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Brent's Pico


brent-konieczny

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brent-konieczny

I started my first pico two days ago. I took sand, lr, and water from my 5 gal to avoid cycle. The tank is like a huge pickle jar I found in my house. The volume is exactly 1gal. So far this has been very exciting, being my second sw tank ever. I can see it will be very easy to take care of. Here's the plan.

1) No Fish

2) 1 power head/pump

3) 1" of sand

4) Almost 1lb rock

5) 10watt 50/50 screw in

 

These are the pics so far.

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Right now the light is a 26watt flourescent screw in from walgreens. Soon as I get the 10watt 50/50 I am going to frag my leather. What are your opinions about my stocking plan

 

Specimen Wish List

-GSP

-Hairy Shroom

-Ricordea

-Leather

-Coral Banded Shrimp (need info)

 

What's in there now?

-Couple of dusters

-Bristleworm (at least 1 tiny one)

-Blue Leg Hermit

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brent-konieczny

Tonight I am going to do setup brainstorming (hiding powerheads, stacking placement, ect) Also, I am going to frag a small piece of leather from my 5 gal and start the healing in that tank. I'm going to glue him to a snail shell so I can place him easily.

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brent-konieczny

The propagation went very good. The polyps on the cutting and stock coral were open the same night. I let it heal in the main tank and just put it in the jar a few hours ago. Today I had a ball at petco. I got my 10watt 50/50, thermometer sticker, super buffer dkh, and a new submersible filter (smallest I've seen yet). The filter is a Hagen Elite mini, and it can pump about 58gph (so I had to turn it down a notch).

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These pictures have the new aquascape, new powerhead looking down, and new leather frag.

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Tonight I am going to do setup brainstorming (hiding powerheads, stacking placement, ect) Also, I am going to frag a small piece of leather from my 5 gal and start the healing in that tank. I'm going to glue him to a snail shell so I can place him easily.

 

IMO, if you are looking to hide the pump - go with an airlift setup for circulation. I think it would work well in this small tank providing you have a cover so condensation does not cause a problem with your light. Paint or cover the backside of the tank in black material. And pick up some black airline hose and a decent airpump.

 

http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com/aquainfo/air_lift.html

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brent-konieczny

Thanks for the air lift idea. I might eventually try it. For now I really like the new power head I got. If I added the air lift I would have to get a heater also because my new power head keeps the tank right at 78. Today I added a tiny bright orange sponge (great coloration). I'll post some pics later.

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brent-konieczny

Here are some pictures from today.

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I think the sponge is an orange branching sponge. More of the polyps have opened since I put it in.

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brent-konieczny

I had a few steps backward this last week. First, the leather frag came unglued so I rubber-banded it and put it in the 5gal tank again. Next, the hermit died and sat for more than a day. I assumed it was molting but looked closer and realized. Now I have some brown slime to get rid of.

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brent-konieczny

Something isn't working out with the tank. I tried another hermit and he didn't last 24 hours. I have duster and a bristle worm that are all fine though.

The only thing I can think of is maybe lack of oxygen. The power head is set to just break the water surface a little creating a few micro-bubbles. I am pretty sure that cycling isn't the problem.

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Sponges can be pretty toxic, if they munched on it that could be the problem. As far as oxygen/cycling, through som macro in there, that'll help with both.

 

HTH

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brent-konieczny

I had the same idea to filter with macro. I put in some racemosa today. The slime algae has gotten bad just to let you know. Definately no pics till I clear it up.

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brent-konieczny

I am getting it over break. So thats next week. I will definetly put it in my 5 until the jar is established. BTW do you frag GSP just by cutting a piece off?

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  • 4 weeks later...
brent-konieczny

It will be around a week before I can get my camera for pictures, but the frag

of leather is doing well on a rock with a zoo frag. The cyano is almost cleared up. By the time it is gone I'll probably have pictures and the frags in there.

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brent-konieczny

Yeah, its funny that the more I mess around in the hobby I find corals more and more durable to abuse. I was trying to glue some zoos to a rock and the superglue leaked out a crimped part of the tube. So I got glue all over my hands and the zoos. They got covered in it and smashed up and out of water for a while. Couple hours later and they are trying to get past the glue to open up. BTW these zoos are on the frag I will be putting in.

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  • 2 weeks later...
brent-konieczny

I finally decided that the tank is somewhat ready for showing. There are few corals, but the tank is pretty established. Right now it has the leather, nassarius, bristle-worm, dusters, caulerpa, red bubble algae, and a mushroom hiding behind one of the rocks till it gets bigger. My goal now is for a bonsai look. I also took a short video so you can see the tank from the front 180 degrees.

 

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top down

 

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from back

 

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next to regular bottle

 

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leather closeup

 

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The fts doesn't do it justice. You have to be there to see everything at the right angles. That is why I included this 11sec video. http://www.wildernessvoyage.com/files/MVI_5380.AVI

 

I don't really know why the sound is so loud in the video. The tank is actually about 99% quiet.

It was probably my laptop fan blowing at the microphone.

 

Anyway, who thinks it is off to a good start?

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It's an interesting project. The only suggestion would be to try to find some way to hide the powerhead. Could you do an arch and have the powerhead hidden within the top of the arch? If you had a rock saw you could make a live rock veneer for the front of the powerhead as another idea.

 

Where's the heater? I didn't see it in the photos.

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brent-konieczny

There is no heater. The powerhead keeps it at a steady 76-78F. As far as a rock arch to hide the power head I think it is too much hassle. I just need to be patient and wait for more coralline covering/camouflaging.

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