my pico is two yers old now

[NanoReefWanabe]

well my pico will be 2 years old in two weeks, just thought i would post up a couple pictures to show how she is doing...as always let me know what you think...

there is too much coral in there to list now...

Front FTS:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7828_zps6345926b.jpg

Right side:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7829_zpsea091279.jpg

Left side:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7831_zps25b47aba.jpg

[brandon429]

That's a great job, a lifespan only 1% of pico reefs attain

[NanoReefWanabe]

thank you again brandon...

[KafudaFish]

That is a great pico.

Here is to another two years:

:beer:


Have you noticed any changes in coral growth or issues that have arisen in the last year?

Plans?

[Jon B]

Beautiful. Congrats.
Is there a thread that describes this build? I'd be interested in the details.

[JasonBJones]

I can't believe it has been two years already. Tank is looking great.

[NanoReefWanabe]

yeah there is a build thread take a little time to find it though, i will try to dig up the link...and thank you...


yeah jason been two years already...:(

[Flame_Angel]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1519631

There you go, original build thread.

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-mp82C3rho

Video from when he first got it set up. Very slick little system, I'm going to have to keep my eyes open for one of these to set it up myself!

[NanoReefWanabe]

wow thank you flameangel,

well this is pretty cool, and once again this hobby never ceases to amaze me...just yesterday i was watching my tank before lights came on, and what do i see?

what look like two anemones on a little piece of rubble...now i have no idea where the little piece of rubble came from or how long it has been in my tank, but there are two little pinkish red anemones with clear tentacles and little white balls on the ends...upon further research i believe them to be strawberry anemones...little (approx 1" once grown, currently about 5mm) colonial guys just swaying in the flow...strangest thing though, these are supposedly cold water species, and my tank has never gone above or below 78* more then a degree...

needless to say, very cool find, i hope they live/ thrive...hope they dont become a pest though...they apparently only eat pods which my tank is abundant with...

i will try to get a pic of them, but i have moved the rubble to a more suitable location in a cave, as i believe these are NPS animals...plus they are tiny, and i honestly dont know how i see this kind of stuff...

[NanoReefWanabe]

wow thank you flameangel,

well this is pretty cool, and once again this hobby never ceases to amaze me...just yesterday i was watching my tank before lights came on, and what do i see?

what look like two anemones on a little piece of rubble...now i have no idea where the little piece of rubble came from or how long it has been in my tank, but there are two little pinkish red anemones with clear tentacles and little white balls on the ends...upon further research i believe them to be strawberry anemones...little (approx 1" once grown, currently about 5mm) colonial guys just swaying in the flow...strangest thing though, these are supposedly cold water species, and my tank has never gone above or below 78* more then a degree...

needless to say, very cool find, i hope they live/ thrive...hope they dont become a pest though...they apparently only eat pods which my tank is abundant with...

i will try to get a pic of them, but i have moved the rubble to a more suitable location in a cave, as i believe these are NPS animals...plus they are tiny, and i honestly dont know how i see this kind of stuff...

[NanoReefWanabe]

well it has been a month or so...here are some new pics with some more coral..yes you heard right i added more stuff in there...as usual let me know what you think...

FTS front:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7872_zps95376c7b.jpg

FTS left side:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7870_zpsa6aa175b.jpg

FTS right side:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7871_zps6c51e4e8.jpg

White ball corallimorph: on the little rock behind the palys
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7862_zps818e87c1.jpg

New 5$ worth of Gonipora buds: i hope they colour up and live...tough coral to keep, let alone get to recover..
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7861_zps1c8aefca.jpg

New Hollywood stunner chalice: needs to colour up a little more blue, but still looks sweet.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l46/crazyoldcougar/IMG_7860_zps22ff6b5b.jpg

New Pokerstars montipora, also needs to get some blue back.
LOL i forgot to take a pic but it can be seen in the right side pick just behind the kenya tree, under the orange digitata..

[kimdawg]

Your tank looks great. You have a lot of color and variety in there. I hope my new nano looks half that good when I am finished.

[dixiedog]

Congratulations, happy birthday to a superlative pico reef! :beer:

I just skimmed through your build thread, very well done! It's no surprise you've done so well.

With no overflow as such, have you ever had issues with surface scum, or does the agitation just keep it under control?

[reefboy1994]

i remember watching your original thread years ago, what a long way the tank has come! i once had one of those finger leathers and could not keep the coral happy! great job the leather looks great

[Gsxr600]

without a top, how often do you replenish fresh water? this is sumpless, correct?

sorry but your original build thread pics dont work so i couldnt follow very long lol

[dixiedog]

That's weird, the pics were up just a couple days ago. I can't see them now either.

He has a sump though, I saw that much!

[geldof]

Looks great, very healthy. Makes me want to re set up my 3G vase as a leather dominant nano.

[Chris Mills]

Nice looking tank!

[squishifishi]

How many gallons is this? do you have any fish/inverts in here? what kinds?
I'm starting up a 2.5, so I'm glad to hear of your success!
good luck in years to ome!

[flightjunkie]

Very nice!

[fullmonti]

Great job, putting it together and keeping it so nice so long!!!

[Reef Developer]

NanoreefIS:

Nice to see the small system is so stable and doing nice. If you didn't tell me and I just saw those pictures that tank looks like it could be 40+ gallons, albeit with very large corals.

