FTS

looks pretty good for such a tiny space!

i'd say you have a beautiful little tank there! i love the variety of color!

Great use of space!

Very cool!

Give me some details... gallons, species of coral, price total, everything!

Thanks y'all.

dogsrule19341 my thread is here http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=250755

It is a 3 gallon picotope tank. I dont have a current list of the corals I have in it. It would be considered a mix reef. Here is an abridged list of what I have in there

-several types of zoa's (only know one of them by name tub's blue, not to crazy about the names of zoa's)

- several types of mushrooms

- cloves scattered (palm cloves, and blue cloves)

- kryptonite candy cane coral

- 3 types of GSP

- Sarconephthya (non-photsynthetic and hard to keep, was pretty much given to me by the LFS for really cheap because it was in bad shape)

- Sun coral (very special care in a pico because of its need to eat a lot)

- Yellow Polyps, green polyps

- A doughnut coral (an abandoned coral from a LFS, recovering)

- Red Blasto's

- Coco worm

- Hawaiian feather duster

- Medium green feather duster

- 2 sexy shrimps

- 1 emerald crab in the refugium

- several snails

- kenya tree

Everything else you can find in the thread. Any other questions or comment just shoot me a message on my thread.

sick

Thats potentially tank of the month material I need to read more about your care approach. Thats the highest bioload demand in feeding Ive seen in a while, it is truly sharp looking though. You can tell alot about the age of the tank by looking for coralline in the cracks and crevices of the glass and in between coral frags, you can tell the base ecosystem is still maturing it will be solid purple in between coral frags when complete I w subscribe to that thread in favs to keep up, really its sharp.

you have large sabellid worms in the upper left that rarely keep up in large tanks, but keep up in all tanks for three months.

You have notable lps and nps colonies, the tubastreans alone need one mysis per polyp near daily to make a year's journey and not recede. In 5 months they will show if the feeding is working...If that was my tank Id slosh in an unbelievable amount of mixed frozen feed and let it swirl three hours then do a water change of 100%, once a week. Thats the only possible way of sustaining that exact coral load for more than a year without an algae crash. If all those animals can make it past a year, and I believe they can with diligence, it has to be the baddest 3 gallon Ive seen in a long time

Thanks brandon.

The tubastreans is the only coral that gets "crazy special" treatment. I take it out and put it in a bowl for about 45 minutes to an hour, and feed it a mixture of phyto, cyclopeeze, roti-feast, and mysis every other day. Even though it has been a short period of time I have had it, it has increased its number of heads and also has increased its mat size. The colony I have would otherwise be impossible to keep because it has about 80-90 heads.It is a beautiful coral but don't know how long I will be able to keep up with the feeding.

I believe the upper left hand corner thing that you are talking about is a doughnut coral that is in recovery, a LFS was about to throw it away. It is looking a lot better and accepting a few mysis every day.

I actually have a sabellid worm, and a protula worm in the tank one in each back lower corner of the tank. Im trying to balance the phyto/roti dosing I do to the tank which is mainly for the sarconephthya (also all the other corals benefit, it is a slow release method). Both have been in there a month. The Sabellid seems tougher to please (might need to increase the amount of dosing or begin spot feeding it more often), the protula is happy as a clam (regenerating strands of feathers it didn't have when I bought it.)

You correct about the water change. I do about 8-13% water change every day (roughly 100% a week), which I think is the only way to run this tank. I hope it matures nicely.

Big fan of the little tank/heavy bio load WHEN it is cared for properly like you are obviously doing. Great job. My friends with big tanks always give me a hard time for going nano but how can I explain what they can't understand? Your tank pretty much sums it up

Thats so well planned. I had incorrectly assumed you were treating this tank in the normal methods. Taking time to remove the colony and feed in another container is outside the box thinking literally, I do believe that will work Im really impressed.

Never met anyone willing to do such work in water changes, you have all bases covered wow, seriously.

What a great example of doing what it takes to make a reef work longterm I must go update my friend K who is equally impressed by your tank!

brandon429 the only reason I enjoy doing water changes is because the tank is on top of the kitchen/living room counter about a foot away from the sink. I do the water change once Im done doing the dishes, takes no more than 5 minutes.

Love it