A sugar jar, 850mL pico

[ocean_at_home]

Hi! This is a journal for my pico experiment now on its 2nd month.

 

It's a 850mL capacity sugar jar modified to have a filter chamber at the back.

 

Set up began towards end of June and has been pretty much running since then. Everything in this miniature tank was taken from my 10 year old reef tank.

[ocean_at_home]

The sugar jar measures 10x10x10cm but only holds 850mL due to its curved corners. Light and pump were bought online from China and seems to be working well for corals like a ricordea, zoas and paly. The plating montipora and the gorgonian appear to retain their color.

 

Issue remains to be with the high temperature as we're in a tropical region so the work around is to drop an ice cube daily. But other than that, everything is behaving quite well.

 

FIngers crossed!

[ocean_at_home]

Of course pics from its early days in June.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

wow!! this is incredible!

[fenderchamp]

it looks to be well maintained and thriving to me!  

 

nice job!!

 

what is your maintenance  routine?

[Tired]

Oh, look how cute! Is that an intentional bubble algae frag there in the foreground? 

 

I love that it's small enough for "exactly 1 ice cube" to be a valid substitute for a chiller. 

[ocean_at_home]

Here's today. I appreciate how quick maintenance is for this size.

[ocean_at_home]

5 hours ago, Tired said:

Oh, look how cute! Is that an intentional bubble algae frag there in the foreground? 

 

I love that it's small enough for "exactly 1 ice cube" to be a valid substitute for a chiller. 

Thank you. The ice cube a day is pretty neat. 😁

 

The bubble algae is quite intentional as way for absorbing nutrients. I thought it's tidier to look at than hair algae. But it started purely out of fascination.

[ocean_at_home]

18 hours ago, fenderchamp said:

it looks to be well maintained and thriving to me!  

 

nice job!!

 

what is your maintenance  routine?

Thanks! 50% water change every week and an ice cube a day is the routine.

 

On a whim, I feed this with crushed pellets for the gorgonian. But I do it a day before a scheduled water change.

[Tired]

I like the lil bubble algae garden. Nice pop of green. 

[aclman88]

Do you have a link to the light and pump?  I am guessing they were from aliexpress/ebay?

[ocean_at_home]

9 hours ago, aclman88 said:

Do you have a link to the light and pump?  I am guessing they were from aliexpress/ebay?

I don't think we use the same platform for online purchases but for the light, I'm sharing this image you may use to image search a similar product.

 

For the pump, it's a pump used for a cat watering bowl. I realised some cats won't drink from still water.