Office Tank on a Whim - 3gal Picotope

emkelly09 said:
Awesome tank! I think we have twin tanks. I am purchasing a small shrimp this weekend (not sure what kind yet). Have a small maroon and a small frag of xenia as well! How is everything doing in yours?
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Well the clown and xenia are doing well so far, but you can't really call it success for a few months IMO. Fireshrimp only lasted a couple of days, but I blame that on 5 hitchhiker hermits that were starved for a week.

john miller said:
Upper left and right corners, palm trees. Which are awesome BTW.
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LOL, you got it!! I thought I would be ****ed the first time someone messed with the tank, but I actually liked the way it looked so left them there.

I have been using a pair of chopsticks to move things in the tank, someone decided to come in and play "catch the clownfish" with them as the 2nd tank prank, I didn't take that one as lightly...
 
I am totally paranoid about my students sticking things in my classroom tank. I guess some people never grow up. I bought a tool box alarm for my canopy lid...maybe you need a motion detecting alarm/warning.

"BACK AWAY FROM THE FISH TANK!! "

The toolbox alarm comes with a cool remote for arming and disarming. Cool move deactivating the alarm from across the room when someone gets to close.

sent from Tapatalk using SwiftKey... if the spelling seems weird, it is the phone's fault.
 
If I had a tank on my desk; I wouldn't be able to get any work done. Oh wait, I should get back to work.
 
john miller said:
A well placed throat punch would stop all that nonsense.

or for the non-violent type
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Funny-Fish-Tank-Aquarium-Warning-Stickers-set-6-/300601329886
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LOL, that could also be a serious CLM (career limiting maneuver).

The clown died today due to what I suspect was brook, but maybe velvet since the period from onset to death was so quick. So the tank is back down to a couple of hermits, and will stay that way for a while to let whatever that was die off. Already have a tiny maroon in QT and 3 sexies on order to QT as well.

Xenia is doing good though! It has some serious PE now! Going to try to frag off some GSP from the big tank at some point this week, that will be a nice addition.
 
Have you tested the water? Its only been 2-3 weeks since you started it up to having a fish and fire shrimp in there. The tank may be still cycling and the spike could have killed him.
 
john miller said:
Here is a clown with Brook:
http://s746.photobucket.com/albums/xx106/jmillers62/nano cube/?action=view&current=DSCN3412.jpg
If you think that's what it died from then the tank needs to stay fallow for 8 weeks. It has a similar life cycle to ICK.

Sorry about your clown but I hear coral and invert tanks are all the rage these days. Had one myself not long ago.
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It didn't have that much slime. It looked fine yesterday, I came in this morning and it was hiding and had a slime coat. By noon the slime coat was gone but it could barely swim and was breathing very fast. By 3 it was dead. Probably smartest to keep it inverts only for now... The 3 sexy shrimp should be pretty cool to look at, and I'll frag out some more corals from the big tank.

Drag Racer said:
Have you tested the water? Its only been 2-3 weeks since you started it up to having a fish and fire shrimp in there. The tank may be still cycling and the spike could have killed him.
Click to expand...

The rock and sand were taken from a well established system, I have been monitoring all levels every day and there haven't been any spikes. IME corals are MUCH more sensitive to change then fish or inverts, and the xenia in this tank is doing well.

I think I just got a sick clown, almost the entire rest of this order at the LFS is broken out in ich :( This one came straight out of the shipment box and was never in the LFS tanks, so it looks like a possibly bad shipment from the distributor. Lesson learned, back to the QT process I use for the big tank!
 
So the tank generally just looks like crap now, despite constant testing of 0 on organics I got the diatom bloom so assume the cycle is now done. Sexies will go in whenever my LFS can get some then another clown at some point.
 
ange062 said:
It didn't have that much slime. It looked fine yesterday, I came in this morning and it was hiding and had a slime coat. By noon the slime coat was gone but it could barely swim and was breathing very fast.
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That really sounds like what happened to mine.
 
So the new LFS mentioned in my other thread has now got me wanting a bunch of new adds for this tank!

A wild assortment of zoas, plus a yasha goby and pistol pair.

Only fear with the pistol is that the noise would bother me after hearing a few in an acclimation tank the other day. Maybe Ill just do the yasha and a few sexies.
 
Man, my 28 JBJ PC isn't even set up yet and this is making me want to start in on a pico! :D love that build thread of yours btw, I've been itching to have a clam, and I now might just have to try it. Any particular reason you went with a JBJ pico rather than a solana 5.5 gallon PICO?

John
 
IndexKey said:
Man, my 28 JBJ PC isn't even set up yet and this is making me want to start in on a pico! :D love that build thread of yours btw, I've been itching to have a clam, and I now might just have to try it. Any particular reason you went with a JBJ pico rather than a solana 5.5 gallon PICO?

