1.77 gal pico log

u r welcome! if an RO kit is out or your price range (like me), I would go with distilled from a good company....Sparkletts as opposed to 99c store. I have had inconsistent experiences with RO machines outside supermarkets (like Glacier) and cheap distilled...apparently there is more than one type of distilled water. Algea is going to be your worst enemy and your nutrient levels are going to be a little higher (even without fish) since your water volume vs live rock/sand inhabitants that create that biological equilibrium will more often be in flux. This creates the perfect environment for algea. A Brita won't remove the phosphates and silicates from which algea feed. With a pico, since hands are so big compared to the water volume, and because the rock is often so close to the glass, it is more difficult to keep the glass clean if an algea break out starts (acrylic is even more difficult)...my magnet scrapers can't fit in most of my tank since the rock is about 1/2 inches from the glass in places. Preventing bad algea from the start with home RO or "trusted" distilled will really help
 
Just use Distilled water from the store.

You gotta remember this is a 1.6 gallon tank. Top-off is barely anything. Even filling it the first time is nothing. This hex cost me about 45 bux to get running.

Light Bulb - $12.50
AC20 Filter - $15.00
Rock - $10.00
Sand - $5.00
Finnex 25w Heater - $15.00
Coralife Thermometer - $10
Total - Just under $70

The rock I bought at the LFS had a ricordea, and red shroom on it. I bought the kenya for $5 added the cleaner shrimp $12, and the clean-up crew the LFS wouldnt charge me cus they were too lazy to get up and use the register.

That's it.

Buy a nimble nano to clean the acrylic. That crushed coral sucks for substrate, use some argonite. I used cured rock and sand and never had a cycle. Algae also never appeared, and i mean never. No algae at all in this tank. I believe this is due to using distilled water which is even cleaner then RODI water.




With just shrooms and zoos and the like in the tank, there is barely any maintenace. Water change is only a cup..haha. And besides that I barely ever touched the thing.
 
Also DSB's dont work in tiny tanks, so I would go with about an inch of argonite. With more than an inch of Crushed coral your just asking for problems in the future.

SSB of fiji argo is cheap, natural looking, and safe.
 
AAAhhh if i change now that will be the third substrate in a week haha!! We'll see. Redid the rock to have a better cave and hide the power head and filter a little bit. Thats the smallest wisper on the market. I've heard that regular filters are nitrate factories in saltwater; would frequent media changes remedy this? Heres the pics.

Aquarium031.jpg

Aquarium032.jpg

Aquarium033.jpg
 
late night veiwing revealed a pod racing around the big rock on the right and something that looks like a polyp (i wish it were but i doubt it) waving on the back of the same rock. Ill try to get pics so you veterans can ID them for me.
 
got home from a weekend in Michigan to find warm tanks but i have fans going to cool them slowly and everyone looks ok. Lesson learned. My pico seems to have cycled, showing low nitrate and no nitrite but i will give it another few days to be sure. I'll update with pics when i finally get some living things! Oh and grewat news! One of my good freinds is starting a large tank in FL where he goes to school and he has a brother in law in the hobby who is helping him out. He is going to send me some small frags when im ready for them!
 
Just a thought, but Cleveland has a good club, why not just ask someone in the club for some RO/DI water? A gallon or two would easily last you a month, and you would know that you were using good clean water.
 
or spend 0.99 for distilled water. You guys are talking about how to top off a 1.6 gallon tank... HAHA who cares, go to the store and get a gallon of distilled it will cost you $12 a year to fill it.

As for the power filter being a nitrate factory. That's totally untrue. Besides the fact that you probably shouldn't even use any media in a tank so small. I filled it with some floss just to mechanically remove particulates from the water. And occasionally used some carbon.
 
I wonder how pure distilled water really is? I know that RODI water will leach things out of plastic containers over a period of time, I wonder of this it true of distilled water. Perhaps it is typically fresh enough that it is still totally pure when you buy it, I just don't know. Maybe I'll spend an extra $0.99 and get a jug tonight and check the TDS on it. I know that RODI water that tests at 0 when it's made can get up in the teens over a period of a month.
 
