2 year update 1 gallon pico

[1fish2fish]

It's been awhile since I lurked in these forums. here's an update of my custom built 1 gal bowfront pico.

 

more

 

My pink birdsnest. It's been in there since the firstt 4 months or so (a little over 1.5 years). It's a slow grower, but I don't feed very heavy or often. Whn I put it in it was a single stick with aome small points on the main stalk.

 

my caulerpa garden. I crop it back beore it takes over too much. The zoos don't seem to mind it. The hard corals you see above the zoos went in about 6 months ago.

 

The powder blue zoos.

 

The view from the right hand side is one of my favorites.

You can see the refugium in this pic. It actually take up about 1/3 of the tank so the viewing area is only about 2/3 gal.

 

[Daemonfly]

Looks pretty good. Nice to see a nano/pico going past the 1-year mark.

 

Fully custom, or 2.5g Mini-bow divided in half?

[1fish2fish]

The tank is 100% home made. The tank itself is 1 gallon total volume and constructed out of glass (hence the silicone in the corners). The viewing area is about 2/3 gal and the fuge is 1/3 gal. Of course once you take the pump, heater, sand, LR and corals into account the total water volume is actually under half a gallon. The only commercial items were the heater and the wate pump (Rio xx). The tank is lit by 2 x 13 watt 50/50 bulbs. I bought the ballasts from hellolights and bastardized them to set them as remote ballasts in an old computer power supply box. I use molex connectors covered with shrink tube to run power to teh bulb pins. The salinity is kept stable using an air driven auto topoff system. I use the standard little float switch, but have connected it to a hagen battery powered pump for air pressure. I've found the hagen pumps work best because they use a piston rather than a diaphragm. The batteries last for more than 6 months, but I change them out at six month intervals to be safe. In the 2 years I've been running this tank I've never celaned the glass. The one turbo snail and hermit crab have always done a fantastic job of keeping things reasonably clean. Coraline algae recently started to grow on the glass, so I may have to break down and do some scrubbing.

 

The pocillopora on the right hand side of the tank started out as a piece about an inch long. I've also got a colony of GSP on the left. I crop that back about once every three months to keep it from taking over. There are currently 8 or 9 varieties of zoos. I lose track and they pop up here and there. There's been a stable population of mysids that hang out back behind the liverock for about a year now. There are also several mystery corals that I haven't had the time to id. They're in awkward spots for pictures, so I haven't posted them. In the early days I was keeping some acros, but things got too crowded and the snail kept knocking them over. They didn't like touching any other corals so I yanked them out.

[1fish2fish]

Here's a shot with a pop can for reference.

 

There are also numerous zoos hidden beihnd the pocillopora. They're attached to teh rear wall.

[dickie52]

Very nice, man two years.....

 

it is amazing what a person can do with a half gallon of salt water....

[Christopher Marks]

Very cool to see a pico reach 2 years. Where did you get the curved glass from to make the tank?

[sammycai]

Nice pico tank, I love it!

[I'm the same guy as reefer9391]

LOL I show me parents this they cant belive that this kind of water volume can do anything. Nice to see one that isnt 60 days old and then taken down.

[1fish2fish]

Very cool to see a pico reach 2 years. Where did you get the curved glass from to make the tank?

 

 

The curved glass used to be a picture frame. I just stripped it down.

 

I think the secret is largely water stability. The float switch is in the back 1/3. Because of this it doesn't lose as much water before the float switch is tripped (the water level only changes in the fuge). I also take a hands off approach. I only do water changes about once a month (about 1 liter AKA half the total water volume). I use filtered natural sea water fromt he research center I work at. We filter using a series of sand filters, a series of bag filters down to 1 micron, and then uv. I use distilled for the topoff. The only time my hands touch the water is to add something new. As mentioned, I've never cleaned the glass. The only non coral inhabitants (aside from LR critters) are the one turbo snail and the hermit crab. They live just fine eating algae and detritus. I only feed once every week or so. Usually some rotifers and some phytoplankton from my lab (maybe some newly hatched artemia).

 

The down side is I may be moving to Hawaii in a few months. I'm not sure about the legality of importing corals etc to the islands (especially caulerpa). I hope I don't have to take it all down, though I could always jsut start it up again with local stuff.

[1fish2fish]

LOL,

 

well I was just messing around with my float switch and took a good hard look at what I thought were the beginnings of coralline algae on the glass of my tank. It turns out tha they're pocillopora buds. I've counted 29 so far. Each spot is about 1 mm - 2 mm across and has 3 - 5 polyps. I may let them grow a little and then just pop them off of the glass.

 

It's funny. This tank sits on my desk at work and even though I've seen it every day for about two years I'm still seeing new things all the time.

[newb111]

Do you have the plans for the tank. I would love too see them to build one myself. Just maybe not with the curved glass. Also, what do you think is your success. Is it the lab water that is filtered extremely well or the fact that the fuge takes up 1/3 of the tank or other things. Just curious. I am very interested!!

