1 Gallon acro-portrait - Final tank shot

[East1]

[East1]

I love the adjustable light, and also having the coral in a little bowl, I can use oneof the most underappreciated facts of bonsai - that they can easily and effortlessly be repoistioned despite their sensitive root systems, this allows for full canopy lighting, coupled with a movable light I can ensure there's no coral shadowing, something that's really difficult to pull off in a static reef. 

 

 

[East1]

Been a while since I posted, I think dosing 0.5ml of All for Reef, I'm adding enough carbon to cause problems - I've got dinoflagellates and also my coral is getting a lot lighter in tone (though this is an okay side effect)

 

To remedy I've started adding a bacterial supplement as well as a custom carbon/nitrate/phosphate solution to prevent the tank from getting into imbalance. 

I've also had to add a rough prototype skimmer to deal with the excess bacteria and keep it fully oxygenated. I think the swings of the dinoflagellate spike has stressed my poccilopora out. 

 

[yoshii]

Love those top down pics! It really emphasizes how packed it is. Have you had any issues with the torch stinging its neighbors?

[East1]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:59 AM, yoshii said:

Love those top down pics! It really emphasizes how packed it is. Have you had any issues with the torch stinging its neighbors?

HAH! This is funny, I'd had no issues with the torch till yesterday when I noticed it was stinging the Acropora and Montipora. They appear to be fine after tissue loss and I've relocated the torch now. 

 

I've also removed the Halimeda because I think I killed it during nutrient swings dealing with Dinoflagellates - they also poisoned my Cleaner Shrimp unfortunately, and I'm glad to say that these seem to ahve passed. I'm beyond impressed that despite those swings the acropora, and all my SPS still are healthy and growing. I'm eager to add a few more corals now I've created a bit more space from clearing out the Halimeda. Perhaps this weekend I'll take a trip to my LFS. 

[Reefkid88]

I love this,definitely my type of tank !!! I have been slowly piecing together a 10" sps cube but I want a tinnnnnny sps tank like this so bad... 

[debbeach13]

7 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

I have been slowly piecing together

Under statement of the year (years)! Sorry couldn't help myself.

[debbeach13]

Looking forward to seeing the new additions, if maybe happens. This tank is so fun to watch.

[East1]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Looking forward to seeing the new additions, if maybe happens. This tank is so fun to watch.

 

4 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

I love this,definitely my type of tank !!! I have been slowly piecing together a 10" sps cube but I want a tinnnnnny sps tank like this so bad... 

thanks guys! This tank is regularly blowing my mind. The total system volume including the skimmer is 1.1 Gallons, and using the algorithm I designed it requires no further tinkering or anything. It's essentially a prototype running on a an all in one filtration system that has a built in dosing, skimming and circulation, using the P1 and the circulation I've previously been using as a prototype base point. 

 

I think if it continues to perform so well I may release it as a kit or something. The potential for something like this is exciting, at the water volume you could keep individual Acropora colonies in isolation, not even as quarantine, but permanently. 

[Break]

12 minutes ago, East1 said:

 

thanks guys! This tank is regularly blowing my mind. The total system volume including the skimmer is 1.1 Gallons, and using the algorithm I designed it requires no further tinkering or anything. It's essentially a prototype running on a an all in one filtration system that has a built in dosing, skimming and circulation, using the P1 and the circulation I've previously been using as a prototype base point. 

 

I think if it continues to perform so well I may release it as a kit or something. The potential for something like this is exciting, at the water volume you could keep individual Acropora colonies in isolation, not even as quarantine, but permanently. 

That's some next level automation - very cool.

[East1]

49 minutes ago, Break said:

That's some next level automation - very cool.

Thank you! I'm really wishing I had more space, I can envisage a whole bookshelf filled with individual Acropora microcolonies and I really want to make that a reality. 

[Reefkid88]

That would be interesting. 

 

 But as cool as it is,would bringing it into production make it affordable for Joe Schmoe ? 

 

 You make the equipment,I'll make the lights 😎🙋‍♂️

[Reefkid88]

5 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Under statement of the year (years)! Sorry couldn't help myself.

Shit.... you caught me lol. With only 1 income,the tank gets parts when I have spare change lmao. 

[East1]

46 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

That would be interesting. 

