Turning a established tank into a pico?

[B4THEND]

Hey there, I currently have a 13 gal. saltwater setup that's been running for about 2 years now with a Kenya tree coral, a mini-carpet anemone, and some turban snails/blue-legged hermits and a tiger sand conch as the COC. However, I am moving into a dorm soon and don't have room for it, so I decided to downsize and do a little DIY on a 3.5 gal tank I had lying around by building in simple a 3-chamber filter system, with a $50 Lominie LED reef light and a $15 Aquatop np-80 for circulation.

 

My main question is, would it be feasible to instantly cycle my pico by moving the rock and filter media over from the 13g to the pico? Its something I've done plenty of times with freshwater tanks and it's always worked fine there, but I know saltwater is much more sensitive. The only reason I'm really interested in getting it cycled fast is that I have a friend who's willing to give me a bunch of nice soft frags for the tank, but since I'm moving in under a month I won't be able to take him up on his offer if I don't cycle it in time. 

 

My second question kinda relates to the first, which is should I transfer my sandbed? I have a 1-inch sandbed in the 13 currently but I've seen a lot of mixed feelings on whether to have a one in a pico. I personally hate bare-bottom tanks but I'm still indecisive.

 

Anyways, any advice would be appreciated. This is my first pico too so any general advice would be appreciated as well (Big thanks to the infinitely helpful El Fab guide, which is basically where I'm getting all my info from! I have pics of the build down below for reference.

[Tired]

You can absolutely cycle a tank instantly. It's not the tank we cycle- it's the rock. Move cycled, mature rock, and you have a cycled, mature whatever-the-rock-is-in.

 

Don't move your sandbed- too easy to get nasty buildup transferred from tank to tank. At most, transfer over a couple of cups, rinsed. A thin layer of sand (1/4" to 1/2") should be fine in a pico, and IMO looks much better, but it should be mostly or entirely new sand. 

 

That tank is really cute, I love it. It's so teeny! 

 

This is a funny thread for me, because I'm doing the opposite. I'm upgrading a pico into a bigger tank. 

[B4THEND]

2 minutes ago, Tired said:

You can absolutely cycle a tank instantly. It's not the tank we cycle- it's the rock. Move cycled, mature rock, and you have a cycled, mature whatever-the-rock-is-in.

 

Don't move your sandbed- too easy to get nasty buildup transferred from tank to tank. At most, transfer over a couple of cups, rinsed. A thin layer of sand (1/4" to 1/2") should be fine in a pico, and IMO looks much better, but it should be mostly or entirely new sand. 

 

That tank is really cute, I love it. It's so teeny! 

 

This is a funny thread for me, because I'm doing the opposite. I'm upgrading a pico into a bigger tank. 

Thanks, this is super helpful! I actually have some leftover dry sand in a bag somewhere, so I'll probably use a mix of both depending on how much I have. I have someone who is taking most of my livestock, so once I get them out of the 13 Ill start moving rock.

[Tired]

No problem, glad to help. The main benefit of moving sand over is that you might transfer some beneficial critters like worms and whatnot, but you can skip out on that if you don't really have many helpful worm types. 

 

There's actually another way to instantly cycle a tank, though it's not relevant here. Really good live rock. Ocean-collected and shipped in water, or pre-cured ocean collected rock from the LFS. Bam- years of maturity in an instant. 

[B4THEND]

So last week I decided to add some chunks of just rock to the tank, introduce some ammonia, then wait, just to test. As hoped, the ammonia levels dissipated and my levels stayed constant over the next week. So last night, I added a Turban snail, a red-legged hermit, and my Kenya tree to the tank after about an hour of acclimation. While the Kenya was not very happy last night, I was happy to see that after I turned the light on this morning he was nicely unfurled by 12. While he isn't as big as usual, its nice to see him not completely curled-up.

 

Now I guess I play another waiting game, and make sure my levels continue to stay constant now that I have a constant source of ammonia added. I'm hoping to have my new frags added in under two weeks but I'll just wait and see.

 

 

...

[Tired]

It should go just fine, since you've transferred plenty of bacteria, but the snail may be a little large for that tank. Keep an eye on the algae amount, make sure there's always plenty uneaten.

[B4THEND]

Todays update! I guess I'm just gonna use this as my journal now since I don't feel like making a separate post. Anyways, I picked up the frags I was offered! (and they're some really nice ones too.) I would tell you what they are but I'm gonna be honest, I don't remember the names. So I made a post to the ID forum and will update when I get them ID'd. I also went and got my water tested yesterday at my LFS, and to quote the guy there, all my levels are perfect, which is music to my ears. So I picked up two more Kenya tree frags for 10$ each while I was there since they were having a sale, and today they've already opened up and look quite nice! Side note, I may have to make a new lid since the plastic I used for the first one has warped >:(.  Anyways that's about all, I'll be back in a few days when my new frags get settled in.

