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2 Gallon Pico Reef Jar - Snail Kingdom 🐌


Christopher Marks

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On 1/2/2019 at 11:24 PM, Christopher Marks said:

Thanks @Lawnman😊

 

The first water change went smoothly enough, I can see how I could get a good routine in place over time, definitely some room to improve. I put an old 75w Eheim heater to work in the new saltwater container, it quickly got the water change water up to temperature. I wiped the glass and then used a pipette to blast the rocks and sand before removing about 90% of the water. I'll need to get some new tubing suitable for siphoning out water, I ended up using a small cup to remove water this time.

 

Before the water change I tested the water, the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates were all zero. Maybe, possibly a little nitrates, but it sure looked like zero. Salinity tested at 1.027 after 3 weeks without top-off, definitely high but not too bad considering. After the water change I added about 100ml of freshwater to bring the salinity down to 1.024, the new saltwater is at 1.025. I already spotted an amphipod scurrying around, and the copepods are back out on the glass after the change.

 

I decided to remove the air stone while the tank was empty so I can test out the air line without anything attached. It's creating large rapid bubbles that seem to agitate the water surface more, circulation looks to be a little more intense too. It definitely makes a different sound this way, more of a putter-putter-putter rapid-fire sound. There's no more fine bubbles misting at the water surface either, this will clearly cut down on salt creep like everyone has said, I suspect I'll keep this configuration. I mounted the airline in a straight line downwards using two clear air line tubing suction cups, it looks pretty tidy!

Wow, CM has a tank now! Well, a jar, anyway :lol:, this is exciting!

 

This brings back memories of my jar, so just some random thoughts...

 

I did water changes by siphoning out all the water, and tipping the jar at an angle to pool the water so I could get it all. Then I just dumped half the water back in to really stir things up, siphoned it back out, and then dumped in in the new water from a pitcher. But if you're trying to avoid stirring up the sandbed it won't be that easy of course.

 

I used a Finnex 50 watt hearer (overkill, but I already had it so it was free), which comes with an external controller, so I never messed with an Inkbird. I kept a separate thermometer just to confirm the heater was working well, and it was always rock solid at the temp I set.

 

I also zip tied the airline tube to the heater, and then arranged the rocks to cover it all up. I also found I liked it better without an airstone. I installed a cheap air valve controller to reduce the air flow until I just got a nice pleasant bubbling sound which also pretty much eliminated salt creep.

 

I think the light/top is really cool. But one advantage of the glass top that came with the jar is all the evaporation dripped back down into the jar. But other than that, I think the lid with the light is a much better solution.

 

My biggest lesson learned was that as corals grew, it became impossible to remove the rocks from the jar without destroying everything. I think I would have been better off just planning to do maintenance with the rocks left in all the time from the start.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

As much as I didn't love the distortion of my jar, this thread had me thinking about using mine again too! :lol:

Me too! I kept my jar because I will probably do it again some day. But even with the ultra low maintenance, it became just one more thing to do with three other tanks to maintain. 

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On 12/20/2018 at 10:25 AM, Christopher Marks said:

Just over one week in, the pico jar is showing the first noticeable signs of evaporation, the water level on the jar has dropped 1/16in. or so. If I stick with 100% water changes every week, managing top-off probably won't been necessary. I'm hoping to go two weeks though, on average, so some kind of weekly top-off will be needed. I measured the salinity at 1.026 with my old refractometer here on day 9, but I haven't calibrated it in 15 years. I'll verify measures soon, hopefully the LFS will borrow me some calibration fluid drops.

 

DSCF0843.jpg

 

Last night I cleaned the sides of the jar with a little piece of poly filter, revealing what looks like the very beginnings of a diatom bloom, just a little brown on the pad. This puts the cycle right on track so far, and the tank really sparkles now. I haven't tested any other water parameters during the cycle yet, I plan to do a large water change on week 2 and I'll test everything then to see where it stands. I went with new API test kits, seeing how my old Aquarium Systems test kits expired in 2004 😄. I'm ok with taking things slow, I at least want to get through the diatom bloom before adding coral.

