Myka's 10L Pico Reef

Myka · Feb 28, 2018

I found the smaller Panda Goby dead this morning. This is the same one that almost got eaten by the Sunny D polyps, and has been all dazed and confused ever since. I think he got stung. The other one I saw a streak of this morning, so he's still kicking. I'm feeding the tank twice a day with a live baby brine shrimp and PE Calanus mixture - maybe 30 BBS and about 12 pieces of Calanus. The LFS is getting Catalina Gobies tomorrow, so I hope to score a couple! I missed out on the super cool Periclimenes anemone shrimps. They are SO cool!

The diatom bloom is over, and now coralline algae is growing like mad! It's sucking all the calcium and alkalinity out of the water! I am doing 2-gallon water changes 2x per week. This is super easy though, and only takes me about 6 minutes. I keep a 5-gallon pail running with saltwater and a heater, so it's ready to go whenever I have 6 minutes to do a water change (usually while I'm cooking supper).

I can't remember if I mentioned that I got the 1/2" glass lily pipe, but apparently the Fluval is 5/8" hose. Dangit, I even did The Google. Apparently The Google doesn't know everything! So I need an adapter to get the pipe on - this weekend's project! The lily pipe is bigger than expected even though measurements were provided (everything is big when you're talking about a pico tank), so I may try to DIY something different. I really like the Innovative Marine Spin Stream nozzles, but they are kinda bulky for the pico, and not sure the mounting would work out.

daelie said:
This is well done, so much so I almost wanna try something neat like it myself haha

It is a lot of fun! You have to get used to using long tweezers to do all the tank work though, and knocking corals off the rocks and having to re-glue them is a weekly chore. Haha.

Tahoe61 · Feb 28, 2018

Looks pretty dang awesome.

hart24601 · Feb 28, 2018

Looks great! Love those rock nems, hehe!

Myka · Mar 3, 2018

Tahoe61 said:
Looks pretty dang awesome.

hart24601 said:
Looks great! Love those rock nems, hehe!

Thanks guys!

New little buddies added yesterday! Two Catalina Gobies.

Myka · Mar 7, 2018

Pics from just now. I moved the corals around a bit. Still not sure what to put in the middle.

Myka · Mar 10, 2018

I put a PAR meter on the tank yesterday and checked everything. The settings I was running on the Prime were putting 200-250 onto the Acros, so I turned it up a bit so the Acros are now getting 300-350. The one RFA (red center) is getting pretty high light too - 300, the others sit more around 250. Out of entertainment, when I turned the Prime up to 100% on all channels the sand was 800!! HA!

Myka · Mar 11, 2018

I added a Blue Lagoon Acro frag yesterday, and finally decided on placement for everything I think. I have two more spots that could use something - one at the very top, and one just above the Frogspawn. There is also a spot below the gorgonian that something could go, but that is a VERY high flow area and lowish light, so I'm not sure I'll be able to find anything that will be happy there. The Acros are all growing - encrusting the epoxy, and polyp extension is always good.

The canister is getting air build up in it, and releases a big gust of bubbles every once in awhile which irritates everything. I'm hoping to find an answer to that problem. Not sure what to do about that.

The 2nd Panda Goby died. I found his little body when I was rearranging corals.

I thought he was doing well, but I found he was much more elusive when I added the Catalina Gobies, so maybe they were harassing him.

The Catalina Gobies are entertaining - they lazily chase each other a few times a day. Apparently they are hermaphrodites, and any two could breed. Maybe they'll start laying eggs at some point.

I'd like to add a fish that swims around, but not sure there is anything suitably small. I do plan to add a Porcelain Crab and a Pedersen's Shrimp. Maybe a couple Sexy Shrimp.

Myka · Mar 12, 2018

Check out how much the ORA Chip's Acro and the RR Orange Passion have encrusted the epoxy already! Today is exactly 30 days since clipping the 3 original Acro frags. Not bad growth for a brand new tank. Now...to get some orange polyps on that OP.

I took photos of each Acro the day I cut and installed them. Check out the comparison. It's clear the Chip's Acro has grown quite a bit!

ORA Chip's Acro Feb 10:

ORA Chip's Acro today (30 days lapsed):

RR Orange Passion Feb 10:

RR Orange Passion today (30 days lapsed):

CM Purple Polyp Nasuta Feb 18:

CM Purple Polyp Nasuta today (22 days lapsed):

Tymac · Apr 14, 2018

Loving this thread. Whole different set of issues and I'm loving the creative solutions. Keep the posts coming!

ricardh · Aug 23, 2018

Hi mate, amazing pico reef !!

One question, what parameters are you maintaining ?

Any advice for someone thats going to start a pico too?

Myka · Jan 19, 2019

ricardh said:
Hi mate, amazing pico reef !!

One question, what parameters are you maintaining ?

