don't mean to laugh, but your wording is priceless. 

[East1]

On 5/30/2018 at 12:21 AM, xtra0t said:

Cycle has finished. New residents today. Did 90% WC today in less than 5 minutes. Excellent.

 

1 shrimp, 1 blue leg hermit, 1 red leg hermit.

 

Next up, ABI 12W Par38 bulb and some softies/lps to start out sometime in the next 60 days.

 

I love when a tank is like this, just with CUC. So much potential!

[Lula_Mae]

3 hours ago, xtra0t said:

Casualty report: seems the red hermit offed the blue one. I guess we'll call him Red Dragon now.

Nothing else new to report. Kind of taking my time with this.

Sorry about the loss but the way you phrased it is hilarious.  For temp control--look into the previously recommended Inkbird and for a heater, I highly recommend the Archea 25w heater offered by Aqua Forest Aquarium.  It's tiny, I posted pics last fall (Oct or so) in the Creative Container pico contest thread.  External thermostat and has kept my tank at a rock steady 79 degrees for over a year with minimal variation.

[jSully]

Thanks guys! I have a 100w heater in there now. I saw Brandon429 responding to a pico thread and he mentioned a 100w heater in his jar to bring up temps super fast. Since this is on my cubicle desk at work, I don't have the real estate to be mixing water and bringing to temp before changing out. Our ambient temp is 74ish so the water is about 76 when it goes in and about 3 minutes later it's 78. I'm worried moreso about the temp spikes due to the lid heating the water. I have it open about 2" but it still ranges 77.3-80.4ish. I won't put anything finicky in there until I get the controller with a little fan to blow in there.

 

In the meantime, I got a real tiny 1/2" perc clown (Bruce) and two blue hermits today. These guys (along with Alfred the butler shrimp) will likely be the only inhabitants aside from corals in the future. The hermits are probably twice the size of the old one so Red Dragon is going to need to calm his jimmies if he wants to stay alive because the muscle just moved in.

I have some Cyclops and Mysis in the freezer. I've been feeding on M/W/F, does this seem appropriate for the inhabitants?

Since I don't have anything sucking the minerals out of the water, I'll likely stay with a 2g WC on Friday's after feeding. As I add more inhabitants I'll work up to 1g M/W and 2g Fridays.

 

[Lula_Mae]

6 hours ago, xtra0t said:

Thanks guys! I have a 100w heater in there now. I saw Brandon429 responding to a pico thread and he mentioned a 100w heater in his jar to bring up temps super fast. Since this is on my cubicle desk at work, I don't have the real estate to be mixing water and bringing to temp before changing out. Our ambient temp is 74ish so the water is about 76 when it goes in and about 3 minutes later it's 78. I'm worried moreso about the temp spikes due to the lid heating the water. I have it open about 2" but it still ranges 77.3-80.4ish. I won't put anything finicky in there until I get the controller with a little fan to blow in there.

 

In the meantime, I got a real tiny 1/2" perc clown (Bruce) and two blue hermits today. These guys (along with Alfred the butler shrimp) will likely be the only inhabitants aside from corals in the future. The hermits are probably twice the size of the old one so Red Dragon is going to need to calm his jimmies if he wants to stay alive because the muscle just moved in.

I have some Cyclops and Mysis in the freezer. I've been feeding on M/W/F, does this seem appropriate for the inhabitants?

Since I don't have anything sucking the minerals out of the water, I'll likely stay with a 2g WC on Friday's after feeding. As I add more inhabitants I'll work up to 1g M/W and 2g Fridays.

 

With a 100w heater, I would definitely have an Inkbird or other temp controller on it as that much wattage in that little water can go bad very quickly if the heater ever malfunctions. 

 

You know we need pics of Bruce and Alfred, right? 

[jSully]

12 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

With a 100w heater, I would definitely have an Inkbird or other temp controller on it as that much wattage in that little water can go bad very quickly if the heater ever malfunctions. 

 

You know we need pics of Bruce and Alfred, right? 

Thanks. I think I'm going to order the Inkbird at the same time as the ABI bulb later this month or early next.

Do we have anybody on here local to the Phoenix, AZ area that frags out their livestock occasionally?

 

I present Bruce, Alfred and one of the hired muscles.

 

[jSully]

sad face.

 

Bruce jumped out. Perhaps I'll just toss another shrimp in (fire shrimp) and leave it there. I plan on throwing some SPS in there eventually so I don't want to put a clown goby in just to have to evict him later. shrug.

[Lula_Mae]

You could look at a different small goby such as green banded or neon goby.  Or a tiny blenny like the bimaculatus blenny--I had one and he was tiny and adorable!  Miss that little guy.

