Budget 2.5 Aqueon Pico Tank (KISS method)

[Azedenkae]

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Means keep it super easy.

Ah right gotcha. XD

 

[Dilan Patel]

Alright its been a LONG DAY lol. Just got the coral dipped and placed into the aquarium . Pictures taken a min after placing coral. Couple things ive noticed so far:

1: Really hard to fit my hands in the tank to place coral I really should have taken rock out and glued them instead of doing it in-tank

2: While I like my rockwork (done at 5am this morning) It seems that it may be a bit complicated for this size of a tank. I am considering moving the front piece to the back and moving the back piece to the front and getting rid of the 2 pieces of rock I put to elevate the back piece. Making it simple while still getting that "stair step" aquascape. Need your Thoughts!

3: I may need to break the budget and invest in a filter to get rid of the gunk every month or so. so about $15-20 don't want to have to do waterchanges often

4: Lid works perfectly and the light stand is designed with a magnet to stick to the desk the tank will sit in very functional and the light is at the right height where I can work in tank and not bump it.

5: Some of the coral such as singularia and toadstool on back rock are temporarily placed until they affix themselves to the frag plug.

6: Total start up build was $35 as I spent $15 for an adjustable heater. I would rather go slightly overbudget and get a good heater than explain to the landlord why black smoke is coming out my apartment window

 

[DDenny]

Looks awesome

 

[Dilan Patel]

Alright the pico has been transported to Alabama and will sit here for about a month and a half before being transported again. The tank down was super easy and setup was just as easy. Only thing that happened was I forgot the lid...its gunna have to be shipped to me but other than that everything went smoothly. Unfortunately don't have any filters here so gotta get used to the blue pics.

Day 1: First Day in T-town:

 

[Dilan Patel]

Thinking about adding some gorgonians (photosynthetic) and a RFA(not looking to spend a ton). What do yall think? Im thinking 1 RFA if I can find one local and a few purple and gold gorgonians would make this tank standout and give a nice motion too it.

 

[JacobPF14]

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Means keep it super easy.

Haha, exactly! How picos should be!! Easier than one would think which is the funny part

 

[Waydeo]

I know it would break your budget ; but have you thought about a mini internal filter for flow and to clean the water ? You could go old school and do a bubble filter.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I know it would break your budget ; but have you thought about a mini internal filter for flow and to clean the water ? You could go old school and do a bubble filter.

Ive thought about an internal filter but so far I don't really need one. All it would do for me is polish the water which I technically can do manually by taking my filter sock putting some carbon in it as well as filter floss and drain the tank(the pump I have allows me to hook up a hose I have to easily drain and refil) 1-5 times I would think take maybe 15mins.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Getting a little algae on the glass...think its due to me feeding a little phyto now im seeing pods all over the place. I will hold off on dosing phyto for the time being as I tested nitrates and it was around 40ppm(this was a way to take a quick break from school lol) which is fine as I keep my main display around that area. I am thinking I will need ~1 snail to keep the rocks clean but may wait until I get a little more algae growth

 

[Dilan Patel]

With the addition of the lid I have yet to top off the tank which is nice change from doing it everymorning for the first few days. With the amount of algae growing on the glass I decided to purchase a small $6 cleaner so i wouldn't have to empty part of the tank to use my magic eraser. I also just bought a turbo snail to maybe take care of the algae and it may keep me from having to clean the tank often= more hands off.

 

[Dilan Patel]

With the algae building up on the glass I originally thought to hand filter the algae out once the tank was cleaned. But having thought about it more I figured a small HOB filter wouldn't hurt to run on the days I cleaned the tank...Well I just got the filter and this thing is tiny. So just to check it out I put it on the tank and it is silent. My pump I have been using was quiet but it always had a little rattle to it. with both pumps on this tank had a good amount of flow so I ended up turning off the main pump to see what the output was like from the HOB. Too my surprise it seemed to be a more even/gyre like flow pattern compared to the regular pump. I am now contemplating taking the original pump out and running the filter only. Couple reasons why: less intrusive in the tank, quieter, makes it easy to run carbon or filter floss and it creates a gyre like flow pattern instead of a stream of water. I know a few people recommended me using a filter in the first place but in my mind they seemed like they would be too much of an eye sore in the tank. Did some digging and I think I found the perfect one.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Tank is running pretty good- just a little bit of algae. Super quiet...Im thinking of moving a few LPS or sps pieces into this tank next time it is back in Nashville. Thinking a frogspawn and 1 or 2 chalices or a pink lemonade frag. Having 1 or 2 pieces of sps or lps won't hurt and be too daunting to take care of.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Been awhile since an update...Finals was taking a lot of my time but glad to say everything went in my favor . The tank was packed up looking a bit dirty and was set Back up in Nashville and I left for a week for vacation. Returned yesterday to find out the tank looks fantastic! The tank will soon host an Anemone and less rockwork. I will add more snails for algae management and maybe an urchin.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Budget Reef finally got its nem and a new Zoa (through trading of course). Gotta keep the cost low

 

[ctopherl]

Far left and green is a majano.

No feather duster. That is a Calliactis tricolor aka hermit anemone. Stings everything it touches when the snail or hermit carrying it moves around a tank.

And even aiptasia can be pretty with the right light and a good camera.

You may find this article interesting

 

[Eagle_Steve]

You may find this article interesting

Read that when it came out. Used to have a mason jar with an aip I carried around from base to base when in the military. One lonely snail in it and setting near a window kept him fed lol. Occasional piece of fish food fed to the aip here and there as well. Water changes if I could.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Pico is still going strong and filling in nicely . Still keeping it simple with no WC, Testing, heck I barely even clean the glass. I do have a little bit of GHA on one rock but I just pick it off when I feel like it.