My new 3 gallon Picotope

[Bunnylicked]

A few days ago I ordered a 3 gallon Picotope (plus equipment and testing supplies) from Doctors Foster & Smith Aquatics. I felt like a kid on Christmas when I got them in the mail today. I'm planning for this to be a soft coral, mushroom and zoanthid reef with a yellow clown goby and various invertebrates.

At the moment I have fresh tap water running through it so that I can make sure everything's working. I'll probably be picking up some RO/DI water, live rock and live sand tomorrow.

Here's some pictures:

[IMG]http://i56.*******.com/290ykoy.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i54.*******.com/6zn87c.jpg[/IMG]

Can't wait to get some life in there! It looks so sterile right now.

[Coastie5685]

sweet deal. research a lot on these little tanks and look at some others pico reefs. some have done an amazing job making these little things work.

id go with maybe one nice porous piece of dry rock. LEDs.

[Beaun]

I have the same tank, I put a par30 over top and a modded AC50 for a filter. It's a nice little size.

[Bunnylicked]

Yeah, I'll probably upgrade to LEDs after a few months.

Everything's going great so far. The 15w heater seems to only be heating the water to about 72.5 F, but I'm waiting to see if it just need to run for a little while before I get a new one.

[Bunnylicked]

It's officially cycling! I got a couple of great-looking uncured LR pieces from the LFS yesterday, and I set up the tank for real right after that. I added most of a bottle of BIO-spira and put salty RO water in the tank.

Today, I finally put in some live sand and replaced my heater. The new 50w heater is great - keeps the water at about 77 F.

Here's a picture from before I added the sand:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/2qi37s0.jpg[/IMG]

And after I added the sand:
[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/9qelif.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i54.*******.com/2ms0dco.jpg[/IMG]

Quick question about cycling. My nitrates were quite high when I tested my water this morning - at least 80 ppm. I did a 1.5 gallon water change, and they immediately went down to about 40 ppm. I'm also detecting normal, small amounts of ammonia and nitrites. Is it normal for the nitrates to be so high after the tank being set up for only a day?

[big_trucks_1985]

im fixin to sell one of these tanks i never really liked it but have seen many nice ones

[pico-reefer]

Originally Posted by Bunnylicked

It's officially cycling! I got a couple of great-looking uncured LR pieces from the LFS yesterday, and I set up the tank for real right after that. I added most of a bottle of BIO-spira and put salty RO water in the tank.

Today, I finally put in some live sand and replaced my heater. The new 50w heater is great - keeps the water at about 77 F.

Here's a picture from before I added the sand:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/2qi37s0.jpg[/IMG]

And after I added the sand:
[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/9qelif.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i54.*******.com/2ms0dco.jpg[/IMG]

Quick question about cycling. My nitrates were quite high when I tested my water this morning - at least 80 ppm. I did a 1.5 gallon water change, and they immediately went down to about 40 ppm. I'm also detecting normal, small amounts of ammonia and nitrites. Is it normal for the nitrates to be so high after the tank being set up for only a day?

Don't do any water changes during the cycle, wait for the ammonia to spike and drop down, than do a water change.

[Bunnylicked]

I thought it was OK to do water changes if your nitrates got high? I don't want it poisoning anything on my new rock. :P

The ammonia's actually fallen almost to 0 since I measured it at .50 a few hours after setting up the tank. Did that count as the ammonia spike or should I expect it to get higher again?

[Bunnylicked]

Thought I'd give a quick update on this tank. It went from "spikes" of .25 PPM ammonia and 1 PPM nitrites to 0 of both in about 36 hours of cycling, so I decided to add in some dried brine shrimp to see if it was really cycled. Of course, my little filter broke immediately after adding the shrimp, so I got a new filter. That one broke after five minutes, so I returned it to the store and got another. Within three hours, that one broke as well. I returned that one the next afternoon and bought a 100gph Top Fin filter. It seems to be working great so far, knock on wood, and I'm really hoping I won't have to replace filter #4.

While all of that was going on, my ammonia spiked to 8 PPM and my nitrites to 5 PPM - probably because every filter would empty out their mud-like contents when they broke. (I'm not exaggerating. I watched one filter break, and I could see a few tablespoons of brownish liquid pour out of it before I could pull it off the tank.) That lead to the death of several small sponges, a lone zoa, and a few feather dusters that were on the rock. Fortunately, the ammonia and nitrites went back down quite rapidly after I got the new filter; they're down to .25 and 2.0 now.

Here's a new FTS:
[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/2mq7syd.jpg[/IMG]

I connected the old pico filter to the new Top Fin filter via a siphon. I'm planning to turn it into a mini refugium once the tank is cycled. Here's a photo:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/2r73pnc.jpg[/IMG]

[Brentley25]

Cool Pico Tank!

[Bunnylicked]

Quite a bit has changed for my little pico in the last few days!

First of all, I started to get sick of having the tank next to the sink, so I decided to clean off an old stand that I used for freshwater years ago and use it for the pico. The old tank was a 20 gallon, but the pico actually looks better on it. The best part is that it's right across from my bed, so I can see and hear the tank at night. I love it!

I added an orange mushroom rock, a scarlet hermit, and a nerite snail two days ago. They're settling into the tank really well, and there's even a few new mushrooms popping up. Here's a picture of the snail and the mushroom:

[IMG]http://i54.*******.com/6pb97c.jpg[/IMG]

Since the ammonia/nitrite stayed stable after adding the new livestock, I decided to add one or two blue-legged hermits. Well, I walked out with a hermit crab and a tiny blue damsel. I wasn't planning to add a fish for another month or two, but the little guy was too cute to walk away from. Here's a picture of him next to the orange mushroom:

[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/9svs7o.jpg[/IMG]

From the top:
[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/jp90ra.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the scarlet hermit sitting on the bubble wand. He likes to sit there until the bubbles start to build up in his shell, and then he crawls off and digs at the sand for a while.
[IMG]http://i53.*******.com/jjmumt.jpg[/IMG]

And finally, a new FTS:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/f4h9cg.jpg[/IMG]

Also, for anyone interested, here's the water parameters I measured just before adding the damsel. This is after 1.5 weeks of cycling and off-the-charts spikes of ammonia and nitrites. I cycled the tank with uncured LR, BIO-spira and dried brine shrimp. I'm really not sure why it cycled so fast.

Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrites about 0 ppm
Nitrates about 20 ppm (before 1 gallon water change, didn't measure afterwards)
pH 8.0
Temperature 77 F
SG 1.024

[chgoblknazn]

Nice!! How are you managing the lighting schedule?

[Bunnylicked]

I've been keeping the light on for 10-12 hours per day. The mushroom coral seems to be enjoying the light. I plan on upgrading the light fixture before I get any hard corals, but I'm not sure what light to get yet. I'm thinking of either a 18w Finnex PC fixture or DIY LEDs.

[Bunnylicked]

Haven't posted in quite a while.

The tank is doing great! Unfortunately, the damsel died from marine velvet a few days after I got him. When the fallow period is over in a few weeks, I'm probably going to add a neon goby.

All of the inverts and corals are doing well. I finally managed to get my nitrates to about 5 PPM after adding caulerupa and doing a few large water changes. I also added an AC80 'fuge and a 24w Odyssea light.

I just got a large order from Vivid Aquariums today. I got 12 frags, mostly SPS and zoanthids, plus a trio of sexy shrimp and some snails. I also got a sun polyp coral, some GSP, some miniature blue cloves, and two LPS frags. Two of the sexy shrimp are very active and seem to stick together, while the third is more solitary and likes to sit on the birdsnest coral. Some of the zoanthids haven't opened yet, but everyone else seems to be fine. Here's some photos:

FTS:
[IMG]http://i52.*******.com/iw6ts0.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the green montipora digitata and the orange montipora cap. You can see the third sexy shrimp too:
[IMG]http://i51.*******.com/9gwqol.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the best picture of the two active sexy shrimp that I could get. They move fast and they're tiny, so it's hard to get a non-blurry photo of them.
[IMG]http://i53.*******.com/2u7y70m.jpg[/IMG]

Here's one of the new astrea snails:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/e6ys1e.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the birdsnest coral and the whisker coral:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/fe493s.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the new Odyssea light:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/2hdnwol.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the 'fuge:
[IMG]http://i56.*******.com/dfl0w.jpg[/IMG]

[StephLionfish]

You're tank is adorable! I love the Sexy Shrimp.

[Bunnylicked]

I love them too! They're half the size I expected them to be, though. When I finished acclimating them, I had to pick one of them out of the bucket with my fingers so that he wouldn't get his legs tangled in the net. 1/2 inch long shrimp sure can move and jump fast!

[ange062]

Very cool, I just got mine today to setup in my office! Hopefully I can get it looking as nice as yours!

[Bunnylicked]

Thought I'd share a couple of new photos of the tank. I've had a bit of an algae outbreak lately, but most of it died suddenly over the last few days, so the tank finally looks nice enough to take pictures of.

FTS:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/2rysznk.jpg[/IMG]

The three SPS, which have grown quite a bit:
[IMG]http://i54.*******.com/2vvo18l.jpg[/IMG]

Radioactive zoanthid colony. This colony had about 25 polyps when I got it, but it was damaged during shipping and lost about 20 polyps to some sort of (bacterial?) infection. I thought I was going to lose all of them, but several polyps were unaffected and seem to be doing great.
[IMG]http://i52.*******.com/2lvxsu0.jpg[/IMG]

Fat and happy sun coral and brown paly colony:
[IMG]http://i53.*******.com/21ada8l.jpg[/IMG]

Snowflake clove polyps, which came with a free encrusting sponge:
[IMG]http://i55.*******.com/r7onlu.jpg[/IMG]

Here's a nassarius snail. These guys are great sand sifters, but they crawl up on the rocks and fall on (and damage) coral when they smell food.
[IMG]http://i53.*******.com/10hkpr8.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for looking!

[StephLionfish]

It looks nice, and I know what you mean about shrimp being fast... I know Ghost shrimp sure can move.. I mean, in a 1g bucket that's only 1/4th of the way filled up. How hard can it be, right? o.0

[edward1096]

nice job