 

 But as cool as it is,would bringing it into production make it affordable for Joe Schmoe ? 

 

 You make the equipment,I'll make the lights 😎🙋‍♂️

 

I think so, the system itself is fairly simple, yet really effective and scalable. I’ll run a couple prototypes in the coming months I think, an excuse for more tanks! 

[East1]

 

 

colours show the stress the dinoflagellate bloom caused. 

[Reefkid88]

This is going to be a awesome little endeavour honestly. Everything looks great besides the natural drab look of the coral. But that being said,they still look awesome. 

 

 I think a little light consisting of 2 SemiLed Royal Blues,1 Neutral White and 1 Violet things would look amazing. 

[East1]

23 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

This is going to be a awesome little endeavour honestly. Everything looks great besides the natural drab look of the coral. But that being said,they still look awesome. 

 

 I think a little light consisting of 2 SemiLed Royal Blues,1 Neutral White and 1 Violet things would look amazing. 

I keep flip-flopping. I have those LEDs in my toolbox - as well as some others, Iwanted to experiment with the Emerson effect, but at teh same time I like the natural look, where the focus is on texture and shape rather than colour 

[East1]

I went pretty quiet, I've been doing a fair bit of experimentation on this tank in the past (wow it's almost been 2 months!)

 

Unfortunately I had an outbreak of montipora nudibranchs, I had no idea how prolific these things are but they took over, then died and poisoned a number of corals and the like, so I let the tank fallow for a few weeks and further removed the little pot and sand.

 

Further, I suspect some of the nutrient issues are because I didn't compensate for how much of a delayed effect nutrient build up can have in a sandbed, or even in the fronds of gracillaria! Dosing acetate like this in conjunction with the nutrient buildup seems to result in dinos. 

 

Since then, I've had the tank running to build up a goodbiofilm of hard green algae, some healthy pods and these weird jellyfish things that still exist in the tank and no coral, just to experiment with biodiversity. The tank now houses tonnes of varied life despite having minimal surface area (some sand in a corner, a few bits of live rock on which I've now got corals) 

 

the lighting has been shifted to two MR16 controllable RGB leds so I can adjust spectrum and brightness, and stocking is now purely SPS coral - acropora dominated. The tank is still in 'experimentation' stage and I'm struggling with bacteria blooms, so I'm considering trying an air-driven skimmer rather than the previous pump-driven one I was trialing. 

 

Current set up as it stands. 

 

[teamschreiba]

So sounds like you already knocked out the dinos? Any tricks other than brining the nutrient levels back up? 

[East1]

1 hour ago, teamschreiba said:

So sounds like you already knocked out the dinos? Any tricks other than brining the nutrient levels back up? 

Yeah they only took about a week to shift once I thinned out the gracillaria etc, they just needed more nitrate and I actually increased dosing carbon via vinegar, coupled with a bacteria inoculant, I used Brightwell MB7.

[Reefkid88]

This makes me want to get my small 2g betta tank going and slap it to the brim with sps lol. 🙃

[East1]

I would definitely recommend it from a coolness factor, seeing everything at the polyp scale is way fun, and I'm beyond amazed at how much microfauna there is in this tank (especially the jellyfish hydroid things, they've managed to keep a stable population this whole time) 

 

I will say this tank is extremely volatile, the margin for error is hours. Yesterday I mixed my top off water too saline without noticing, spiked the SG to 1.032 from 1.025 and within a couple hours the acros all looked 'dry' and about to die. This was the difference of about a table spoon of salt, too. 

Fortunately the small volume meant I could just do a 100% change and get it back to normal and the corals bounce back in the same number of hours. 

[East1]

[East1]

my little DIY pico air-powered skimmer works a treat, it now gives me crystal clear water even with high dosing of carbon (eitehr vinegar or just from the all-in-one, the level of alk drop is significant so AIO causes a bacteria bloom if I ever turn off my skimmer. 

[Christopher Marks]

7 hours ago, East1 said:

my little DIY pico air-powered skimmer works a treat, it now gives me crystal clear water even with high dosing of carbon (eitehr vinegar or just from the all-in-one, the level of alk drop is significant so AIO causes a bacteria bloom if I ever turn off my skimmer. 

So cool! Is that the skimmer there on the left?

20 hours ago, East1 said: