Anchor Hocking Jar

[Ticoreefer]

After 15 years of wanting to setup a reef tank I finally have one! 

 

Equipment:

-2 Gallon Anchor Hocking Jar

-Reefsmart Pico Pro Light

-3W Reefbrite LED moonlight (I may tone this down with a neutral density filter)

-About 3 lbs live rock

-Ink Bird controller

-Archea 25W heater

-Hygger 1.5W air pump

 

Stocking:

I am planning on all kinds of coral and perhaps a pom pom crab.

 

Maintenance:

Large (80-100%) water changes every 1-2 weeks.

Some spot feeding before water changes.

I hope to get away without top-off for up to two weeks since the light sits pretty flush with the top of the jar.

 

I have been enjoying watching just my live rock immensely! I have all kinds of cool hitchhikers such as:

- small feather dusters, a few red ones and whole bunch that glow green

- many sponges, a few yellow ones but mostly tan

- at least one large, 3"-4", bristle worm

- countless spaghetti worms

- all kinds of other little things which I cant identify!

- many asterina stars

- and at least 7 brittle stars. These were quite the surprise on the first night, they started coming out of the rock as soon as the lights went out and began spawning at the top of my rock work! They concerned me a bit at first since I want minimall bio-load, but I have been re-assured that they should be fine in such a small tank. My wife actually yelped when she saw them, she thought they could maybe crawl out of the tank, lol.

 

 Full Tank Shot

 

 

 

Some of the Sponges

 

 

Brittle Star Orgy

 

I look forward to keeping you all updated here, all the amazing pico's on this site are what made me take the jump after all these years!

[Christopher Marks]

Congratulations on the beginning of your first pico reef aquarium! I'm happy to see another @ReefSmart PicoPro reef jar come online! It sounds like you're starting out with some really nice live rock that's full of invertebrates 👍.

 

I find that I should to top off my reef jar every 4-5 days, for best results, but I tested mined at 14 days without the salinity going past 1.026. I live in a super dry climate though, your situation may be different.

 

Looking forward to watching your pico reef evolve!

[debbeach13]

Welcome to NR. That many different hitchhikers is awesome.

[Ticoreefer]

Thanks guys, @Christopher Marks, your build specifically is what inspired me! I had no idea that such a small volume could be kept with, hopefully, relative ease. And the @ReefSmart light is amazing so far, as was Steve's responsiveness to all my questions. 

 

Last night I removed a bit more rock and tested my water, it looks ready for some coral;

Ammonia=0

Nitrite=0-.25

Nitrates=~5

 

So tonight I will be picking up my first frags! Im thinking some zoas, mushrooms, and maybe a blasto or acan. 

[Ticoreefer]

Last night I picked up 6 tiny frags:

- rainbow lord acan

- hammer

- meteor shower cyphastrea (I want this to encrust the bottom glass)

- sunny d, everlasting gobstopper and a couple un-identified zoas attached to the gobstopper frag.

 

Everything was looking great last night except the sunny D’s only half opened, which was not surprising as they got a bit manhandled gluing them to the rock.

 

When I came down this morning things looked off, checked my temp and it had dropped to 72!! Looks like my heater got a small crack in it. I have 2 pieces of rock, a large one on the bottom and a smaller one perched on top of it. When gluing last night the top piece did topple a few times toward the heater, this must be when it happened. I swapped in my water change heater and we are getting back to 78.

 

Now all the zoas are half open or shut, as is the hammer, the cyphastrea appears to have darkened, especially around the edges. The acan seems fine at least! Lights haven’t turned on yet and he had his sweepers out. Hopefully everything recovers.

 

I’m in the heater market again, haha, any recs for ones that are small and not super fragile? Would it be recommended to glue my top rock?

[MainelyReefer]

Cobalt Aquatics 31021 10W Mini-Therm Heater https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090I7TDO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_CcPDCbXQEB10N

 

needs to be coupled with a controller but it will never break, I own the one you cracked too and the footprint isn’t much bigger.  Inkbird controllers would be the cheapest route to control the cobalt heater.  Multiple wattages are available too but my 1.75g uses the 10w 

[Ticoreefer]

Thanks Granite, just ordered one, I already have an Inkbird setup so I should be all set. 

