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Cultivated Reef

Wingy's "Old School Pico Reef" now a 5 gallon rimless


Wingy

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1 hour ago, Wingy said:

Its Friday so to celebrate I bought more pretties.  I had to remove a half gallon water to float the bags of new stuff.  

Ooooh! New shiny things! Woooooot! 

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This guy is extra salty
2 minutes ago, Wingy said:

Mystic montipora, green slimer acropora, trumpet coral and a rock of  neon long tentacle gsp.  

 

 

I’m always fascinated by trumpet coral, I for some reason can’t keep them

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I have everything just stuck in there for the night.  I dipped everything in Lugols, including the rock with the gsp.  From the rock alone I squished a half dozen large amphipods because they are no longer welcome in my tank,  a bunch of little grey things and more starfish.  I also found a stunned but not dead red bristle worm.  That bristle worm took a swim in a hydrogen peroxide bath because I know I would not sleep if I had just thrown it in the trash.  

  • Haha 2
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The sexies picked the flesh off some of the trumpet early this morning and now I can see skeleton on 2 of the 3 heads.  I have moved it to the other side and have it leaning against the glass because its stony base is several inches long and its not on a plug.  Someone did a horrible job of fragging it.  I guess that is why it was a freebie.  About half of the gsp is out and there are itty bitty feather dusters growing not only from the sides of the rock but also through the gsp mat itself.  They are so thin they don't show up in a picture.  

 

The pom pom crab is out and about.  The egg sac is huge as are its anemones.  

IMG_20190601_125926.jpg

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1 hour ago, 748S911 said:

Love those bright pink zoas down on right.

The zoas are usually orange but mystic montipora is so bright almost everything has a pinkish tone to it.  

 

So as bad as the trumpet coral looks it is still sending out feeding tentacles and based on youtube vids has a normal feeding response.  That it is eating after only 24 hours and after the munching the sexies did is wonderful and very unexpected.  

 

Here is Mister Cranky Pants mushroom.  It found its happy place back behind the rock in the corner.  

 

 

IMG_20190601_202402_1.jpg

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19 minutes ago, Wingy said:

I count 13 heads on the Duncan now.  I can't believe how much it is growing.  

IMG_20190605_211904.jpg

Holy moly! Where you gonna fit that thing when all the heads grow in! Everything is looking great! I have a mushroom that likes the back corner of my tank too, lol, but luckily it’s facing the front.  

 

Beautiful stuff!

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4 hours ago, MetaTank said:

Holy moly! Where you gonna fit that thing when all the heads grow in! Everything is looking great! I have a mushroom that likes the back corner of my tank too, lol, but luckily it’s facing the front.  

 

Beautiful stuff!

I may need a bigger aquarium 😀

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9 minutes ago, Wingy said:

I may need a bigger aquarium 😀

Yeah when all those heads grow in that’s gonna be a nice little colony! Awesome!!

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I know its Friday but no new pretties this week.  I am taking my son and his fiancee to a demolition derby tomorrow instead.  This one is always great and we look forward to it all year.  I think a break from adding anything new in the tank will be good.  The xenia is finally starting to come around.  Since adding the duncan the shrimp prefer to do their shrimpy things there and have left the xenia alone.  It is slowly growing back and I noticed tiny new fronds pulsing.  The armour of god zoa's are not doing as well as the sunny d's so I would like to see if moving them might help.  The trumpet coral is looking good.and new flesh is growing over the skeleton.  The new flesh is a a different shade and I will be interested to see if the new flesh will always look different.  The mystic montipora and bali green slimer acro are both holding steady with no change.  Something is causing GSP rock island to fall apart.  The rock is literally turning to dust in places.  I could get a piece of rock rubble and glue the gsp mat onto it but there are at least a dozen small feather dusters in this rock.  Is there anything I can do to encourage them to relocate?  

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4 hours ago, Wingy said:

Is there anything I can do to encourage them to relocate? 

Nope, not that I know of.  However, if the piece is really that brittle, you might just break it apart to free up the dusters.

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I like the Pixie but I will probably like it more on a larger tank.  It doesn't have a gooseneck which limits where I can put it without hanging or building a bracket.  It's like the Asta with multiple channels.  I saw talk of a controller but I am not sure if it is available and for which lights/models.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My snails have been slacking.  My tank is full of brown dusty algae.  I am stirring the bottom, blowing off the rocks and cleaning the glass every day to keep it in check.  I think its from the shrimp pellets.  

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43 minutes ago, Wingy said:

My snails have been slacking.  My tank is full of brown dusty algae.  I am stirring the bottom, blowing off the rocks and cleaning the glass every day to keep it in check.  I think its from the shrimp pellets.  

Dang shrimp pellets...lol

 

How often you feeding?

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9 hours ago, MetaTank said:

Dang shrimp pellets...lol

 

How often you feeding?

Two pellets, broken into 4 pieces, twice a week.  One shrimp is a bully and steals all the pellets and sits next to them.  

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I found 2 more giant amphipods, each over a centimeter in length.  They have both taken a swim in hydrogen peroxide.  I moved the trimpet/candy cane coral to the other side of the tank.  Its height is the same but the flow is a bit different.  Its was in rough shape when I got it but not only has the flesh has grown back quite a bit but one of the heads has continued to split.  Something I notice today was that chunk of long tentacle GSP I picked up back in mid May, the one that died off, I kept the piece of rock it was on and glued a piece of Knopia to it that I accidentally broke off.  Now I see that not only are there a few tiny heads of the Knopia growing on it but there but one lone itty bitty head of GSP just popped up.  If both grow and merge that piece will look stunning.  

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The heater crapped out.  I thought the tank was cool this morning because I accidentally left the top off.  When I checked on everything I noticed it was still cool.  Cleaning all the surfaces and plugging into a different outlet made no difference.  I had to make an emergency run to the pet store and the smallest non preset heater they had is 11 inches long.  The only place it fits is sideways along the front glass.  😡  I guess I purchased the first item for a larger tank.  Any recommendations on a reliable small non preset heater?  

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I'm not sure; depending on your HOB, you might find a heater that fits inside.  For my pico, I'm using a 7.5W always on heater (with a temperature controller), placed inside my filter.  Thermostats make the heaters larger, and seem to be the part that fails first.

 

This is what I'm using:

https://www.amazon.com/Bettastik-Submersible-Betta-Heater-7-5watt/dp/B006QOFST2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Deep+blue+7.5+heater&qid=1561286840&s=gateway&sr=8-1

41YNvJ5WVpL.jpg

Ignore the customer ratings from people who didn't understand that it's an always on (not preset) heater.

 

You might check some other contest threads for other ideas.

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I think that a temperature controller and always on heater is the best way to go if you are going to put a heater in any small system. Not to be too ridiculous, but since I really have no experience to recommend a small programmable heater, I do know that a regular space heater from a thrift store costs about $5 and you can keep a submersible heater out of your pico by running one of those at the right setting nearby. Works for my bettas.

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