 

DSCF0851.jpg

 

It is interesting (and a little scary) to embrace the inevitable parameter swings that are inherent in small jars like these, I have to remind myself that a pico reef jar is known to break some common reef keeping rules. This week I've been monitoring the tank's temperature swing to see if it's going to be feasible to run it at room temperature. ReefSmart runs his pico jar with only the light as a heat source, which means the tank cools off at night, but he has seen daily swings from about 72-79°F in the winter with no ill effect on his coral. Mine has been dipping to around 70-71 at night though, with our house thermostat set that low, and warming to about 79 by night. I have to decide if I want to embrace the temp swings and just avoid keeping sensitive invertebrates, or if I should invest in a small heater and Inkbird temp controller. A lot of coral could tolerate that, but I have kind of had my heart set on keeping a cleaner shrimp, which would probably be too sensitive to those temperatures.

 

DSCF0847.jpg

 

I still need to pick up a little magnetic glass cleaner for the jar, I don't have a good solution yet. I am really impressed with the design of the Vertex Simplex magnetic algae cleaner, I think that's the one I'll order. Cleaning the glass by hand proved that I really need to glue or epoxy putty my live rock together soon, it's too easy to bump into the aquascape when doing simple tasks, having everything glued down is probably for the best. In such a small space there's not going to be much room for frag plugs either, I'm going to need a crash course in coral gluing if I'm going to get the look I want.

Vertex-Technologies-Simplex-Algae-Magnet

I have that Vertex algae cleaner too (mine is a Vertex), and unfortunately it sucked. At least in comparison to the TLF one, which has the bonus of being a lot cheaper. But maybe they've changed the design - mine is two or three years old.

 

 

nano-mag-in-out-12.jpg

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Christopher Marks

Awesome maintenance advice @teenyreef, thank you! I like the idea of reusing the removed water to stir things up again a second time.

 

I had aspirations to keep the rocks removable for maintenance, but it already seems like a daunting pursuit without even any coral in there yet, it’s too easy to bump into something. I suspect I will also have to just embrace keeping the rocks in place and clean around them with sand stirring.

 

I get back home Monday night, I’m already expecting there will be infinitely less salt creep now without the air stone, I should have removed it sooner to avoid the mess 😅. The large bubbles break at the surface without all the mist.

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3 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Awesome maintenance advice @teenyreef, thank you! I like the idea of reusing the removed water to stir things up again a second time.

 

I had aspirations to keep the rocks removable for maintenance, but it already seems like a daunting pursuit without even any coral in there yet, it’s too easy to bump into something. I suspect I will also have to just embrace keeping the rocks in place and clean around them with sand stirring.

 

I get back home Monday night, I’m already expecting there will be infinitely less salt creep now without the air stone, I should have removed it sooner to avoid the mess 😅. The large bubbles break at the surface without all the mist.

Yup I would say that will become impossible very soon. One thing I highly recommend is a pair of long surgical grade forceps usually found on ebay cheap. They will help you pick up and move frags around that fall to the bottom and also to clean the glass. Take a small piece of mr. clean (original) scrubber pad and clench it with the forceps and you can polish the glass really quickly that way and get around all the edges of the rocks easily. Mr. clean is all called melamine sponge and is available cheap in bulk also on ebay. I use it for everything it is incredible how well it cleans.

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Christopher Marks

Day 29: The pico jar is doing great without the air stone, evaporation has been greatly reduced and saltcreep is now a non-issue! No more drips, very little moisture is accumulating on the light lens now. It is absolutely teeming with copepods and amphipods now!