John
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If you are already setting up one you might as well do two! :-)

I honestly didn't put much thought into the tank, my LFS had the JBJ and I just bought it on a whim one afternoon... :-)
 
Nautifishy said:
Looks awesome!!!
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Thanks! Well it was looking OK before everything died in it... :(

Still trying to figure out stocking plans and work up the nerve to actually add something. Water tests came back perfect yesterday, so I should be at least halfway inclined to try something, but then again water specs were perfect the first time around...

One of these days or weeks I might try again, until then it is just a hermit and xenia paradise :)
 
No major updates with the tank. Still haven't put a new fish in it because I am a little afraid there may still be parasites from the first clown that died. Water parms are all still looking good, and I have been doing WC's and filter cleans a little more than once a week. I have also added some fresh carbon, GFO, and Purigen to a filter bag and removed the stock "biofilter" pad. I really don't have much room in the HOB so I may upgrade to an AC30 soon.

The xenia and caulerpa both are in a slow and steady decline. I just don't think the stock 9w light is enough to grow anything, so I haven't added any zoa's yet. I was originally thinking of adding a PAR38 bulb, but I just don't think it would give me enough coverage if mounted in the space I have above the tank. So I am now thinking of adding an Ecoxotic Panorama Pro 12k/445nm strip on a custom made carbon fiber mount. That should give me enough coverage and more than enough power, while still looking sleek.

Latest FTS:
IMAG0749.jpg
 
I bet your coral decline in this tank is more to do with temp swings than it is with that light. 9 watt pc 2 to 3 inches away from one another is going to give you plenty of light for xenia. What is leading me to think this has more to do with the macro. I have grown Caulerpa Mexicana and other fern type macros under way less lighting then what you’re using. But I have lost both to temp problems, which is normal problem with such a small biotope such as yours. I would like to see what a digital thermometer would graph out over a 24 hour period.

To fix this issue I would find the max temp the tank gets (as long as it’s ≤ 81º) and set a small heater to hold this temp. That should kill the temp swings. Now you also have to remember on such a small system when you do water changes you’re changing the chemistry vary dramatically. This will also stress your coral. So keep up the changes but be aware that you may be adding undue stress to the coral. Try some other lower light corals like brown/green palys and or star plops. I hope to see this tank take off I love blowing the minds of people who’ve never had a reef, and yours is in a high vis area for just that.
 
TundraGuy said:
I bet your coral decline in this tank is more to do with temp swings than it is with that light. 9 watt pc 2 to 3 inches away from one another is going to give you plenty of light for xenia. What is leading me to think this has more to do with the macro. I have grown Caulerpa Mexicana and other fern type macros under way less lighting then what you're using. But I have lost both to temp problems, which is normal problem with such a small biotope such as yours. I would like to see what a digital thermometer would graph out over a 24 hour period.

To fix this issue I would find the max temp the tank gets (as long as it's ≤ 81º) and set a small heater to hold this temp. That should kill the temp swings. Now you also have to remember on such a small system when you do water changes you're changing the chemistry vary dramatically. This will also stress your coral. So keep up the changes but be aware that you may be adding undue stress to the coral. Try some other lower light corals like brown/green palys and or star plops. I hope to see this tank take off I love blowing the minds of people who've never had a reef, and yours is in a high vis area for just that.
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Thanks for the feedback! I am not sure I agree though. My office is in a production facility that runs 24/7-365 and must remain at a constant temp so there is never any fluctuation in the office temp. The light doesn't heat the water much so I find the tank consistently stays around 75 +/-1. I have some temp datalogging equipment here though, I am going to try to setup an ambient vs. tank temp experiment to see what it looks like so we can have a definitive answer.

This particular xenia was fragged out of my big tank, where it lives happily and LOVES the higher light areas (and always crawls to the highest light area possible). The caulerpa also came from my big tank, where it is dying off since addition of a GFO reactor. So, my thoughts are xenia isn't getting enough light and macro doesn't have enough phosphates since there is no bioload or any phosphate adders to this tank. The GSP's in the big tank are due for a frag though, so I am going to give them a shot in this tank and see what happens.

As far as tank chemistry, I understand it's a delicate balance in a 3g, but I always use the same salt at the same salinity for water changes, so I don't think that should be an issue.

And agree with you on showing non-reefers how cool it can be! Really look forward to getting this tank into shape!! :)
 
I found a thread on my local reef club forum about an awesome Picotope build, and I think I am going to steal a lot of his ideas! :)

I am planning to order an AC70 and InTank media basket for it. That will be used in conjunction with an overflow box to solve the surface scum problem. The lid will keep evap down to keep the tank more stable.

Lid:
P1000826.jpg


Overflow:
P1000911.jpg


That should really help to keep the tank cleaner. Then I just have to figure out a more powerful light. Still leaning towards the Ecoxotic Panorama Pro due to the simplicity.
 
Just ordered an AC70, overflow box, lid, and Ecoxotic Panorama Pro LED. This tank should be shaping up soon!
 
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