ToeJam Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 My wife bought me a 3g JBJ Picotope tank last week. I decided to set it up on my desk at work. I added a 25W heater and a PowerSweep powerhead for some more flow in the tank. It has been set up for a little over a week now. I took some of my extra rock from the sump of my tank at home and bought some sand. I have been able to keep the temp right around 80. I just bought a new 24W PC Odyssea light off eBay today. I am planning on fragging my Frogspawn at home and bringing in a head of that for this tank once everything stabilizes. For inhabitants, I am thinking 3 Sexy Shrimp, the Frogspawn, and some zoos. I don't think I want to put any fish in because of the size of the tank. Link to comment
irishtexan Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 Awesome. Can't wait to see it stocked, sexy shrimp are awesome too. texx Link to comment
nanoDarth Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 cool rock formation. are you using the stock lighting? Link to comment
ToeJam Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 cool rock formation. are you using the stock lighting? Just for a few more days. I ordered a Jebo 24W PC fixture that should be here soon. Link to comment
CBlanks Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 Very cool. Keep us posted with pics. Your wife rocks. Link to comment
irishtexan Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 What kind of heater is that, and how many watts? texx Link to comment
ToeJam Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 What kind of heater is that, and how many watts?texx It is a Hydor 25W. Fits perfectly. Added the cleanup crew today. I added 2 blue leg hermits, 2 astrea & 1 nassarius snails. They are starting to take care of the diatom bloom that has started taking over. Link to comment
ToeJam Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 Woo hoo, new pictures. I got the Odyssea 24W light I ordered off eBay last night. I have also found a few red feather duster hitchhikers and a little pink sponge. At least I think it is a sponge. I haven't seen anything like it before. It has little sweeper tentacles. I have tried taking pictures of it, but cannot get close enough. I will try again later. I have also decided to convert the HOB filter into a small refugium with some rubble and chaeto. I am planning on mounting the light that came with the tank and running it over the fuge in the off cycle of my main lights. Link to comment
CBlanks Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 That light looks great on the tank. Very nice progress. If you were to get a larger HOB filter you might be able to simply put the heater in there. This would provide extra main tank room and make everything cleaner looking. Have you considered this option? Link to comment
ToeJam Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 That light looks great on the tank. Very nice progress. If you were to get a larger HOB filter you might be able to simply put the heater in there. This would provide extra main tank room and make everything cleaner looking. Have you considered this option? I have thought about that. I haven't decided for sure yet. I don't really mind the heater in the tank. It is really out of the way on the side. If I did go with a larger HOB, I would probably just make the fuge bigger and leave the heater as is. Link to comment
anjay Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 I have thought about that. I haven't decided for sure yet. I don't really mind the heater in the tank. It is really out of the way on the side. If I did go with a larger HOB, I would probably just make the fuge bigger and leave the heater as is. you can get one big enough to hold both the heater and a fuge if you wanted and then reduce the flow..looks nice btw. Link to comment
ToeJam Posted August 1, 2006 Author Share Posted August 1, 2006 Got my float switches in from AquaHub last night. Tonight, I am going to start on my ATO for the tank. I am going to go with UnderTheRadar's battery powered air pump top off system since I already have an air pump sitting around at home. My goal is to get this tank to be as automated as possible. Link to comment
ToeJam Posted August 3, 2006 Author Share Posted August 3, 2006 Built the ATO system last night. I brought it into work with me today and it looks like I mounted the PVC too high on my bracket. The float switch is not sitting deep enough in the water to switch off the pump. Serves me right for putting it together at home. Other than that, the ATO works great. I can manipulate the float switch to turn off the pump correctly. I made a few minor modifications to the design in the link above, mostly to add a snail guard and cap off the top of the tube. I will take pics when all is complete. As far as stocking of the tank goes, I have not added anything more yet. I am not going to be in the office much over the next couple weeks, so I don't want to add anything to the tank until I return. I have someone here who is going to keep an eye on the tank, but I want to get as much as I can automated before I leave. Link to comment
ToeJam Posted August 4, 2006 Author Share Posted August 4, 2006 Here are pics of the ATO: Link to comment