 

@Food Court and I were in San Diego for work this past weekend and stayed a few extra days, we decided to explore some LFS’s before the drive home. It was a Monday so Aqua SD was closed, but we stopped by Aquatic Warehouse and were not disappointed. Quite an impressive selection of coral frags and fish, after much deliberation we picked out a beautiful green and purple acan frag to take home with us!

 

F6E113A4-B925-4C05-A6F4-46535F19846F.jpeg

 

Despite the tank running at room temperature, 71-77, the acan seems to be quite content in the pico jar! It’s been open and happy, feeder tentacles all out at night and some during the day. I spotted two tiny bubble algae dots on the frag mount after putting it in, I removed the whole frag and carefully removed the algae outside the tank, and dabbed the areas with peroxide on a q-tip. Better safe than sorry!

 

I am truly curious to see if I could get away without a heater, but my Inkbird temp controller should finally arrive later today. Despite the coral not minding the temps, I think any future snails and crabs wouldn't like the cold temperature swings. Maybe there are some less sensitive options though? Dwarf ceriths and a nassarius of some kind are on our short list for a cleanup crew.

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  • Christopher Marks changed the title to 2 Gallon Pico Reef Jar - Amphipod Kingdom 💧
6 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Day 29: The pico jar is doing great without the air stone, evaporation has been greatly reduced and is now a non-issue! No more drips, very little moisture is accumulating on the light lens now. It is absolutely teeming with copepods and amphipods now!

 

@Food Court and I were in San Diego for work this past weekend and stayed a few extra days, we decided to explore some LFS’s before the drive home. It was a Monday so Aqua SD was closed, but we stopped by Aquatic Warehouse and were not disappointed. Quite an impressive selection of coral frags and fish, after much deliberation we picked out a beautiful green and purple acan frag to take home with us!

 

F6E113A4-B925-4C05-A6F4-46535F19846F.jpeg

 

Despite the tank running at room temperature, 71-77, the acan seems to be quite content in the pico jar! It’s been open and happy, feeder tentacles all out at night and some during the day. I spotted two tiny bubble algae dots on the frag mount after putting it in, I removed the whole frag and carefully removed the algae outside the tank, and dabbed the areas with peroxide on a q-tip. Better safe than sorry!

 

I am truly curious to see if I could get away without a heater, but my Inkbird temp controller should finally arrive later today. Despite the coral not minding the temps, I think any future snails and crabs wouldn't like the cold temperature swings. Maybe there are some less sensitive options though? Dwarf ceriths and a nassarius of some kind are on our short list for a cleanup crew.

Nice acan! I have dwarf ceriths in a pico that's at room temperature, so they'll be fine, I think. 

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I had an opportunity to visit AquaSD when I was in San Diego for work a couple years ago. They let me go up and visit the grow out troughs upstairs and helped me pick out an awesome acan pack. That's a bummer you couldn't see them, but now I know I need to check out Aquatic Warehouse too 🙂

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I ran a heaterless tank for a bit.  Coral growth was very slow.  IDK, maybe that's even good in a tank this small.  However, things started growing again once I got temps consistently above 76 degrees.

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Christopher Marks
On 1/9/2019 at 11:20 AM, Lula_Mae said:

Nice acan! I have dwarf ceriths in a pico that's at room temperature, so they'll be fine, I think. 

That's great to hear, I won't need to worry about them! I should order my cleanup crew soon, not sure I can find them locally.

On 1/9/2019 at 5:44 PM, teenyreef said:

I had an opportunity to visit AquaSD when I was in San Diego for work a couple years ago. They let me go up and visit the grow out troughs upstairs and helped me pick out an awesome acan pack. That's a bummer you couldn't see them, but now I know I need to check out Aquatic Warehouse too 🙂

Fortunately I find myself in SD at least a few times a year, I'll be back this summer and should be able to visit AquaSD on a Saturday before driving home, so it should be perfect! I feel silly for not going sooner, but I didn't have a tank before... 🤗

On 1/9/2019 at 11:00 PM, seabass said:

I ran a heaterless tank for a bit.  Coral growth was very slow.  IDK, maybe that's even good in a tank this small.  However, things started growing again once I got temps consistently above 76 degrees.

