Fiction's 3g Picotope

fiction · Jul 5, 2008

I've had a 3g jbj pictope up and running for 2 months now, here are the specs:

AC70 mod into a refugium w/the stock jbj pictope light
25w stealth heater
12" 36w dual satellite fixture w/one 50/50 bulb and one dual actinic bulb

I have a yellow clown goby and a tailspot blenny
4 sexy shrimp
2 boxer crabs
3 scarlets, 4 astreas, 1 cerith and 2 nass snails

Eklikewhoa · Jul 5, 2008

That filled out real nicely!

Mabisyo · Jul 6, 2008

Wow very nice...

rarelyseriousb · Jul 6, 2008

great tank. It makes me want to set one up. Is it a lot of work?

revhtree · Jul 6, 2008

Man that is a sweet nano!

ReeferRob · Jul 6, 2008

I love cloves!!

fiction · Jul 7, 2008

rarelyseriousb said:
great tank. It makes me want to set one up. Is it a lot of work?

No, not at all. Topping off is the biggest hassle, you have to be on top of it twice a day to keep the salinity stable (a refractometer is a must). Other then that I just do two water changes a week, which take like 5min since it's so small.

MarvinsReef · Jul 7, 2008

wow... clean look.. likin' it.. great job..

ecotoxlady · Jul 8, 2008

Awesome tank! Do you really have a lot of evaporation? I love the look of this tank and would consider putting one in my office at school but if it requires top-offs twice per day that will be too much, especially on weekends.

Burks · Jul 14, 2008

Excellent little pico you have going on there! I have one myself (but have since let it go to crap).

Here she was in her prime:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v154/burks/DSC06798.jpg

I also upgraded to a 2x18w fixture (I got a Coralife instead) but hated the lousy purple bulbs. Ick. As soon as I get rid of this aptasia issue I'll start it back up again. I've had more success learning with this low tech, very small tank than my 95g frag tank....go figure right?

Evaporation is an issue for me as well. I just keep a 20oz bottle (sometimes 2L) of RO under my desk or next to the tank. Makes topping off a LOT easier.

fiction · Jul 17, 2008

Is the purple bulb 420nm? I'm thinking about switching the dual actinic bulb with another 50/50 so I can hopefully get faster growth, my pink palys haven't grown an inch since I bought them a month ago. Cool pico btw, how long have you had running for?

oceanparadise1 · Jul 17, 2008

man, thats a sweeeeeet nano tank!

fiction · Jul 17, 2008

ecotoxlady said:
Awesome tank! Do you really have a lot of evaporation? I love the look of this tank and would consider putting one in my office at school but if it requires top-offs twice per day that will be too much, especially on weekends.

You should be fine, if you stick with just soft corals. The salinity will swing a bit over the weekend but not as much as you think it would. You could also cut a cover for it that you could use on the weekend so evaporation wont be a problem. Just having rock and a few sexy shrimp/boxer crabs would be cool, it's worth a try.