365 Day Challenge: 1G Office Ocean

[Tamberav]

Beautiful little tank! I just love it's size. Wish we had something I could buy that looked as nice.

 

Sorry about the temp issues...it's the thing that I seem to struggle with too in summer..even on my larger tanks.

[SaltyGallon]

22 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Beautiful little tank! I just love it's size. Wish we had something I could buy that looked as nice.

 

Sorry about the temp issues...it's the thing that I seem to struggle with too in summer..even on my larger tanks.

Thanks Tamberav. It's a custom jobbie and it works out pretty cheap because of the size. I can send you some info on the kit if you like! 👍🏼

 

Everything's been a little sulky this week but had a good feed tonight which should cheer everything up haha! RO ice cubes and a fan for the next bit of hot weather 🙂

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Putting ice cubes in a reef was always a bit comical to me.😅 Hopefully you can keep the temp stable though this hot spell. 👍 (tank is looking good as always mate!)

[Proxo]

lol, had to do the same myself - weather aint normally a problem in england 😄 frozen bottle of water in tank does trick, i adjust the temp controller alarm just incase

[SaltyGallon]

16 hours ago, The Rainy Day Aquarium said:

Putting ice cubes in a reef was always a bit comical to me.😅 Hopefully you can keep the temp stable though this hot spell. 👍 (tank is looking good as always mate!)

Yes it's going to go down like a lead balloon when I tell my other half that she can't use those ice cubes for her gin and tonics! 😂

15 hours ago, Proxo said:

lol, had to do the same myself - weather aint normally a problem in england 😄 frozen bottle of water in tank does trick, i adjust the temp controller alarm just incase

That's it mate, we're not used to these adverse weather events are we! Yeah I might invest in an inkbird for this little tank - I've got one on my nano - what controller do you use?

[Ratvan]

How has it been this week, little cooler for you and your tank?

[SaltyGallon]

On 6/11/2020 at 2:20 PM, Ratvan said:

How has it been this week, little cooler for you and your tank?

Yeah much better this week thanks mate, the shrooms and GSP have all cheers up so that's a relief. The pico had it's weekly waterchange at lunch time and I accidentally squished a zoa polyp while scraping the glass... Hopefully it'll be okay haha. Can barely get my hand in the tank!

[Rob Francis]

Hi there,

What a great pico mate, congrats.

Can I ask where you had your perspex for your chambers cut?

I was starting a shallow pico reef which didnt take off due to no having chambers so Ive started a 2 gallon jar atm.

However, I did spot a mini 5 litre cube in the lfs today...

Cheers,

Rob

[SaltyGallon]

1 hour ago, Rob Francis said:

Hi there,

What a great pico mate, congrats.

Can I ask where you had your perspex for your chambers cut?

I was starting a shallow pico reef which didnt take off due to no having chambers so Ive started a 2 gallon jar atm.

However, I did spot a mini 5 litre cube in the lfs today...

Cheers,

Rob

Cheers Rob. I think if I was to do a pico of this scale again I'd do a shallow tank, the aesthetic would look really cool. The only reason I went with the cube was because of the limitations on lighting/flow at this scale - the cube works because it's compact, but we don't seem to have any really really small wavemakers or decent lights in the 5-10w range here.

 

The acrylic was cut by a company called ThePlasticMan - I just sent them a drawing and they cut it to spec 🙂

 

Easy enough to silicone in place but was a bit fiddly given the rear chamber is just under 5cm haha... I think I ended up using the end of a pencil to smooth the silicone down.

 

... Pico as of yesterday! Plenty of detritus siphoned off the bottom today - the sexy shrimp are messy buggers...

 

 

[Rob Francis]

Thanks mate, 

I might give them a shout at some point.

I also like your light and did consider one for my shallow tank but treated myself to a Kessil in the end.

Where in the UK are you? Im down in Somerset.

Cheers,

Rob

[SaltyGallon]

10 minutes ago, Rob Francis said:

Thanks mate, 

I might give them a shout at some point.

I also like your light and did consider one for my shallow tank but treated myself to a Kessil in the end.

Where in the UK are you? Im down in Somerset.

Cheers,

Rob

A Kessil's a much better choice if you decide to go for a bigger tank down the road.

 

I'm in Woking, Surrey - much nicer down your way! 🙂

[debbeach13]

As usual tank looks great.

[SaltyGallon]

On 6/12/2020 at 11:13 PM, debbeach13 said:

As usual tank looks great.