That has definitely been on my mind, I remember the heater-less containers in the pico contest working out, but not seeing as much growth over the first 6 month period. I think the daily temp swing on my jar is about 71 in the morning and 78.5 by lights off at night, with a 13hr photoperiod warming the water.

 

I can clearly control how much the light heats the water by adjusting the water level. By April or May 'room temperature' here means 76-78°, even at night, so my heater may ultimately just become a seasonal addition for winter nights. I plan to use the cooling side of the Inkbird over the summer, connected to some kind of small fan, and maybe drop the water level in the tank another inch so the light doesn't transfer as much heat.

 

Maybe we can convince @ReefSmart to start a journal for his PicoPro powered reef jar, so he can show off the coral growth he has seen 😇

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I have always wondered if you had a functioning small reef.  I hadn't expected that your last one was retired way back in 2004!

 

Regarding water flow and gas exchange, here's an idea to allow you to 'Have your cake and eat it, too'.  Get a micro pump of your choice, some airline tubing and a plastic airline valve.  Create a small hole  (a little bit smaller than the tubing) near the pumps inlet.  Press fit in the tubing (you can silicone it in if desired).  Once the pump/tubing is in place, locate the loose tubing end somewhere securely above the water line (so that it can't accidentally create a siphon and empty the tank) and attach the valve to the end (you can also put an anti-back flow valve into the line for additional safety).  When the pump is running, it should also suck in air.  The valve will then allow you to control how much air so that you can control the amount of salt-creep.

 

Nothing  better than "Cheap and easy...and works" 😊

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Christopher Marks

A little pump would provide a tiny bit of heat as well, perhaps instead of a heater. It has definitely crossed my mind, I think there's a pico reef journal here with a setup like that. I wonder if it would create too many micro bubbles though? I remember having a similar setup on my freshwater aquarium years ago.

 

Do you ever frag your ricordea @Nano sapiens? It would be an honor to have one in my reef some day!

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2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

That's great to hear, I won't need to worry about them! I should order my cleanup crew soon, not sure I can find them locally.

Fortunately I find myself in SD at least a few times a year, I'll be back this summer and should be able to visit AquaSD on a Saturday before driving home, so it should be perfect! I feel silly for not going sooner, but I didn't have a tank before... 🤗

That has definitely been on my mind, I remember the heater-less containers in the pico contest working out, but not seeing as much growth over the first 6 month period. I think the daily temp swing on my jar is about 71 in the morning and 78.5 by lights off at night, with a 13hr photoperiod warming the water.

 

I can clearly control how much the light heats the water by adjusting the water level. By April or May 'room temperature' here means 76-78°, even at night, so my heater may ultimately just become a seasonal addition for winter nights. I plan to use the cooling side of the Inkbird over the summer, connected to some kind of small fan, and maybe drop the water level in the tank another inch so the light doesn't transfer as much heat.

 

Maybe we can convince @ReefSmart to start a journal for his PicoPro powered reef jar, so he can show off the coral growth he has seen 😇

That acan looks very happy! I've got quite a few pics going back to 2017. The last 1.5 years has seen very good growth. Especially considering I've made at least 20 frags from the hawkins echinata. My tank does not run with a heater and the temp usually fluctuates daily from 73-80 for the last 2-3 years. The lowest it has gone is 71 degrees and the highest has been 84. The circulation is provided with a 2w airpump which seems to provide adequate circulation and gas exchange. As far as maintenance I have never missed a weekly 100% water change I have also never tested the parameters in this tank except salinity.

My Post (1).jpg

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13 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

A little pump would provide a tiny bit of heat as well, perhaps instead of a heater. It has definitely crossed my mind, I think there's a pico reef journal here with a setup like that.

