Scuba in a reef nano tank...

[bbianchi]

Mike, reef tanks are why I am a diver today.

I started with a 58 Gallon reef tank, but ended up running out of room. Too many soft/hard corals and fish. I then upgraded to a 180 gallon reef tank and had 1400 watts of light. So much heat came off that id evaporate about 3-4 gallons of water into my house a week AND id struggle to keep the water from going past 80, and was considering a chiller. I had all the fun pieces from the sump, to protein skimmer, UV sterilizer (loved my power blue tang), titanium heater (never used it though), RO system with float to automatically replace evaporated water, power heads everywhere... ugh. Anyway after a few years of that I stopped and said to myself... This things gotta be costing well over 250 a month to keep going. (Not considering the trace elements) Why am I trying to build an ocean in my living room? A few weeks later I sold all the live contents to a former co-worker and tore the system down and later told it all for a measly $600. As you probably know someone got a good deal, and it hurt to do so. Either way its for the better, and now I dive! While its not cheaper its a lot less maintenance and the costs are generally only up front. Plus I can get much closer to the corals and fish now .

Anyway your pico/nano reefs are beautiful and I can only imagine the number of 0's worth of live sand and soft corals you put in there. I do miss my bedside 12 gallon nano cube though. Something about that actinic light when I slept was soothing.

 

[bbianchi]

Robert other possible ways to save:

1. Haircuts only once a month: saves $15 bucks

2. Unleaded gas 87 octane per month: saves $5 bucks

3. BS at the Scuba shop for free air fills: saves $20 bucks

4. Placing dog and cat on cheap brand food: saves $20 bucks

5. Sending out X-mas cards rather than gifts: saves $140 bucks

Now you have enough for the pico....

Lol yea but this only buys the tank... no live sand, no live rock, no soft corals or fish or trace elements, or upgraded lighting, or additional powerheads, or timers, or gah stop me now !!!!!! lol

Sorry there's so damn many pieces that come at you so fast once you get to the ive got water in a tank, now what stage .

 

[mikeguerrero]

mike, how much time does it take to maintain this setup?

Robin,

Honestly, to keep this 1 gallon pico, hardly nothing. Let me explain five factors that take place in a reef tank.

1. Temp
2. PH
3. Lighting
4. Filtration
5. Salinity

In a large reef tank a hobbyist has margin for error, if one parameter is shifting he has time to correct it before he wipes out his reef.

In a nano tank if the tank lost a value the whole ecosystem parishes.

Robin, I have tested and evaluated all the 5 elements to keeping a successful pico. Just follow the basic 5 steps:

Temp needs to stay between 75F degrees to 85F, this has been achieved without the need for an expensive chiller on such a small tank by the introduction of a $15 dollar digital timer.

The timer is programmed to run your tank for a period of 4 hours twice in a given day: mine turns on at 7am and shuts off 11am, the time I'm getting ready to go to work. Once I leave my tank shuts off and doesn't come back on until 10pm of which I arrive at 11pm, by 2am it turns off when I go to bed. (Can be set to turn on/off during your times of being home)

This fluctuation of controlled 4 hour intervals keeps your tank at the constant room temperature without a need of a chiller; element one solved.

PH should be at 8.3 which is typical of a healthy salt water reef, because I use a thick sand bottom it helps buffer and keep this PH. I ship out my nano with 5lbs of live sand.

Lighting, there is a formula in reefing to how much watt you need per gallon, again since you are dealing with such a small volume of water, the 18 watts that I ship out my pico is more than enough to sustain the life you see in the tank, mostly softies with some Yuma's and Ricordeas, no SPS corals of any kind.

