NPC in a pico?

[PSHawk]

any recommendations for a 4g pico reef that's just getting started (zero livestock so far). i love the look of Tubastrea and am sure that in such a small environment the target feeding would be a breeze but i am concerned that the food requirements for a npc would quickly pollute the water even with weekly wc's

thoughts?/thanks

 

[clay12340]

You'll definitely have to be diligent about keeping up water quality, but it'd be an interesting project. People do it with dwarf sea horses and constantly feeding baby brine etc, so you might look at the methods they're using. I never tried anything that needed super heavy feedings, but in my little 3 gallon I had to do really large water changes in order to keep it in check. There just isn't much wiggle room and a little algae looks like a lot of algae in that size tank.

I was thinking about a little 1 or 2 gallon and having everything glued or epoxied down, so I could just pick the tank up and dump it then refill for a 100% water change.

 

[noy]

4 gallons is very small and keeping nutrients down will be a challenge. Tubastraea is good choice you will have to feed the coral every other day (give or take). Dendros may be a better choice because they are less "choosy" about when they open. Just keep in mind the frozen food you feed will have a high phosphate content.

One approach is to hook the tank to a sump/canister that will effectively double/triple your water volume.

 

[GoingPostal]

I've got a few colonies of easy nps (balanos, dendros) along with a rhizo and small sun coral frag in a 7.5 gallon. I change out about half the water weekly and it's barebottom. Large polyped nps like that you can spot feed so it's fairly easy to control food input. Anything higher maintenance would be much more difficult in such a tiny amount of water.

 

[Reef Frog]

In a tank that size, a few days forgeting to top it off with RODI water might prove fatal. Installing a traditional ATO or float switch would be difficult without a sump as HOB units in the tank itself would likely not fit & would be unsightly. But if you can identify a stable rate of evaporation, you might be able to replace evaporation with a dosing pump that can put out a precise amount of water per operation. Doable perhaps but you would still need to keep an eye on things.

 

[NowPicoAgain]

One guy, thesmallerthebetter, has 1g dendro and sun corals tank and uses hamster bottle with airline tubing ATO. That is, if you do not remove coral from tank to feed, otherwise changes in water level will cause drastic dulution.