I'm building my nano now and was wondering, in terms of your 1-1/2" overflow, do you have anything else besides the modified cap to control the noise? Reading the other thread it looks like you routed in a bunch of teeth, then put a cap on it? Any issues with things clogging those teeth? I was going to build a mini overflow, but a single pvc pipe is much more elegant.

Also, in that other thread, you mentioned that the lighting was more white than you wanted, think you said you would like something closer to 15-20k. Along those lines, if I mimic your XRE arrangement, I could do a few different things; add a couple more blue LEDs, or add a separate buckpuck so the white and blue LEDs could be separately controlled. Which would you do?

Thanks!
Kevin

[NanoReefWanabe]

Your tank looks great. You have a lot of color and variety in there. I hope my new nano looks half that good when I am finished.

i hope so too...the colour is the main thing that drew me into saltwater, a lousy budget and non-understanding wife has kept me in nanos...LOL, thank you.

Congratulations, happy birthday to a superlative pico reef! :beer:

I just skimmed through your build thread, very well done! It's no surprise you've done so well.

With no overflow as such, have you ever had issues with surface scum, or does the agitation just keep it under control?

mmmm i used to like beers...sadly , they no longer fit in my diet...:( thank you for the great comments..

never had any surface scum or proteins building up...surface is always clear...i never turn my pumps off when i feed, and i am blow away by how fast i see the food whip down the overflow...:( just makes changing the filter floss more of a PITA...lol


i remember watching your original thread years ago, what a long way the tank has come! i once had one of those finger leathers and could not keep the coral happy! great job the leather looks great

thank you, it is really neat to see the leather grow from a quarter sized 25$ frag to what it is now, approximately 6" across and 4" wide. thank you very much..

without a top, how often do you replenish fresh water? this is sumpless, correct?

sorry but your original build thread pics dont work so i couldnt follow very long lol

there is a 7.5g 12"x12"x12" sump, approx 5g full...i add about 3-400ml of fresh RO/DI daily, along with about 150ml of kalk solution.

sorry about the build pics...i still have most saved to HD of PC...but photobucket put the kibosh on me having so many pics, had to remove some..

That's weird, the pics were up just a couple days ago. I can't see them now either.

He has a sump though, I saw that much!

lol thanks...that is weird as i havent done any PB account cleanup for a while now, perhaps PB is cleaning house fo rme...

Looks great, very healthy. Makes me want to re set up my 3G vase as a leather dominant nano.

thank you, your tank was inspirational too...leathers are awesome, as long as you can keep them happy, otherwise they look like shriveled up pieces of poop..:( sometimes i catch them on good days with the camera, some days i dont...i try to take pics when everything looks happy...that just doesnt happen very often..can always tell when the carbon isnt doing it job properly anymore...LOL

Nice looking tank!

thank you very much

How many gallons is this? do you have any fish/inverts in here? what kinds?
I'm starting up a 2.5, so I'm glad to hear of your success!
good luck in years to ome!

tank is exact same size/shape as a 5g pail of salt 12" diameter, 14" tall.
only fish is a yellow tail damsel...
only invert is a bad a** fish eating banded serpent star banished to the live off scraps in the sump...thank you i wold love to see this tank make a couple more years for sure..

Very nice!

thank you very much

Great job, putting it together and keeping it so nice so long!!!

again, from someone like you, very nice to hear, your tanks have also been very inspiring...

NanoreefIS:

Nice to see the small system is so stable and doing nice. If you didn't tell me and I just saw those pictures that tank looks like it could be 40+ gallons, albeit with very large corals.

I'm building my nano now and was wondering, in terms of your 1-1/2" overflow, do you have anything else besides the modified cap to control the noise? Reading the other thread it looks like you routed in a bunch of teeth, then put a cap on it? Any issues with things clogging those teeth? I was going to build a mini overflow, but a single pvc pipe is much more elegant.

Also, in that other thread, you mentioned that the lighting was more white than you wanted, think you said you would like something closer to 15-20k. Along those lines, if I mimic your XRE arrangement, I could do a few different things; add a couple more blue LEDs, or add a separate buckpuck so the white and blue LEDs could be separately controlled. Which would you do?

Thanks!
Kevin

honestly there is very little/ next to no noise in the system now...(slime coat has taken care of any trickle noises) the cap with the teeth in it doesnt actually touch the water (well it does a bit as m tank isnt sitting level) but it actually sits on the return plumbing, and hovers over the water level by a 1/16" or so...its purpose now is more or less to hide the pipes and wires coming out of the overflow pipe..

i think originally my lights where far whiter then i wanted as they where on the same driver, a 50-50 mix, and they where old crappy luxeon emmiters...now my blues and whites are separate dimmable drivers, and they are cree xre emmiters...still a 50-50 mix cw to rb...if i where to do it again i would have only one or two rb's 6-8 violet leds, and 3-4 nw., and maybe a cyan...as it is now my moon light is more of a cyan colour, and the corals pop pretty nice a night...

sorry for missing all these posts, been a little while since i looked back in here, honestly surprised to see my thread back on the FP...thank you everyone for the nice comments...sadly i think i am going to have to part ways with my torch coral...it is getting too big and really packs a punch when it grabs onto my fiji yellow leather, and the orange montipora and kenya tree, and devils hand, and my toadstool...LOL it can reach and punish far too many corals...thinking i would really love to fill the area with some more zoas or a couple acans.