Adwyth’s 3 Gallon 365 Day AIO Challenge Tank

[Adwyth]

Today has been a busy day! I am off of work for at least the next week, maybe longer. So I am taking this time to get my office/fish room in order...and finish renovating my chicken coop. I had to move this tank to another temporary spot to make room for a new acquisition...more on that later.

 

The corals in the 3 gallon have been very happy over the last week so I trimmed down the plugs and scraped things a little.

 

I stopped by my LFS and got some snails. I only went for the snails, but of course I couldn’t resist bringing home a new frag of “Radioactive green” zoas. They aren’t fully opened yet, but look great for just being added. I also wanted to support the store during this slow uncertain time. They aren’t fully opened yet, but look great for just being added.

 

Couple of random photos...

 

As I said earlier, Ive had to move thing around to make room for a new tank. As I said in the begging of this thread I jumped back into the hobby very recently. I had several traditional size tanks (10, 15tall, 20L & 29) that I could have started and I decided on the the 29g. It has been up and running about a month now. I still wasn’t 100% happy with it.  I have been looking around at various larger AIO aquariums like waterbox, Innovative Marine, Read Sea and the biocubes but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. 

 

Late last night, I was surfing my Local Aquarium Club’s forum and saw an add for a free IM 30L... I sent him a msg not expecting him to still have it, but he did! So I took a quick 1 hour drive to pick it up! I will need to buy pumps, lights and figure out a stand situation,  but I am VERY happy to have a solid tank to build out...not to mention the price lol. I’m not in any hurry to set this up. Part of the fun of a build like that is taking the time to research and wait for deals. All my rock is cycling away in a 29g. (The piece of furniture it is sitting on isn’t sturdy enough to be a stand for this tank. I just have it sitting on it until I get a legit stand and find a permanent spot for it.)

 

[Adwyth]

So not much new to report in the 3g. My Local fish stores are all closed atm so I haven’t added much. On the last day of my favorite store being open I grabbed a couple of frags. Some Blue tubs zoas and some Pally that I have already forgotten the name of. 

 

 

Everything has been doing great. Ive been keeping up with my weekly water changes and change out the filter floss weekly as well.

 

I have been very impressed with this cheap little tank. I though I was going to be battling evaporation but it turned out to be a non issue. I have been fiddling with the light trying to find the happy spot for everything. I still have the stock pump and at the moment I dont have any plans to replace it. It does a good job and seems plenty strong for my needs.

 

The one thing that I’m not a fan of about this tank is the curved corners. I spent way too much time scraping algae in the corners. It also distorts the view a smidge. In a larger tank I doubt it would be an issue, but when the tank is only 8 inches across it becomes more noticeable. I dont remember it bothering me on an old Bio-cube I had years ago.

 

I still need to scape things a little better, but I’m having a hard time committing to glueing anything down...Ive got time and everything is happy, so no rush there.

 

 

(The tank is a smidge cloudy in these pics as I had just done maintenance. It stays crystal clear.)

 

I have been thoroughly impressed by the Pixie 30. It has been fun to mess around with and I love the versatility it provides. It looks like it came in the kit for this tank. Can’t recommend it enough!

[debbeach13]

I like both of your new frags. Looking good.

[Adwyth]

1 hour ago, debbeach13 said:

I like both of your new frags. Looking good.

Thank! I was trying not to get anything else green lol. I didn’t realize that most everything I had was green lol. Just mixing it up a bit!

[debbeach13]

I guess I am lucky green is my favorite color.

[Adwyth]

I like it too! That’s one reason I started out with all of the green. I really like those neon greens I have...but I realized that that was all I had lol.

[karisma]

So the pixie os working out good? I have an asta 20. Which is nice however I really like the pixie!

[Adwyth]

3 hours ago, karisma said:

So the pixie os working out good? I have an asta 20. Which is nice however I really like the pixie!

It working really well! I have it turned down to about 50% power. It’s probably a little overkill for the 3g I have it on, but I wanted a light that I could use on a slightly larger tank if I ever wanted to change things up. The remote is intuitive and I don’t have any problems adjusting the light. I like this light so much I am debating buying a couple for my 30L...I might go with a bigger version like the asta 120. I have been very impressed with build quality.

 

This tank has has been working so well I don’t have any plans to “upgrade” after the contest is over. I’m just going to let it run as is.

[debbeach13]

Good morning. Checking in and hoping you are doing well.

[Adwyth]

On 5/13/2020 at 9:02 AM, debbeach13 said:

Good morning. Checking in and hoping you are doing well.

Thanks for checking in! I am about to type up a small update. 

 

The last couple of weeks have been rather trying. I was furloughed. Thankfully I should be going back in the next couple of weeks. The day after I was furloughed, my wife tested positive for the covid. Thankfully she is non-symptomatic and doing great. She was tested as a precaution for some other stuff that is going on. But now we get to self quarantine for at least two weeks.

 

Not a whole lot going on with the tank except weekly water changes and floss changes. 

 

May Full Tank Pic incoming shortly.

[Adwyth]

May Full Tank Shot:

 

I’m still not great with the photo app on my phone, but you can see I hav rearranged from the last update.

 

The IM 30L has been set up for a while now and was ready for some corals. I moved the Acans and Duncan out because feeding them in this small little tank was causing huge nutrient spikes. Even with aggressive water changes, I was battling algae something fierce. So now there is only some GSP, Zoas and a monti Cap Frag. The monti cap will eventually move over to the 30L as well. I may make a build thread for the 30L...I have some free time lol.

 

Ive added a couple of frags of some fancy name zoas that I cant be bothered to remember the silly names for.

 

Ive dropped the whole frugal theme...I’m now just going with what is available locally and keeping it simple. I will add a couple more frags after quarantine and just let it run for a while to see what kind of growth I can get. I also am not going to be adding much more until I know when my furlough is going to end. 

 

Since I am stuck at the house I did put in a small order to ReefCleaners that will be here next week. My LFS does not have much in the way of CUC at the moment as the were just able to open back up. I do prefer to give them my business over ordering online...but I also need to stay at the house. (See above comment.)

 

So I’ve had this tank set up since Feb and I am still really in love with it. For a split second I thought about consolidating it into to 30L, but it is so easy to maintain that I quickly dismissed that idea. Very low evaporation, the pump is plenty powerful for my needs, and the stock filtration works great. I just run filter floss on the stock frame and change it out once a week shortly after the water change. My ONLY gripe was the curved edges UNTIL I tried the magic eraser and it worked great in the corners!

 

The Pixie 30 is a fantastic light...so much so I ordered two of its larger siblings, the Pixie 80 for the 30L.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[debbeach13]

I hope you and your wife continue to be ok. Glad you decided to keep the pico and good luck with the 30. 

[kimberbee]

Checking in...

 

I hope you an your wife are doing well!

[MuddyPeaks]

I saw a used tank like this posted up on the fb marketplace and i was debating whether it could be a good bet for a bedside tank, with macro algea and a hammer or frogspawn. Glad to see it worked out for you and i hope you and your wife are well 😊