How old are your picos? What is your setup?

[Kai]

Hey everyone,

How long have you had your pico systems established? I'm wondering if since they are so small they have a 'lifespan' of sorts. Do you run them with or without heaters? What is your maintenance on them?

I think I'm going to be testing out a pico system. I already have all of the materials, and I will be moving in about a year. I have a 75 gallon tank and I already know it won't be feasible to transport all of my livestock but I'm thinking that if I can test out a pico with a couple of coral frags, maybe I could establish a couple of picos or something before I move and I might be able to transport them and since the livestock won't be *leaving* it's home environment, and I could just transfer to battery bubblers for the trip and coolers for insulation and temperature control then maybe I'll be able to at least keep some frags of my favorite corals. 

[Wonderboy]

Sounds like a very thorough way to move coral - and it's definitely possible. You should check out @William 's old school pico - he just moved his little setup. A temperature controller is recommended if you're going to use a heater (dependant on environment temps); low wattage is important on the heater so it can't increase temps too quickly. As far as maintenance, I keep parameter appropriate water near each system for quick water changes when necessary, that's all. There's plenty picos running well over 1 year with great coral growth from regular WCs; I'm hoping mine run for many.

[Chris's Fishes]

I'm going to be completely honest and say that I've never had a long-term pico tank - with that said, I can share my advice on what I did in my short time of having one. And no, it didn't crash - I just felt the need to upgrade, as it was my only salty tank at the time 🙂

 

I don't think that pico reefs have any more of a lifespan than a regular sized tank does. I do think that they have a tendency to be a bit more fragile, and that the chance of them completely crashing is much higher, but a well-maintained pico seems to be able to go as long as the owner maintains it. Things happen - ammonia spikes, temperature/salinity swings, chemical warfare... but, most of the time, it seems the tank can still be saved after that with minimal damage.

 

As for the heater question, that depends on the location of the tank. I ran my pico with no heater, and had no issues with the tank running in the low 70's. I'm sure some coral and inverts wouldn't have liked it, but mine didn't seem to mind. The temperature was relatively steady in that room, so there were no large swings. I think that quite a few of the things we keep in our tanks can probably thrive at much lower (and much higher) temps than we keep them at, for sure. It's stability that's the key. So maybe it comes down to tank placement more than the heater/temp controller you use.

 

As for maintenance, it depends on your stocking. If you're doing coral only, I've seen people drain the tank, blast it out with RODI water, drain the tank, and refill with fresh salt water. The corals didn't seem to mind at all, as I'm sure they kinda grew used to it. With inverts in the tank (other than crabs and snails), maybe you'd do a 95% change and make sure to baste all of the debris off the rock before you drain the water. With fish, you'd be limited to 80% at most, as depending on the container, anything less and the fish might not have enough room to swim correctly.

[Kai]

11 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Sounds like a very thorough way to move coral - and it's definitely possible. You should check out @William 's old school pico - he just moved his little setup. A temperature controller is recommended if you're going to use a heater (dependant on environment temps); low wattage is important on the heater so it can't increase temps too quickly. As far as maintenance, I keep parameter appropriate water near each system for quick water changes when necessary, that's all. There's plenty picos running well over 1 year with great coral growth from regular WCs; I'm hoping mine run for many.

Thanks I'll check out that thread! I'm glad to hear that some of my ideas might be plausible with enough attention and planning. It's amazing the different perspective from people who keep pico/nano tanks as opposed to the large tanks who all said my ideas were impossible so it gives me hope. 

 

11 hours ago, Fisker said:

I'm going to be completely honest and say that I've never had a long-term pico tank - with that said, I can share my advice on what I did in my short time of having one. And no, it didn't crash - I just felt the need to upgrade, as it was my only salty tank at the time 🙂

 

I don't think that pico reefs have any more of a lifespan than a regular sized tank does. I do think that they have a tendency to be a bit more fragile, and that the chance of them completely crashing is much higher, but a well-maintained pico seems to be able to go as long as the owner maintains it. Things happen - ammonia spikes, temperature/salinity swings, chemical warfare... but, most of the time, it seems the tank can still be saved after that with minimal damage.

 

As for the heater question, that depends on the location of the tank. I ran my pico with no heater, and had no issues with the tank running in the low 70's. I'm sure some coral and inverts wouldn't have liked it, but mine didn't seem to mind. The temperature was relatively steady in that room, so there were no large swings. I think that quite a few of the things we keep in our tanks can probably thrive at much lower (and much higher) temps than we keep them at, for sure. It's stability that's the key. So maybe it comes down to tank placement more than the heater/temp controller you use.

 

As for maintenance, it depends on your stocking. If you're doing coral only, I've seen people drain the tank, blast it out with RODI water, drain the tank, and refill with fresh salt water. The corals didn't seem to mind at all, as I'm sure they kinda grew used to it. With inverts in the tank (other than crabs and snails), maybe you'd do a 95% change and make sure to baste all of the debris off the rock before you drain the water. With fish, you'd be limited to 80% at most, as depending on the container, anything less and the fish might not have enough room to swim correctly.

I didn't even consider that about the water changes. My LFS is having a 4th ofJuly sale and I really want a sexy shrimp so at least one of them will have a shrimp, if I'm lucky when it comes closer to the move I'm going to try to catch my pistol shrimp to put into a pico, but I'm completely uneducated on which fish can live in which nano sizes so in terms of fish that'll take more research. 

[Tamberav]

There are vases than have been running for years. Just be mindful of coral warfare and use a controller for your heater...keep up on water changes and you should be fine.