4 gallon pico thread

[asylumdown]

Also, ammonia and nitrite today were still undetectable.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm doing this to show with tests that doing a 100% water change, when done right, isn't dangerous to a system in terms of any of the metrics of "reef health" that we typically measure. I still see a lot of advice out there saying that it's dangerous to do it, but my hypothesis is that for the vast majority of animals out there, even a pretty significant sudden change in parameters like alk and calcium can be easily mitigated and adapted to by the organism.

The trouble is simply that putting that information out there and a newbie reads it and starts doing 100% waterchanges "the wrong way" and now he crashed his tank. It's not that it can't be done, it's just that some care needs to be taken. Or even a tank that is used to 10% waterchanges for the last 5 years suddenly gets a 100% waterchange is not likely to go over unnoticed by the corals.

Also, it would be very difficult for you to be able to compare say 50% waterchanges which may show improved color, growth, etc. There is something to be said about disturbing corals and especially exposing them to air (no matter how brief). Generally, corals do prefer not to be disturbed or exposed to air. Another point is that I wouldn't be treating an SPS tank like this. LPS and softies are much more tolerant. Even small alkalinity spikes for SPS can cause severe damage. Some SPS are very sensitive, some are generally quite tough (like Montis for example).

It's working for you and your particular tank and corals though, so that's what matters.

[asylumdown]

Well between in-laws birthdays, landscaping, and work, I've sucked at posting, but I have been testing:

Saturday: ammonia 0, nitrie zero
Sunday: (we went to Edmonton for a day so I technically didn't test until early Monday morning) ammonia 0, nitrite 0
Monday: ammonia 0, nitrite 0
Tuesday: ammonia 0, nitrite 0 - I should note, by yesterday the glass had a thick film, it normally doesn't get this for a week after a water change, so the early feeding definitely has been processed in to algae food.
Wednesday: ammonia 0, nitrite 0.

I have to go out of town tomorrow and Friday, but I'm not expecting to see any ammonia. I'm still gonna feed tonight and test when I'm home late Friday night. Corals haven't looked any different so I haven't taken any pictures

[asylumdown]

Just thought I'd update this thread. I ended up breaking this tank down a couple of weeks ago and moved all the corals in to my big tank. There was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was thriving in spite of my neglect, but I'm at a stage in my education where I barely have time to eat every day, let alone take care of two tanks. My big tank is suffering, and rather than weekly water changes, my little tank was getting at best monthly water changes, and at worst bi-monthly water changes. I didn't even have enough time to magnet the glass so it looked like crap more than often than it didn't

I'm keeping all the equipment though so perhaps one day my pico will rise again!

[fragbox.ca]

: (
it had a good run though!

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by fragbox.ca

: (
it had a good run though!

it's sitting in my garage with all the equipment, so I'm sure it will rise again! Part of the problem was that I made it too easy to run - with the modified tunze osmolator I never had to to top it off, and it's 2 gallon top off bucket would last for months. Since I also didn't *have* to feed it, it was really easy to say 'oh, I'll deal with it later'.

It was the most tricked out desktop pico I've ever seen though.

[asylumdown]

The pico tank lives again!

I couldn't sell it for anywhere close to what I think it's worth, and yesterday I as at Eli's picking some stuff up and he had this wickedly cool, 1 inch long mantis shrimp sitting in a plastic dish that had hitchhiked in on some of his rock. I thought to myself "wow, I've always wanted one of those but never had a tank for one". Then it dawned on me that I did in fact have a tank appropriate for a tiny mantis shrimp, complete and ready to go, requiring zero dollars to set up, sitting in my garage.

Lo and behold, it's back up.

Water quality for the next little bit is going to be tricky as I threw out the the old rock structure (wouldn't have reused it uncured anyway, too much dead stuff on it) so I made a new rock structure out of some of the last of my unused marco rock from when I first set up the big tank. I moved some of the corals that had previously been in the pico that were doing terribly in the big tank because the lights are too bright/white back over and hopefully lots of nitrifying bacteria with them, but I think I'm going to be doing lots of water changes and dosing with Prime for the next couple of weeks.

I'm thinking instead of doing full water changes on the pico for the next couple of weeks, I might just exchange it's water for the water in the big tank. The big tank could process even toxic levels of ammonia in a 4 gallon pico without so much as registering its presence on a test, and I've got the big tank back to low nutrient status so hopefully that won't encourage algae. I got rid of the bin that I stored ready made salt water for the pico when I shut it down, and I think having to do completely separate and dedicated pico water changes was one of the reasons why I fell so far behind on maintenance that I shut it down, so going forward, so long as the big tank stays in this low nutrient state and I keep running carbon to deal with organics that build up between water changes, I might just divert some of the discard water from my big tank water changes and use that for my pico water changes. It will mean that certain trace elements like strontium will likely be depleted in the pico, but I'm only growing a few LPS specimens in it now.

Enough talk, pics!



He's too small to tell if he's a spearer or a smasher. In sunlight he's got some really beautiful pink and green to his tail fins and face area, but unfortunately under the light of my Kessil a150 he washes out to a dark brown/black He's dug a tunnel (which makes me think he's a spearer, as I've read smashers usually carve a burrow right out of rock) with a primary opening front and centre of the tank


It's going to take a while before the corals that are in here recover from being in the big tank. The brains are bleached to within an inch of their life (thought this pic makes them look better than they are) and that tiny blast frag was so deep in a shaded overhang it's actually been shrinking.

I'm going to keep it simple with the corals this time and hopefully let the 4 that are in there just get really big. I might transplant a single polyp of one of my zoanthid colonies for good measure.

[FishyFishy!]

Very cool adam! That will be a neat little home for the little guy.

[asylumdown]

After getting bleached half to death by my radions, my favourite trachyphyllia is making a comeback. Since iPhones can't take photos of LED lit tanks to save their life, I adjusted this in photoshop with the screen right next to the pico tank so I could be sure I adjusted the levels to make the trachy look exactly as it does in real life in the picture. I'm hoping it doesn't darken too much more under the kessil because it's spectacular now.



and to think, when I got it, it looked like this:

[Ranchu50]

Fun reading your pico thread.

I have a 4 gallon aqueon evolve aio that is sitting in my garage. You might motivate me to set it up!