I've tested both distilled water from my RODI at home, and the distilled I use where ive been staying for the past year. Both have always been 0 TDS.
 
The RO unit at my local grocery store usually tests around 4. I'm calling that close enough until I can get my RODI plumbed. I just moved and now it will have to be setup very differently. I think my DI resin might need changed though, because it typically tested around 3 before I moved. For now I use $0.33/gallon RO water with a TDS of 4, no problems yet. Though I must admit, I'm curious what those 4 little particles are that are running around my tank.

I guess the moral of the story is: anything is better than tap water.
 
Hmm... grocery store RO is up to 6 on the TDS meter. I forgot to get the distilled water so I could test it. Still a lot better than the 160 coming out of the tap.

It does point out something important about using grocery store RO; make sure you test the TDS before using. They are not concerned about it being perfectly pure and it will vary, depending on how long it's been since they changed their RO membranes. I'm topping off about a gallon a day, so my weekly savings is a whopping $4.66. I'm also adding 4-6 ppm of unknown stuff with each gallon. It might be worth the peace of mind to just use distilled, especially for such a small tank.
 
4-6 ppm for a RO-only unit isn't bad. Membranes usually have about a 95-99% rejection rate depending on how good it is. From 160 to 6 is 96% rejection. It's the DI that you need to get the TDS down to zero.

Distilled should read 0 TDS. I don't know about the leeching from the bottle, but I'd imagine it wouldn't affect the TDS.
 
I wasn't talking about a filter at a store. I'm talking about bottled distilled water. You pay .99 for a brand name, or .79 for store brand (cvs, publix, walgreens, w/e)... i've never tested any solids in either.

Distilled is not the same as RO/DI.
 
Distilled is not the same as RO/DI as far as the process goes, but ideally both result in the same pure dihydrogen oxide.

I know from experience that pure water will pull stuff effecting the TDS from most plastic storage containers, it's just a matter of time. Food grade plastics take longer and thus are the recommended water storage tanks. My guess is that a bottle of distilled that has sat on the shelves for a year would have a measurable amount of TDS, but I don't know what the leaching rate is of food grade plastics.

Maybe someone with too much time on their hands can buy twelve bottles of distilled water and open one each month to measure the TDS and chart the leaching rate. I don't have that kind of time, nor the desire.

Anyhow, for the purpose of this thread, one gallon jugs of distilled water would likely be the best solution.
 
Hmm, I may be able to help test that. I know that at my parents house there is distilled water in the garage that was saved there since last hurricane season. So its about a year old this month. Let me see if I can swing by there with the TDS meter and see if I can pick up and dissolved solids in the water. I didnt know plastic could leech like that.
 
update

update

I think i am going to go with grocery store RO water. It looks like i may be getting some free frags so i decided i t was necesary. I beleive the cycle is over with low nitrate and 9 nitrite when i tested. I got a digital thermometer and it has hovered at 75 thanks to teh new fan i put in to cool the light. I run the fan from a 9volt battery or a 4.5 volt power source. The fan has l.e.d lights in it so as long as the overnight temp isnt to low i'll use them as moonlights. Here are the pics.

Aquarium034.jpg

i cut away a cm off the back of the lid to accomedate cords and tubing using a heated butterknife.

Aquarium035.jpg

the new fan with vent carved with butterknife

Aquarium036.jpg

new digital temp

Aquarium037.jpg

fan from the inside

Aquarium040.jpg

the fan l.e.d as moonlight

PLanning a water change tomorrow with RO, and im getting a first inhabitant, probably a snail and a hermit
 
If you have any nitrite your cycle is not complete. That's not a guarantee that anything put in there will die, but you will be taking a chance. Your nitrites will go to 0 when the cycle is totally complete. Other than that everything looks good.
 
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