Filtration is critical in such a small tank and once again the Aqua Clear filtration is rated for 5-20 gallons of water and we are using it on a 1 gallon tank. It therefore doesn't place a stain on the filter for such a small volume tank. Once every 2 months you remove the foam filter and rinse it in purified water to remove trapped inorganics. There is also a small package of chemipure that you drop in that last 4 months and doesn't need to be replaced like regular charcoal. (Expensive filters and protein skimmers are for high volume fish, this is not the case with a pico)

Salinity is key to the success of inverts as they need nutrients mainly calcium from the water. When you purchase pre-made salt water it's already at the right salinity, 1.023. Your pico will maintain this value as long as when your tank evaporates you replenish it with bottled filtered water, not ocean water. You can change out half the water once every 2 months which will take you less than 5 minutes to do.

What evaporates from your tank is fresh water not salt, so if you add ocean water to your tank, you will drive up your salinity and kill your ecosystem.

So in reality the only upkeeping you do Robin is add any evaporated water once a week, which is less than watering a plant in the house, since the tank is so small and has a glass top to keep the evaporation slow.

Now if you add one goby to your tank you need to feed it once every four days if that, and we are talking about small dosage.

Lastly there are supplements that I add to the tank once a week, they are three drops of Calcium and Iodine, which replenish the minerals the small zoos and corals take up. This is less work than putting on contact lens everyday.

Robin, this system has been created to sustain itself with the least possible amount of human intereference, it's when you change up your reef by adding new fish or corals that you can cause a catastrophic event by introducing a parasite or a swing in another value that crashes a reef, just ask any other experienced reefer and they will agree with me.

I have taken years of time researching the proper care for a pico, and is one of the reasons I promote the pico to novice to intermediate new hobbyist that love the ocean.

MG

 

[mikeguerrero]

Lol yea but this only buys the tank... no live sand, no live rock, no soft corals or fish or trace elements, or upgraded lighting, or additional powerheads, or timers, or gah stop me now !!!!!! lol

Sorry there's so damn many pieces that come at you so fast once you get to the ive got water in a tank, now what stage .

Brandon,

I have marketed this pico to be at your house for $199 and that includes live sand and premium live rock with tons of purple macro algae.

You add the salt water and turn it on; corals and softies are on the user to purchase on their own, each frag is $10 dollars per piece.

I don't supply the corals as I am not a distributor for live animals or corals.

So from the pic you get it all; filter, light, additives etc, you add water and walk away.

Come on Brandon let me put this pico in your room so you can have the actinic back in place where it belongs... The pico has two 9 watt bulbs, one is 03 actinic light while the other is 10,000k daylight...

 

[Tigerman]

is that $199 worldwide?

 

[mikeguerrero]

is that $199 worldwide?

Yes it's $199 worldwide, but I don't include shipping...

MG

 

[Jim Ernst]

The Catalina goby will live as long as I keep the temps up to 77 degrees... I've been a avid reefer for over 20 years and have taken first prize on many events world wide... I do know which species are adaptable to the reefing world, but I do thank you for making other non experienced reefers aware of such facts...

One of my tanks the Pico, took first prize for tank of the summer 2005... It was this tank that was featured in a European Reef Magazine...

Here is the picture of my tank that took first prize...

Mike!!!

That is awesome!!!

I would love to learn to do that!!!

 

[saf1]

Hi Mike. I think you misunderstood me or I wasn't clear. I'm not on the board to defend or let alone correct someone. Trust me. I'm not a fan in reference to the Catalina Goby due to its temp and food requirements. Its why I said you mentioned your exp and therefore already know the baggage these animals carry, etc. Sorry if you took it that way or I lead you to believe that.

Yeah - not everyone has a main display tank. Its a good point. But hey - if you can pillage from a friends that also works A nano or small cube doesn't need much

My last display tank was a 100 gallon set up like a shallow reef and lagoon. I only had two corals outside of the live rock and sand bed. Elegance and a frogspawn. I'm not sure I'd ever own a frogspawn again because it grew like a weed and I was constantly giving large chunks of it away.

I think its a great hobby if you have the time and patience. Expensive if not done correctly - thus the need / capacity to wait

 

[mikeguerrero]

Hi Mike. I think you misunderstood me or I wasn't clear. I'm not on the board to defend or let alone correct someone. Trust me. I'm not a fan in reference to the Catalina Goby due to its temp and food requirements. Its why I said you mentioned your exp and therefore already know the baggage these animals carry, etc. Sorry if you took it that way or I lead you to believe that.