[Christopher Marks]

Wow I'm surprised that heater was so fragile, bummer! I wouldn't worry about the temperature swing, my pico reef jar regularly dropped to 71°F at night with an acan, favia, and zoanthids, no worse for the wear. Everything should be fine 🙂 

[Ticoreefer]

Yesterday I did a 100% water change, put in my new 10w cobalt, moved my acan from the floor to the rock and repositioned my hammer. I also put a trochus snail in to help with algae, and shortened my full light on photo period from 12-10 hours and lowered the intensity.

 

My Sunny D zoas are still only half opening, I am going to give them another week then move them over by the gobstopper/unidentified colony which is fully open and growing.

 

The new heater has trouble getting the tank above 77 with the lights off, but I think this should be ok, it’s indestructibility and small size is very nice. 

 

My cyphastrea hasnt spread yet but does have polyp extension, hopefully soon it attaches to my glass bottom.

 

The trochus has done a decent job on the glass bottom. I want him to also work in the rocks, he is rather large though, and it may not be possibly for him to get on them. 

 

Keeping my bare bottom clear of debris is going to be impossible, I can turkey baste/siphon a bunch out but can not reach it all. I will have to live with this unless; I remove all the rock during water changes or get a power head, neither of which I want to do!

 

Gobstopper/unidentified zoas

 

Cyphastrea

 

Sunny D’s

 

Acan

 

FTS

 

Trochus

[Christopher Marks]

@Ticoreefer How has your pico reef jar been doing? We miss you!

[Ticoreefer]

Hi All! Its been forever since an update so alot to fill you all in on!

 

Overall the jar is doing well, March into early April I started testing how long I could go between water changes. My longest was 3 weeks! This did lead to way too much algea, though it is nice knowing that the tank can go that long. I have gone 2 weeks a few other times but lately I have been trying to change every week because...

 

I got an infestation of sea spiders. About 2 months ago my acan, rainbow monti and setosa took a quick turn for the worse. This happened to coincide with a recall of the distilled water I was using, so I assumed that was the problem. Then one night after lights our I saw a ton of spiders on many coral, and the rest of the tank. The pic below shows them all over my setosa. 

 

They are hard to make out but they are small and white. Apparently the only way to kill these bastards is with a heart worm medication for dogs, Interceptor, which not a single vet in the greater Boston area would write a script to me for because i do not have a dog. Thankfully a friend at work had an extra pill. After the first dose I had hundreds of dead spiders floating around after about 2 hours. I have done 3 other dosings and now have not seen a spider in almost 2 weeks. Unfortunately my setosa, acan and monti were total losses, all other corals seem to be back to normal now though. This did decimate my pod population but I have started dosing Phytoplankton to get them back. 

 

My tank was getting a bit too warm as we got into summer so I raised the lid off the rim with airline tubing, and put a fan aimed at the gap my cords come out of. This keeps the temp from going above 81, instead of the 83-84 it was getting up to. I may lower the lid back down as we get head into winter. 

 

The rest of my corals are doing great, yesterday I got some new additions to make up for the losses from the sea spiders. I have one zoa that I may have to cut back soon as he is starting to get almost out of control. Almost FTS (mostly right side) below;

 

 

I did get a bit lazy about daily algea scraping and have some that wont come off, what would you all recommend to scrape algea off my glass that is not coming off with my magnet scraper? 

[Tankful]

Looking nice. Im working on a sub gallon and i would use a test tube cleaner to scrape off stuff

[OBXReef]

Nice looking! How is the ReefSmart light working out so far? I'm thinking about doing a setup like this but worried about the heat from the light, since the ambient temp of the room this would be going in during the summer time is between 74 - 78 degrees.

[Ticoreefer]

Overall the light has been great! My temp did raise a bunch in summer over winter, but I do run a small powerhead which adds even more heat. Most other jar owners seem to go with an airstone for circulation, temp control and space savings. Raising the lid up some and aiming a small fan, which runs off my inkbird, at the gap where my wires come out eliminated all of my temp concerns. I have my AC set between 72-77 in the summer.

[ReefSmart]

On 9/13/2019 at 12:10 PM, OBXReef said:

Nice looking! How is the ReefSmart light working out so far? I'm thinking about doing a setup like this but worried about the heat from the light, since the ambient temp of the room this would be going in during the summer time is between 74 - 78 degrees.