A couple of contests jars used pumps for a heat source (seemed to work out pretty well for them).  I believe that Clown79 was one of them.  Obviously, you'd have no way to control the amount of heat that it introduces; all you could do is try to control cooling and possibly additional heat sources like room temps and lighting.  That might become more problematic during the summer months.

 

BTW, (I haven't posted it yet, but) I have my jar up and running again.  It's now housing some RFA babies that were on the sand bed of my Caribbean tank (which I had to move in order to clean the substrate).

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28 minutes ago, ReefSmart said:

That acan looks very happy! I've got quite a few pics going back to 2017. The last 1.5 years has seen very good growth. Especially considering I've made at least 20 frags from the hawkins echinata. My tank does not run with a heater and the temp usually fluctuates daily from 73-80 for the last 2-3 years. The lowest it has gone is 71 degrees and the highest has been 84. The circulation is provided with a 2w airpump which seems to provide adequate circulation and gas exchange. As far as maintenance I have never missed a weekly 100% water change I have also never tested the parameters in this tank except salinity.

My Post (1).jpg

 

 What are the specs and colors in the light .! That is insane !! 

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Christopher Marks
37 minutes ago, ReefSmart said:

That acan looks very happy! I've got quite a few pics going back to 2017. The last 1.5 years has seen very good growth. Especially considering I've made at least 20 frags from the hawkins echinata. My tank does not run with a heater and the temp usually fluctuates daily from 73-80 for the last 2-3 years. The lowest it has gone is 71 degrees and the highest has been 84. The circulation is provided with a 2w airpump which seems to provide adequate circulation and gas exchange. As far as maintenance I have never missed a weekly 100% water change I have also never tested the parameters in this tank except salinity.

My Post (1).jpg

This is my inspiration, I hope to match your success with my PicoPro reef jar! Your zoanthid collection is spectacular, definitely something I'd like for mine. I am tempted to add a nice SPS frag or two up top, your hawkins enchinata is incredible! If this goes too well though, I'm going to need to build a frag tank 😅.

 

36 minutes ago, seabass said:

BTW, (I haven't posted it yet, but) I have my jar up and running again.  It's now housing some RFA babies that were on the sand bed of my Caribbean tank (which I had to move in order to clean the substrate).

Yay!!! That's great to hear, these jars are sure to please. I'm glad you kept yours. I gripe about the clarity still, but damn if I don't still love it.

 

15 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

What are the specs and colors in the light .! That is insane !! 

Details from the first post:

On 12/12/2018 at 10:34 PM, Christopher Marks said:

This is a pre-production version of the PicoPro light by ReefSmart. It uses 24 watts of power, has a 2 channel dimmer, 600 PAR max output, with diode spectrums of 420nm, 430nm, 450nm, cool white, warm white, and red. The light housing is painted metal, with a single power cord that leads to the two channel in-line dimmer, one for the blue channel and one for the white and red. The underside features an almost edge to edge plastic diffusing lens that blends the LED light beautifully and keeps it sealed from moisture. It is designed to fit specifically on 2 gallon Anchor Hocking Heritage glass jars, commonly available at Target and Walmart for around $15.

 

APC_0076-hdr.jpg

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1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

A little pump would provide a tiny bit of heat as well, perhaps instead of a heater. It has definitely crossed my mind, I think there's a pico reef journal here with a setup like that. I wonder if it would create too many micro bubbles though? I remember having a similar setup on my freshwater aquarium years ago.

 

Do you ever frag your ricordea @Nano sapiens? It would be an honor to have one in my reef some day!

