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pico reef??

4K views 8 replies 2 participants last post by  Finnish_AE92_Racer 
#1 ·
so, i just bought an aquatop zen nano 5g, and i'm really thinking of doing a mini reef tank.

does anyone from TPT have experience with saltwater? ive always stayed fresh since i was a kid, but i'd like to try something new.

any help would be awesome cause marine is all greek to me.
 
#2 ·
yep they work great been doing pico reefs for 14 yrs its similar to planted tanks, not all that bad for the small reefs. Small reefs are less forgiving of mistakes, but worlds easier to run than large tanks. i run my picos with no test kits of any kind for 14 years, biology is rock solid predictable with them, undebatable. my test kits are: swingarm salinity meter (yes they work, dont need refractometer 70$) and a thermometer.

this is the trick to pico reefs:

-dont do small percentage water changes in fear of upsetting the system, tidal ebb and flow doesnt upset corals, always go for the largest percentage water change you can do. if you did 100% every other day that would be ideal, but since we dont, maybe weekly is fine.

its larger percentage for the -smaller- reefs, and larger reefs get smaller percentage changes due to the work involved.

most people try to use the procedures for large reef keeping on pico reefs, thats why theirs die pretty fast, so its easy to find references of pico reefs living for ten years if you look around and what those reefs do specifically can be copied in any other small reef tank.

dont use fish ideally, try to use inverts like shrimp and crabs and corals galore as their collective bioload isn't even that of the smallest marine fish, in a small marine tank.

You can use fish, but again we have 200,000 pico reefs using fish that live short term, and then the ones on the web that have been around the longest dont use fish, a trend is developing here from what should work vs what you can actually find documented proof that works long term. many things work in a pico reef for 5 months.

some of the changing dynamics in pico reefing are:
systems that are still, dont use flow, research the biotope forum at nano-reef.com for details

people who do less water change percentages on smaller tanks since they use GFO and other phosphate binding media. there's room to experiment.

but if you want it simple, just rip change lots of water

for a five gallon tank, do as much volume weekly as you are willing to spend the time and effort on.

the reef in my avatar is a half gallon sps reef


what happens when you set up a perfectly viable pico reef in a few months is algae, have a plan.

the link Im about to show below is a 5g tank that did 100% water changes and is still invaded and ruined by leafy red invasive marine macro algae, because there was no plan. 100% water changes is for your coral and chemistry, not for algae, because the plan is peroxide and there are no old pico reefs currently running on the planet that haven't used it. lots of temporary awesome tank of the month pico reefs came and went using typical methods, that cost the world lots of coral that could have lived much longer.

:)
B

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/4/aquarium
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
awesome b?! thats the kind of info i couldnt find thru google hahahah

so if i do want to take on this challenge (im sure your acquainted with the aquatop overflow filteration) how should i start, what i have available now.....

aqueon wave maker, the tank itself, and a type-p lamp i can sell or just buy the type-r lamp.

where should i go from there? buy live sand let the tank establish itself?

also as far as lighting, can i use the type-p fixture for the reef setup? or should i switch to the type-r?
 
#4 ·
I have never used those lights but I have a sure fire way to know. all my gear is purposefully outdated and crappy retro junk looking lol its old power compact lighting from 1999 which isn't a big deal to us planted peeps but for reefing its lol= everything is led nowadays.

so, there is only one way to know if a light can work for a pico reef, you have to locate a thread where your specific light put on coral mass. if they were able to add polyps to zoanthids, or make some candy coral split off into new growths (takes months which establishes the light in question) or if they took a little plug of SPS coral and made it base plate better, all those things

if you can't find such a thread it doesnt mean the light is questionable, it means its awaiting verification. in every tank I use, the lights I use can be found in thousands of coral and plant grow out threads. sure they run hot and terrible, but i got fanz

regarding the live sand and rock there is never just one way, and all ways can be trained to work especially if you'll just burn out algae rather than try to bio rationalize it in some way (this is why there aren't many 5 yr old pico reefs and no other reason pretty much)

this way is guaranteed to work but its not the only way, just a nice start. its the cheapest you can possibly get started in reefing.

buy carib sea arrive alive wet pack fiji pink sand from lfs rinse it off well, add to new tank.

fill up slowly w clean new sw, tank doesnt cloud because you rinsed well.

set up filter, or not (i have never used a filter on a sw tank or a planted tank, opinions vary, many do, just my opinion cuz i cut corners and costs using predictive biology)

your live rock is critical, this is a no cycle setup. I hate cycling tanks its boring and optional and very popular to do, if one elects to do so. I always opt out.
get the most purple coralline and animal covered live rock that was -aquarium cured- at the lfs for some time.

dont buy live rock from a vat that has nothing live on it. live rock is purple, the kind we use to skip cycling anyway/ make sure its not painted fake.

you tell them how to bag up and bundle the lr, do not take a back seat this is your $$

they w keep the rock wet and submerged for the trip home, either in big filled fish bags or in paintbuckets you brought. if they say to just let it sit out, opt out of that and back into telling them what to do w it

bring the lr home submerged and put it in your tank only days after you verified your heater works, the pumps work, you found the right light in a thread of no growth question.