Yeah - not everyone has a main display tank. Its a good point. But hey - if you can pillage from a friends that also works A nano or small cube doesn't need much

My last display tank was a 100 gallon set up like a shallow reef and lagoon. I only had two corals outside of the live rock and sand bed. Elegance and a frogspawn. I'm not sure I'd ever own a frogspawn again because it grew like a weed and I was constantly giving large chunks of it away.

I think its a great hobby if you have the time and patience. Expensive if not done correctly - thus the need / capacity to wait

Ah,

Didn't read your post correctly, very hard to decipher internet post sometimes..

Nice that you maintained a 100 gallon reef, but odd that you had the elusive elegance coral in your reef. I say elusive because in the late 80's and early 90's this coral was a very hardy and popular choice for beginner to intermediate.

But as the hobby grew in 00's something changed with the Elegance. They entered the states with a rare but fatal disease that bloated them up and killed them.

Hobbyist tried everything to keep them from dying with no such luck. Marine biologist Eric Boreman did a massive study to figure out what was happening. He had hobbyist ship them the dead corals for study.

Eric asked all hobbyist to boycott the purchase of these magnificant corals until research was complete, the supplier of these corals kept pushing them since the demand was there.

I hope you got your elegance before the disease epidemic hit.

MG

 

[saf1]

Yeah - Elegance corals are not as easy as some people lead you to believe. Before I dove into the hobby I was lead to believe the coral was a good beginners. Thus my first purchase. I blame Mr. Sprung It was his books that got me into the hobby.

Honeslty though - I was lucky I guess. I meet a fellow from U.C. Davis who was doing some marine biology work there. Most or a lot of the stuff was from around Montery - the stars, some octipi, etc. He gave me some really good advise, same with Mr. Bob Fenner.

Keep a open tank. Try and put the Elegence on the sand bed. Cup opening facing water current. Rock work on one side, sandy open area on other side. Lagoons typically have dirtier water than say spf reefs. Lighting does not have to be crazy high (I use 2x175W MH and 2x72" SVHO super acintics). Keep fish that won't nip it. Feed it directly and also let stuff drift to it. I feed mine silver sides cut up.

Only coral I kept was the elegance and frogspawn in this tank. Also some orange button polyps that hitch hiked on my rocks. Live rock, 8" live sand bed. I used 280 lbs of Southdown Sand. Cycled with sardines, then live rock cycled, then picked up some stuff from IPSF to finish it off. Then moved in the corals, and fish.

Fish included: Kole tang, copper band butterfly (I know...), 4 anthais bartlets, and a mated pair of true percs. Cleaner shrimp x 2, assorted snails.

The elegance did start to give me trouble but I ended up turning off my skimmer and it went super crazy thereafter. I mean everything did once it was shut down. Had to litterly frag the frogspawn monthly and give it away to exotic aquarium here in town. I'd say purchase date the elegance had a 4" cup size fully opened. One side of his skeleton was dead. During the 5 or 6 years I owned it and after turning off the skimmer, I'd say his cup size grew to almost 10" across. Not only the one cup but the skeleton / body also grew to support 3 cups if you will. Hard to describe, but it grew winder the body and the cup sort of expanded. 4 mouths from the 1 it game with.

99 through '05 was rock solid. Tank crashed while I was on vacation and lost everything live (fish, coral). Failed due to water top off getting stuck and evaporation. Sump got dry, pump stopped working, no water circulation - you can guess from there. My fault for not having someone check up on it while I was away. Anyway - cleaned it up, removed junk, recycled the tank left rocks and sand in place (sand still had life), and its up and running again but only with the rocks, sand, and a few fish until I figure out what I want to do next.

Dunno really. After talking to those two I just sort of plan what fish I'm after, what coral, then try and build a system around it. The way they explained it to me it made sense so I tried it. I also think it is just luck and care maybe.

Anyway - yeah. Could have been pot calling kettle black for sure