I'd be happy to send you one.  However, these guys get 5-6" in lower flow...which can take up over half your jar! 🤔

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Christopher Marks
6 minutes ago, Nano sapiens said:

I'd be happy to send you one.  However, these guys get 5-6" in lower flow...which can take up over half your jar! 🤔

Wow I hadn't realized! I have a better sense of scale in your system now! I'll give it some thought, thank you! 🙂 

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16 hours ago, ReefSmart said:

That acan looks very happy! I've got quite a few pics going back to 2017. The last 1.5 years has seen very good growth. Especially considering I've made at least 20 frags from the hawkins echinata. My tank does not run with a heater and the temp usually fluctuates daily from 73-80 for the last 2-3 years. The lowest it has gone is 71 degrees and the highest has been 84. The circulation is provided with a 2w airpump which seems to provide adequate circulation and gas exchange. As far as maintenance I have never missed a weekly 100% water change I have also never tested the parameters in this tank except salinity.

My Post (1).jpg

This is gorgeous, I'd be very interested in a build thread!  When will the lights be available to the public?

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18 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

That's great to hear, I won't need to worry about them! I should order my cleanup crew soon, not sure I can find them locally.

Fortunately I find myself in SD at least a few times a year, I'll be back this summer and should be able to visit AquaSD on a Saturday before driving home, so it should be perfect! I feel silly for not going sooner, but I didn't have a tank before... 🤗

That has definitely been on my mind, I remember the heater-less containers in the pico contest working out, but not seeing as much growth over the first 6 month period. I think the daily temp swing on my jar is about 71 in the morning and 78.5 by lights off at night, with a 13hr photoperiod warming the water.

 

I can clearly control how much the light heats the water by adjusting the water level. By April or May 'room temperature' here means 76-78°, even at night, so my heater may ultimately just become a seasonal addition for winter nights. I plan to use the cooling side of the Inkbird over the summer, connected to some kind of small fan, and maybe drop the water level in the tank another inch so the light doesn't transfer as much heat.

 

Maybe we can convince @ReefSmart to start a journal for his PicoPro powered reef jar, so he can show off the coral growth he has seen 😇

Gulf Coast Ecosystems carries a virgin nerite snail that I put some of in my jar, love the little guys!  I think they have a minimum order amount of them now though.

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Christopher Marks

We had a free Saturday afternoon, why not go check out a nice LFS, now that our reef jar is ready for coral? @Food Court and I hopped in our solar powered nerd-mobile and drove out to one of our favorite shops in Phoenix, Kona Reef. We always take our time in there, their display reef tanks are quite inspiring, and a good way to test our coral ID skills. We eventually found our way over to the frag tanks, but not before showing off some photos of our pico reef jar with the staff, they were happy to see it up and running.

 

D9FAE535-1715-4F86-9D71-8EBD5D03977C.jpeg

 

I wasn’t necessarily planning to bring anything home (famous last words right?), but their frag selection always impresses. @Food Court fell in love with some beautiful yellow, green and blue zoanthids, and I was smitten by this insanely neon yellow and green favia. Since coral mounting space is at a premium in the pico jar, we asked them to remove the frag plugs for us before bagging them up, a handy service! Both frags got a 15 min dip with Brightwell Aquatics KoralMD before going in. We placed them both on the left side of the jar, and in the process two zoanthids easily came free, so they were placed above the acan in the front. The zoanthids opened up within the first hour, and the favia is just radiant all the time, Courtney captured these great photos of them both!

 

1A8F166F-D8C7-4048-AD42-70DB75BD62ED.jpeg

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Christopher Marks
8 hours ago, TheRope said:

TThats looking amazing! Good job!!!

Thank you! Your reef jar-now-bowl has been a big inspiration, I've been reading through your journal all over again today, and definitely follow in your footsteps. Thank you for documenting it so well through the contest and beyond, I love seeing it in the new glass bowl now!

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34 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Thank you! Your reef jar-now-bowl has been a big inspiration, I've been reading through your journal all over again today, and definitely follow in your footsteps. Thank you for documenting it so well through the contest and beyond, I love seeing it in the new glass bowl now!

how do you get the reefsmart pico pro?

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  • Christopher Marks changed the title to 2 Gallon Pico Reef Jar - Snail Kingdom 🐌

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