ToeJam Posted September 6, 2006 Author Share Posted September 6, 2006 any updates Quite a few changes, I just haven't had time to get any more pictures up. The ATO system I built has been scrapped for now. It has overflowed the tank 3 times. The float switch works fine when it tops off during the day, but at night it won't switch off when the float rises. I need to do some more testing on it in order to figure out what is going on. As far as inhabitants goes, I have added the following: 3 sexy shrimp small frag of green star polyps small clump of xenia a toadstool leather frag that I took off the parent colony in my 75G at home 1 tiny frogspawn head taken from the parent colony at home a 4 head candy cane coral a rock with some green zoos and a small hydnophora coral I am not sure about the hydno. All of the reading I have done shows that it needs alot of light. It was an impulse buy, but I am not sure if the 24W over this tank is enough. I am going to watch it for a few weeks to see how it does. If it isn't thriving, I will take it home. It was already a little on the brown side when I bought it, so I am not sure how easy it will recover. Another thought is adding another one of the 24W lights, but I am not sure there would be room over the tank. The frogspawn is one of the baby heads growing on my 14 head colony at home. I was able to frag it off without harming the main colony. It seems to be doing well with full polyp extension. The thing is just tiny though. It may be 1/4" across. I will try to get some pictures up soon. I need to bring the camera in to work tomorrow anyways. Link to comment
Cam barr Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 looking forward to seeing pics Link to comment
sandlot13 Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 looks like a great start! I cant wait to see pics! Link to comment
ToeJam Posted September 7, 2006 Author Share Posted September 7, 2006 Here is a new full tank shot. I am getting quite a bit of coraline growth on the rocks and powerhead. It is starting to look like a reef tank . Here is a closer shot of the hydnophora and zoos that came with it. There is a ssexy shrimp on the hydno and there is also one in the background on the powerhead sponge. Here is one of the xenia. I left it isolated in the sand so I can control the growth a little more. Here are the GSP's. They have not fully opened yet, but more are coming out every day. Here is the mini frogspawn. And the candy cane. Link to comment
ToeJam Posted September 7, 2006 Author Share Posted September 7, 2006 I am going to get an AquaClear 70 tonight that I will modify to fit a small airstone skimmer I have had my eye on as well as moving the heater into it. I was thinking about a refugium, but I think I would rather have a small skimmer on the tank. I am also going to rethink the lighting a bit. I can't decide if I want to stick with the light that is on the tank or add a 70W MH. Another option would be to add another 24W light like the one I have on the tank now. There would be room to have 2 strips over the tank which would make it 48W over a 3 gallon tank. At that point I should be able to house just about anything I would want to. Other items in the planning stages are a canopy and an acrylic cover for the tank. The cover is definately needed to cut down on the evaporation. I made a template for the top of the tank and just need to get out the router to make the cuts. I am not sure if I really want a canopy over the tank or not. I kind of like having the open look. I also need to tweak the top off system. For some reason, the switch is not turning the pump off when it rises up to the full level on the switch. It works fine during the day when I am in the office, but sometimes when I come in in the morning the top off bottle is empty and the tank has overflowed a little. I have not been able to reproduce this behavior while I have been at work. It is very frustrating and I have decided to not use the top off until I get it figured out. Anyways, let me know what you think of the tank so far. I am trying to decide what else I want to put in there. Right now, I am thinking about adding some more zoos and maybe a ricordia or 2. Other than that, I am not sure. Link to comment
irishtexan Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 Looking good! The only thing that I would do differently about the xenia is put it on a little bigger rock so that it can grow a little and more full. That is such a little frogspawn! GL! texx Link to comment
ToeJam Posted September 19, 2006 Author Share Posted September 19, 2006 I added a few more things to the tank this week. I have the AquaClear 70 all ready to go with a piccolo skimmer and an area for some chaeto. The heater will also be moving to the AC70 and the powerhead will be removed if there is enough flow. I am waiting on the new impeller for the AC that should be arriving tomorrow. I also ordered a new bulb for the light to replace the crappy one that came with it. Frogspawn: Torch: Lunar Eclipse Zoo: Green & Yellow Zoos: And the full tank shot: Link to comment
ToeJam Posted February 7, 2007 Author Share Posted February 7, 2007 any updates? I just purchased a 70W halide ballast and bulb. Tried to set it up, but I think the bulb is bad. I am going to get a 70W halogen bulb at Home Depot tonight to see if it is in fact the bulb or if the ballast is bad. I will do an update with some new pics then. I am also going to pull the sandbed this weekend. I am getting some red flatworms in the tank, so I am going to up the flow a bit and can't do that with the sand in there. Link to comment
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