Thx

Newb111

[1fish2fish]

Heya Newb111,

 

I'll try to post some pics of the tank setup later this week. They used to be in an old thread, but they're no onger there.

 

The fuge definitley helps. One side of the fuge (about half) has a two inch sand bed with some small pieces of LR rubble (really can't fit too much in there), but hte other half is filled with the pump, heater and float switch. I like that I can hide my equipment for a nice clean look. The lab water helps, but mixing high quality artificial mix with good R/O or distilled water would work just fine. Never use tap water as it will contain all kinds of stuff you don't want in your tank (copper, lead, silicates, arsenic.. etc...).

 

Patience, patience and more patience. I started pretty slowly and built up gradually. You don't have to add a huge number of zoos etc. They will grow and spread fast enough and half the fun is letting them. Each of my zoo colonies were started with between 1 and 5 zoos. If they don't have the space to spread out they won't do as well IMO.

 

1) started slow and build up gradually

2) only non coral or LR related critters are 1 turbo snail and 1 blue leg hermit crab. Neither require feeding so no extra nutrients to worry about. they jsut graze on algae film and detritus.

3) Don't over feed (either quantity or frequency)

4) maintain salinity (auto topoff is a life saver)

5) good quality lighting (I have 2 x 13 watt 50/50 pc bulbs and the water depth is only about 4 inches to the sand (less to the corals)

6) Change the bulbs about every 6 months. I've left them longer and I definitely notice a difference. When I add new bulbs the corals look brighter, but they are also more extended.

7) constant temp

8) If it aint broke don't fix it! (keep those grubby little hands out) This tank is too small to be dipping my paws in without disturbing things. The only time I touch anything in the tank is pump maintenance, adding more frags, or using a rigid airline to right my birdsnest after the snail knocks it over.

 

The most important piece of advice anyone can give you is to read. Figure out what exactly you want to do. Read some more and plan carefully. I strongly recommend starting with what are commonly termed "beginner" corals. These include the green star polys (GSP), zooanthids (zoos), and mushrooms. There are miscelaneous others as well.

 

Oh and always beware the local fish store advice. Not to say they're all bad. Many are good, but get information from as many sources as possible before making a decision. This is a good place to ask for a second oppinion, and usually you'll get a third and a fourth... Impulse buying can often end poorly for your wallet and the animals.

[Maeda]

The down side is I may be moving to Hawaii in a few months. I'm not sure about the legality of importing corals etc to the islands (especially caulerpa). I hope I don't have to take it all down, though I could always jsut start it up again with local stuff.

 

Sorry buddy.

It won't be going to hawaii, and you won't be able to stock it with local stuff.

 

You're being banned to the isles of FOWLR.

 

Again let me say, i'm sorry.

 

(I'm a former hawaii resident)

[1fish2fish]

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo................................

[tinyreef]

"whatchu got in dat cooler, son?"

 

"uh, beer? want one?"

 

pocillo buds, very cool!

 

hey 1fish, can you post a pic of your ATO/float switch in the back? ato's on these picos have always been the bane of my existence.

 

i'd just like to know if you had a smaller than typical solution to the float switch issue. thanks!

[Jamescoop]

Did you weld the tank together with just aquarium silicone sealant?? OR is the frame mandatory to hold it together?

[1fish2fish]

Tiny,

 

The float switch is just a standard float switches from that online place umm floatswitches.net I think (it was awhile ago LOL). It's held in place by a piece of acrylic that I bent into an L shape and drilled a mounting hole in. The mount is held to the back of the tank usign industrial velcro. That allows me to adjust the heght of the switch and remove it for maintenance if needed.

 

The tank itself is just held together with silicone. All 4 sides are glass, but the bottom is acylic. I went acrylic for the bottom because I didn't want to spend the time grinding glass to meet the shape of the front.

 

Now I know what people are thinking... "You can't silicone acrylic and have it hold!" Actually you can. You need to take heavy grit sandpaper and scratch the heck out of the areas that you need to silicone. Since it's on the bottom the scratches don't matter. Now if this was a 2 foot dep or even 1 foot deep tank, I would have used glass. There's just too much head pressure and I have no doubt that the seals would fail, but this tank is tiny. It's No more than 6 inches tall so there is realatively little head pressure (only 6 inches of head... stifle those giggles). The sides of the tank are pretty small as well so there is little to no flex in them (it's 1/4 inch glass LOL).

 

Now a little hydraulics lesson.... Head presure is defined as the pressure exerted on the bottom of a tank by the water above it... eg 1 ft of head means there is a 1 ft deep water column. It is only effecte by depth and no volume. A 1 ft column of water filling a 10ft X10ft room exerts the same pressure on floor of the room as a 1ft column of water filling a 1 inch X 1inch area (kinda cool huh?). This is based on the weight per square inch and not the total weight.