Heat takes a bit of trial and error if its getting too hot there are many ways to keep it cool though I do find it very difficult if you are running a circ pump also. Those put out about 4 degrees or so alone.

[ReefSmart]

On 9/13/2019 at 1:11 PM, Ticoreefer said:

Overall the light has been great! My temp did raise a bunch in summer over winter, but I do run a small powerhead which adds even more heat. Most other jar owners seem to go with an airstone for circulation, temp control and space savings. Raising the lid up some and aiming a small fan, which runs off my inkbird, at the gap where my wires come out eliminated all of my temp concerns. I have my AC set between 72-77 in the summer.

 

On 9/12/2019 at 10:23 AM, Ticoreefer said:

Hi All! Its been forever since an update so alot to fill you all in on!

 

Overall the jar is doing well, March into early April I started testing how long I could go between water changes. My longest was 3 weeks! This did lead to way too much algea, though it is nice knowing that the tank can go that long. I have gone 2 weeks a few other times but lately I have been trying to change every week because...

 

I got an infestation of sea spiders. About 2 months ago my acan, rainbow monti and setosa took a quick turn for the worse. This happened to coincide with a recall of the distilled water I was using, so I assumed that was the problem. Then one night after lights our I saw a ton of spiders on many coral, and the rest of the tank. The pic below shows them all over my setosa. 

 

They are hard to make out but they are small and white. Apparently the only way to kill these bastards is with a heart worm medication for dogs, Interceptor, which not a single vet in the greater Boston area would write a script to me for because i do not have a dog. Thankfully a friend at work had an extra pill. After the first dose I had hundreds of dead spiders floating around after about 2 hours. I have done 3 other dosings and now have not seen a spider in almost 2 weeks. Unfortunately my setosa, acan and monti were total losses, all other corals seem to be back to normal now though. This did decimate my pod population but I have started dosing Phytoplankton to get them back. 

 

My tank was getting a bit too warm as we got into summer so I raised the lid off the rim with airline tubing, and put a fan aimed at the gap my cords come out of. This keeps the temp from going above 81, instead of the 83-84 it was getting up to. I may lower the lid back down as we get head into winter. 

 

The rest of my corals are doing great, yesterday I got some new additions to make up for the losses from the sea spiders. I have one zoa that I may have to cut back soon as he is starting to get almost out of control. Almost FTS (mostly right side) below;

 

 

I did get a bit lazy about daily algea scraping and have some that wont come off, what would you all recommend to scrape algea off my glass that is not coming off with my magnet scraper? 

Those zoas sure look happy and the birdsnest is doing well! I had trouble with those same sea spiders once. They will die almost instantly with a quick freshwater dip. One of the easier way to drop the temp a lot is to dim the white channel a bit and go more blue. The blue LEDs put off less heat even so you get more photosynthetic wavelength per heat generated. Personally, I never found a need for a circulation pump those generate a lot of heat.

[ReefMagix]

How is the tank looking?

[Ticoreefer]

It’s going great! Almost a year old now...

[ReefSmart]

On 2/13/2020 at 7:52 PM, Ticoreefer said:

It’s going great! Almost a year old now...

Wow this is incredible! Looks pristine! Do you use any sort of media as well or just water changes?  Looks like your SPS are doing really well also! 

[fenderchamp]

@Ticoreefer  Is the jar still running?

[Ticoreefer]

It is! Here are some pics I just took. I’m having a horrible time getting tough to scrape algae off my glass, any tips? My magnetic scraper isn’t cutting it.

[ReefSmart]

Wow that is incredible!!! Glad to see it looking so good. I use a sharp stainless steel razor blade on mine. Grab it with a long pair of curved forceps so that I dont have to put my hand in. Also, that method works well with a small cut of a melamine foam pad (ebay special.)

[Christopher Marks]

Absolutely incredible @Ticoreefer!!! Puts my pico jar to shame 😄 

 

Great to see how far it's come in just two years time, impressive!

[A.m.P]

Jeez, never heard of spiders which eat sps, nutty stuff, but a beautiful jar that's made it through a long haul. Thanks for sharing!