[Tired]

Looks like something along the lines of a hammer or frogspawn, a mushroom, some annoyed zoas, an SPS (maybe stylophora?), more annoyed zoas, and probably an encrusting montipora. 

[B4THEND]

Ok, sorry for the huge delay. Like I said college move-in has been coming up quickly and there was a lot I needed to do, meaning I kinda forgot about this post/journal 😅. Anyways, the tank has been doing great! I got another water check right before I did 50% water change, and they said all good but I'd need to dose a little reef-builder, which I did with the water change along with some reef-roids after. Everyone has been happy, my small Zoa frag already grew a second polyp which is nice to see, and my GSP has already found its way from my frag and grown about a centimeter or so onto my rock which is also nice to see. Otherwise, nothing has changed and the tank continues to stay stable and happy. 

 

Again sorry for taking like, over two weeks to update! I have pics with the new growth down below. Any suggestions are also appreciated! 😋

 

 

[Tired]

This is still such a cute little tank. Glad to see it's doing well. 

 

Is the light adjustable? You might pull slightly more color out of your corals if you got a bit more blue light in there. 

 

Watch out with that GSP, unless you want this tank to be nothing but it and maybe that mushroom that's sat on it somehow. 

[B4THEND]

The light has 5 modes, but its not customizable, its basically white, a dimmer greenish-white, a bright blue. and a dark blue. I use the blues quite often but its hard to photograph the tank with that light unless its night 😅. I really just wanted to make sure everyone was getting enough light so I usually just keep it in the brightest white.

 

Honestly I really was surprised to see growth so soon on the GSP, I had heard tales of them growing fast but I didn't expect visible growth in >2 weeks. I'm not complaining though, as I love how it looks, it colors nicely under the blue light, and its cool to see it actually pulsate and move. I am a little worried about the mushroom, but I know they can detach technically so I'm not too bothered.

 

 

[Tired]

Well, good luck on your GSP-dominated tank, then! 

(You might consider moving it to the back wall, as you can then keep it off the rockwork and keep it generally pruned back, in order to actually continue to have other corals.)

 

Depending on the spectrum of light the fixture is giving off, the white light may not be the best for the corals. It may not even be the brightest- might just look brightest. Do you have a local reef club you can borrow a PAR meter from? 

[B4THEND]

I'm definitely gonna try and keep it pruned back for sure, when I move everything I was actually planning on isolating it or giving it it's own shelf but I didn't feel like messing with it now that's its showing growth. 

 

In terms of a PAR meter, I'm not sure about a reef club, as that's not something I've looked into before, but I do have a wonderful LFS that I get all my supplies/corals/RO water/advice from, so when I go for more water tomorrow I'll probably ask If that's something I can rent.

[B4THEND]

Ok so, the big update is here - Its been two days since the move, and the tank is doing great! I was pretty worried since I had to basically just stick everything in a 5g bucket for the whole 4 hour drive and move-in process, but everyone opened back up pretty quick and there weren't any problems. Now I just gotta hope nothing goes wrong cause I'm without a car or a LFS for the next few months. Anyways quick pic I took today down below!

 

[Tired]

Nice!

 

As far as everything in there knows, that was approximately a 5-hour storm. Totally normal nature behavior. 

[B4THEND]

Well its been about 4 months, so now seems to be a good time to do an update! 😶

 

Overall. everything has been doing super well. The only real maintenance I do is an occasional water-change and a dose of of Calcium, Reef-builder, and the occasional targeted dose of reef-roids. The turban snail and scarlet hermit are doing fine, and are doing a great job keeping the place clean since I have had absolutely 0 algae problems. I've also been running the tank on the blue-light setting for 8 hours a day, and they seem to be doing the best with that (I set it to white-light to take pictures since my phone camera kinda sucks).

 

On another note, I also sprung for an auto top-off system since I had to leave for about a month over winter break. Since I couldn't really take the tank home, I had to just hope that everything would be fine if left alone for a few weeks, and thankfully it was. Other than that everything seems calm and good. both GSP frags have spread to the rockwork and expanded quite a bit, I've seen some noticeable growth on the two Zoa's, and can even see plenty of small new heads, the mushroom ha gotten quite a bit bigger, and all the Kenya trees have really spread out and filled the space, but they haven't fragged off yet or spread anywhere else. I even have some coralline algae coming in on the walls and floor of the tank..

 

Anyways, that's really all, I guess I'm gonna just keep doing what I'm doing over the next semester. I'm honestly surprised how hassle-free my first Pico has been but honestly I'm not complain - hopefully it stays nice and peaceful over the next couple months. I might have to upgrade it back into a 10g when I take everything home for the summer but I'll wait and see.