this kind of transfer doesnt kill bacteria or animals on your live rock. your tank isn't some dangerous zone of change for them, its wonderful oligotrophic waters clean as day and the live rock simply continues on its 100 yr + journey of sitting there and being an apartment complex for little bugs, the kind we try to kill in this form (scutes=bad here, =good on reef tanks)

what you specifically have now is live sand with no life other than questionable bacteria loading, doesnt matter if there is any, it will build up in time. its the lack of organic crap in the bed you chose this fiji stuff for

the sand w populate in time w creatures from the lr and other additions in the new pico reef. nano reef, pico are 2.5 and below but nbd

so you have clean sand, clean good aerated water at 78-80, and happy lr that simply changed tanks, ergo you now have a full reef.

dont add fish yet, a 5 can handle some, but later, add fish too soon is the worst start.

get some hermit crabs and simple starter corals and begin, dont add much more until you feel better about it after reading. (this is where things start to diversify, some hate hermit crabs some dont it doesnt matter, ecosystem control is the priority, if you decide against hermits, take em back etc)

only use frozen or refrigerated high quality coral feed, you must feed the tank it cannot live on photosynthesis alone, corals are not autotrophs like plants.

the way you feed (up until you get a fish and change up all this easy balance lol) is to simply feed the whole tank weekly just before you big water change, and not so much mid week. spot feed your corals when doing this, even if they dont visually take in food (zoanthids for ex) they are still benefitting from the input and export of controlled organics in the form of feed.

there are many ways to start a reef, i do it this way to control waste sinking in the sandbed.


sandbeds are kinda 2003, many forgeo them now and just put rocks on bare bottom or arrange chunks of lr as a little rock arrangement that looks neat

the sandbed is like a diaper that stores up waste and nukes you w algae, if there is no algae plan :)

the bare bottom pico is much easier cleaned and exported of detritus but it looks dum imo unless you master aquascape it.

my own pico has a giant old sandbed but it can't diaper up because I change the water so forcefully, and feed only during wc time which prevents bed incursion. everybody has their way this is one that works.
 
#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
yeah i was doing as much reading as i can, and a cycle with live rock seems a bit redundant, as the BB should kick as soon as they hit the water.
as far as lighting, this has grown my fresh plants perfectly well, and the spectrum will be the same as above sea, but.......since reed is deep underwater, could it have to much white light that would normally be filtered out due to the depth?
and i completely agree with the biological side of things as far as filtration, but since it's built into the tank, and seconds as a skimmer, i may as well use it. coarse filter, some ceramic, and some carbon. why not right?

and otherwise the steps youve layed out are PERFECT brandon. i read all the reviews and articles on your "petri-dish" hahahah it's the PERFECT example of bio filtration in an enclosed system, with little to no variables out of control.

would this be a good starting point?
[Ebay Link Removed]
 
#6 · (Edited)
going off K rating alone we do find examples of sps corals being grown under 6500 k lamps, so wo being bulb specific yes that can and will grow any coral it simulates sun on a reef in the cayman islands that is perpetually underwater but never deeper than 20 feet

there are so many neat zones in the reef...our corals can broken off and moved to other zones, or they can be parrotfish foddered out elsewhere on the reef to frag and reproduce again over and over, i have dove in cayman reef waters that had much white balance 15 feet down.

that kind of lighting may select for algae in a pico reef but it will grow coral. there are so many good documentations now online for smaller nanos there must be fifty ways to do em

be sure and google search for the still ones

pjreefs

is example

he's legit mini business those things are real and work on priciples of the stilled intertidal lagoon. lots of rocky pockets upon tidal outflow contain corals and little fish that are in stilled waters, until the next tide, and these guys found out how to extend that out a while as the water change resets

in 2005 if someone asked me if a still reef was possible id have said no lol
 
#8 ·
those could present an interesting detail

that would be uncured possibly, live rock packed with benthics from the ocean that almost for sure w have some die off, and ammonia generation in an aquarium. they wont be primarily purple, they'll be primarily colored with algae and coral and full blown reef nutrition established animals that w starve when transferred


not that you can't use those....it just requires a simple salifert test kit for ammonia to track the die off, in this case its reverse cycling. you would change water over and over and over to export ammonia and stop the dieoff of as much of the rock as you can.

in time, it will select away from that much crusty life and select into just purple coralline and the scarce reef life we farm, due to the new nutrient constants in these either too clean or too dirty tanks we run.

totally ok to use that rock even though they deleted the link, it is just a different timing and action to get it usable. the stuff that sat in a physical fish store's reef tank for the last half year is a much better bet. if you order any rock we can't be sure of the origin like the above options, so it means we can simply test using a reliable kit and guide the cycle until it stabilizes, in my opinion
 
#9 ·
and the lighting should work then, which will change the coloration a slight bit, but still....it should look really good.
i asked my local lfs if he could put together a good package of sand or rubble, rock, and some inverts. i'm gonna stay away from fish for the time being just cuz of the amount of space they inevitably need.

Bump: good point on the rock. i'd definetly rather prevent a die-off then try to cultivate it from scratch, and overnight ordering may be the better option OR just get everything from my lfs. aside from livestock. that, i can handle being shipped in
 
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