Any advice for someone thats going to start a pico too?

Sorry, I missed your post here! I have not actually been testing the pico tank. I tested KH at one point early on in the game, and it was low - in the 6's I believe. The pico has been incredibly resilient. This is the easiest reef I've ever maintained actually. I don't mess with it much, and I don't feed it much. The Rock Flower Anemones get a NLS Marine Food 3 mm pellet about 2x per week, and that is the only food added to the system. I keep the temperature low at 74-75F to keep the inhabitants' metabolism low so coral growth is slower (last thing you want in a pico is fast growing corals haha!), and nutrient load is lower. The RFA also prefer this cooler temperature. I also employ a high-quality light fixture which I think a lot of pico keepers skimp out on. The AI Prime HD is a phenomenal light imo. I've been reef keeping for over 25 years, and I've not been a fan of LED lights as primary light source until recently when I feel LEDs have finally become good enough to really grow corals well. The AI Prime is on par (har har) with the Radion XR15, but at half the price and a lower output suitable for tiny tanks.

I have to admit, that between June and December I didn't do any water changes on the pico reef, and I'm pretty sure I didn't feed the RFA either. I did two weekly water changes in December and got back on feeding the RFA a couple times per week, then I've been slacking on WC and feeding again since. I'll follow up with a post explaining why. It's not something I intend to continue! Ha!

So to sum up, these are what I think are the biggest contributors to success for my particular pico reef in order of importance:

- High-quality lighting
- Low bioload
- Low temperature to further decrease bioload

Myka · Jan 19, 2019

June we sold our house in the city and in September we took possession of our new house on a rural acreage - our paradise.

Anyone who's bought and sold their homes and had a 10-year gap between understands that it is a large undertaking. Moving to a rural location on an acreage adds a whole new dimension!

So the first challenge (besides moving a mature 70-gallon SPS reef) was the water source which turned out to be less than desirable well water than what the testing suggested. Hauling RO/DI water from the LFS became quite a chore that I tired of quickly. I would haul 30 gallons at a time (6 pails), and this would last me only a couple weeks. A couple weeks ago I decided to shut down the 70-gallon reef, and move a few of my favorite inhabitants to a 20-gallon tank. Now that same 30 gallons of water will last me a month or more which is less of a chore.

Back to the pico...

When I shut down the 70-gallon reef I moved a bunch of random bits of Montipora mainly to the pico. This perked up my interest in the pico, and last weekend I took the rocks out of the pico, gave the sand a good vacuuming, snipped off a bunch of Vermetid snails that were invading the rocks, and put everything back. The pico has a healthy population of Aiptasia sp anemones that came in on a couple Zoa frags from hobbyists which I need to get onto nuking before they become a plague.

I will continue my water change process of extracting "used" water from the 20-gallon reef to use for my pico since I find the pico doesn't like big water changes with new saltwater. The corals really slime up for a couple hours after a new saltwater change, but if I use "used" saltwater they don't slime up hardly at all. Since corals are highly irritated by slime from any coral other than themselves, preventing the slime up is a good move.

Here are a couple not very good current photos (the RFA have all moved to the back where they are not viewable!)...

drawman · Jan 19, 2019

Myka said:
June we sold our house in the city and in September we took possession of our new house on a rural acreage - our paradise. Anyone who's bought and sold their homes and had a 10-year gap between understands that it is a large undertaking. Moving to a rural location on an acreage adds a whole new dimension!

So the first challenge (besides moving a mature 70-gallon SPS reef) was the water source which turned out to be less than desirable well water than what the testing suggested. Hauling RO/DI water from the LFS became quite a chore that I tired of quickly. I would haul 30 gallons at a time (6 pails), and this would last me only a couple weeks. A couple weeks ago I decided to shut down the 70-gallon reef, and move a few of my favorite inhabitants to a 20-gallon tank. Now that same 30 gallons of water will last me a month or more which is less of a chore.

Back to the pico...

When I shut down the 70-gallon reef I moved a bunch of random bits of Montipora mainly to the pico. This perked up my interest in the pico, and last weekend I took the rocks out of the pico, gave the sand a good vacuuming, snipped off a bunch of Vermetid snails that were invading the rocks, and put everything back. The pico has a healthy population of Aiptasia sp anemones that came in on a couple Zoa frags from hobbyists which I need to get onto nuking before they become a plague.

I will continue my water change process of extracting "used" water from the 20-gallon reef to use for my pico since I find the pico doesn't like big water changes with new saltwater. The corals really slime up for a couple hours after a new saltwater change, but if I use "used" saltwater they don't slime up hardly at all. Since corals are highly irritated by slime from any coral other than themselves, preventing the slime up is a good move.

Here are a couple not very good current photos (the RFA have all moved to the back where they are not viewable!)...

Good call on the used water. Keeping acros is tough enough in my 30 gallon haha.