[jSully]

On ‎6‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 1:12 PM, Lula_Mae said:

You could look at a different small goby such as green banded or neon goby.  Or a tiny blenny like the bimaculatus blenny--I had one and he was tiny and adorable!  Miss that little guy.

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestion. I think I'm going to stay simple for now. I'd like this to be a fairly populated mixed reef and the lesser the bio-load (at my skill level), the better. This will allow me to cut back on feedings to twice a week like I had originally planned: feed heavy to let peeps get fat and happy, then blast rocks to re-suspend and follow up with 75-80%WC (2gal). The "feed heavy" really won't be too heavy until I get it decently stocked.

 

Weird question: will my 1/2 siphon tube pull my shrimp in if he gets too close? I had a Black Moor in a FW tank years ago that lost an eye because he got too close to the siphon tube. It's my experience, however, that SW inhabitants are much stronger swimmers though, but I don't want to take any chances.

I noticed recently there is a filter media of some type in my return pump before the impeller which is likely there to prevent critters from becoming sushi, but I can imagine this is going to end up being a nitrate factory so next WC I need to pull it out and figure out how to open it up to get it off there.

 

ABI 12W Tuna Blue Par38 should be here today so that's a plus. Thinking about throwing some chaeto in the rear chamber to out compete any algea that shows up as a result of nitrates that may climb in the 3-4 days between WCs. Will the par38 bulb do the trick here as well?

[jSully]

did a ~70% WC today and realized that blasting the rocks and siphoning out as much as I can is only getting a fraction of the uneaten food. After refilling the water and turning the pump back on I had uneaten food all over the place. I'm only feeding three times a week as it is and I've been on the same cube of frozen mysis for nearly 3 weeks with about 30% of it still remaining so very little is going in.

 

The AIO came with a foam square for mechanical filtration so I put that back in the rear for now which means I'm not going to have room for chaeto so I'll have to figure something out. There is a "brace" to prevent the wall from caving into toward the back right in the middle of the only remaining space where the chaeto would go. Perhaps I can cut this off and build a small box of equal depth out of crafting mesh for the water to flow through which would hold the chaeto in. hmm..

 

side note: purchased GSP and Duncan frags yesterday.. It's interesting how what looks tiny at the LFS looks big in a pico, ha.
side side note: I think I'm going to stick with softies/LPS primarily in this tank. I just don't know if I'm going to be able to keep the stable parameters required by most SPS. Also, this allows me to get a clown goby so there's that.

[jSully]

Update:

 

Fostering an abundance of brown algae, despite thrice weekly feedings. huh. I was hoping to get away with not having snails but it looks like that's not going to work. Grabbed some nerite, margarita and nassarius snails today. Only have 1 blue hermit remaining. He happened to be finishing off the remains of my cleaner shrimp this morning, wtf?

 

Added a sweet green/purple frogspawn and yellow clown goby last week. Acclimating a fire shrimp as I type. Added some chaeto last week as well for the back chamber. Going to be rinsing the foam pad either daily or every other day to make sure uneaten food doesn't get too broken down before being removed.

 

Moved the GSP so that it's wedged between a rock and the back wall. I'm hoping that it attaches and begins to spread on its own. We'll see. I took the Duncan frag off the plug because plugs are unsightly, however, the stalk is so short (1/4-1/3") that it's hard to do anything with it. Hoping the stalk grows out some as the Duncan grows more heads.

[jSully]

GSP ended up falling down behind the rock so I glued it in place and put the duncan back on the frag plug. I had it a bit higher in the tank but it kept retracting, fully retracting when the lights would come on. At lights out it would be completely open but as soon as light came on it would start to look sad and after a few hours be balled up tighter than a potato bug. So... I moved it a tad lower and raised the light to 16" from the surface, it was at 13" before. Today will be the first "sunrise" since doing that so we'll see how it works.

 

Took out the filter floss completely to free up more room for chaeto growth in the back chamber. For my next coral purchase I'm going to see if I can find one on a rock that has a sponge. Going to add another 2-3 snails as well to help with cleanup of uneaten goods.

 

Lastly, completed DIY light for the back chamber/fuge. I took the original LED (9w) light that was hooked up to the plastic gooseneck holder and cut the housing off. Then I took the black marineland cover for the back chamber, sawed a rectangular hole in it and glued the light onto it. I have this running on a reverse cycle from the primary light. Hoping this will bring more growth to the chaeto and thus more nutrient export.

 

[jSully]

Duncan is much happier today lower with the lighter at 16". Big Bird (YCG) is chillin' out on the frogspawn and Snuffy the fire shrimp is cowering in the back corner as per usual.

 

[jSully]

Neat polyp extension on the duncans. GSP is attaching itself to he back wall and starting to spread. Nothing else different at this point. Enjoying watching. Going to try to add one or two things next month.