Thanks Deb. I've added a single Gobstopper zoa head in the tank this morning to add a nice splash of colour too - they're bright orange and have got nice green centres, so in keeping with my Mean & Green theme. My favourite zoas I think 🙂

 

Likewise I've got a couple of small heads of Sunny D zoas that might go in soon, but they're only little'uns so I'll let them grow/colour up in my nano for a bit first!

[SaltyGallon]

Hot weather inbound this week so a mini fan and DIY gravity top off are ready to rock - the tank won't be cooking with a lid on this time!!!

 

p.s. some GSP hit the surface this week 😎

 

 

[SaltyGallon]

Warm weather ready - gravity fed RO drip and a desk fan. Expecting temps of 29°C today and tomorrow (wild I know, but boiling by UK standards haha) and determined not to let everything par boil 😂 ... 

 

[Rob Francis]

Would a lid help on the tank?

I haven't had to top my jar up since filling it?!

On another note, your TMC light, would there be any way of removing the gooseneck do you think?

There are hardly any pics on the net that aren't library ones and I dont want to order one if its not right for me.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[SaltyGallon]

16 hours ago, Rob Francis said:

Would a lid help on the tank?

I haven't had to top my jar up since filling it?!

On another note, your TMC light, would there be any way of removing the gooseneck do you think?

There are hardly any pics on the net that aren't library ones and I dont want to order one if its not right for me.

Cheers,

Rob

 

Conversely Rob its the lid that was giving me headaches last heatwave - it reduces evaporation so much there's 0 heat loss... Like a greenhouse with the doors closed! The pico's faring really well with a fan over it and a ghetto top off - it's my bigger (fanless) nano that's overheating now!

 

Yeah I reckon if you knew what you were doing you could get that light unit off the gooseneck and rewire it into a multi LED panel etc - it's only a small/simple light.

 

[SaltyGallon]

The tank managed to stay cool last week, which was a relief....! It's cooled down now and the pico's still running at 26 degrees celsius (without a heater).

 

Everything is looking nice today and the shrooms are nicely extended - it almost seems a shame to do a waterchange. The radioactive dragon eye zoas are starting to takeover the rock work from the right and the GSP's continuing it's assault on the backwall. The gobstopper head that I put in still hasn't opened up but it's not looking sad, either, so maybe it just needs time. In my experience single zoa heads can be finicky anyway, even in good sized tanks!

 

Official June FTS included in first post 🙂

 

 

[Ratvan]

In your experience where do I want to glue a frag of GSP to get it growing on the backwall? Low in the tank?

[SaltyGallon]

3 hours ago, Ratvan said:

In your experience where do I want to glue a frag of GSP to get it growing on the backwall? Low in the tank?

Yeah definitely low mate, it grows up to the light.

[SaltyGallon]

Update as of 13/07/2020

 

... All still well in the pico! I've been a bit quiet on photos because I'd been putting off scraping some resistant green stuff off of the tank sides - I needed to get a razor blade on them but my hand doesn't actually fit in the tank alongside the scape haha. I had a free lunchtime today so I pulled the scape out (it's built as one piece for convenience) and gave the glass a good scrape down. Looking good as new now, and pics to follow in the next couple of days! 🙂

 

No real issues to speak of other than the hard green film algae that built up over the course of a few weeks. I'm amazed I don't see more algae issues with this tank but I suspect it's the combined effect of a pinch of GFO + macro algae + barebottom + 100% water changes. I've only tested nitrates in the tank twice (keeping it nice and low maintenance) and the latest time they were at 2 ppm, so I suspect 90% of the time a coral looks sad it's because the water's too clean - everything is always much more puffed up in the few days before the tank gets it's weekly water change!

[SaltyGallon]

Naff phone pic but all looking well after today's waterchange 😛

 

[debbeach13]

Wow that is one super clean tank. It is going to be so packed by the end of the contest.

[SaltyGallon]

18 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Wow that is one super clean tank. It is going to be so packed by the end of the contest.

Thanks Deb - I hope so! It's nice looking at pics and seeing that GSP spreading upwards. The clean-ness won't last! Very lucky that the only real nuisance algae growth seems to be the super hard stuff on the glass. I think the red macro back right is doing a pretty good job of out competing everything else. But you never know... A hair algae bloom is always around the corner!

 

Got plans to swap the middle mushroom out for something cooler... Watch this space 😎

[SaltyGallon]

Zoas and cloves were trampled by the sexy shrimp duo before I took the pic, but the shrooms and GSP are nicely extended!