Miniature .75g 11/3/02

[brandon4291]

This is the primary reason one bag of reef crystals lasts me six months, Im not kidding.


at water change time, the Mini .75 is drained 90% and it barely covers the bottom of the 5 gallon water jug. water changes are at two week intervals, and it has several new spots of pink coralline. I was able to seed the new system well from pink rocks in the reefbowl, and alk/Ca+ maintenance has allowed it to get a footing in here.

 

[brandon4291]

good scale to show how tall the pico system is. Just this weekend I paid a glass cutter to cut out a glass pattern of the original acrylic lid and he did a GREAT job/ There is no warping and the sealing is even better yet. The system is fully stocked but the mechanics will be adjusted over the next few months. Just bought another R Reef aquarium to convert into a mini terrarium, with waterfall. This new pico tank is just like the mini 75, buts its white instead of stained.
Another white R aquarium will be made into an experimental miniature Amano style planted aquarium. it too will be sealed and use a baffle refugium, but instead of housing fast-growing macroalgaes in it I will use FW weeds like ceratophylum demersum (hornwort)


Fun weekend project coming up!

b

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome work, as usual Brandon. I should have my 2.5 pico up and running sometime over the holiday weekend, and will post pics asap. The canopy and stand are all hand-made and look fantastic. They just got their second coat of poly tonight.

-John

 

[brandon4291]

Have you decided to go with a sealed system or a restricted vent type, or just leave it open> Soon I want a 2.5 because a small goby such as a neon or a cherry-head would do just fine in there when its all balanced, especially with a thickly planted refugium. can't wait for your pics Sharkky and Bdelaney!

 

[brandon4291]

Here is the final piece of black acrylic, the design is nearing completion.

What this refugium does is baffle light and set apart an internal space for growth. Not that a little constant rear light is a big deal, but just for fun I thought id try to block it out. There is an extra black sheet of plastic stuck to the back of the tank with two-sided tape... picture at 3 am.

b

 

[brandon4291]

frontal view at night.

 

[brandon4291]

every two-three weeks I pull out a clump of macro algae to take care of nutrient export, as well as make more room in the baffle refugium for more macro algae growth. The macros are doing well under the constant lighting, and I do believe they are serving their purposes well (continual oxygen production, pH control, N fixaton).

Two month brithday is approaching!

 

[Reef Guy11]

Hey Brandon, that is a great looking mini reef. I love all the tanks you have done. I have bee thinking of tring to do one for my computer deck, just a piece to look at. Keep up the Good work.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Brandon, that is a great looking mini reef. I love all the tanks you have done. I have bee thinking of tring to do one for my computer deck, just a piece to look at. Keep up the Good work.

just bought a 2.5 'minibow' acrylic w/ micro powerhead, and fine quartz sand for that very purpose :wink: cost:$20

gonna start it in spring, i hope(prob'ly sooner)

 

[brandon4291]

ouch! a 2.5 mini bow will be a stinger when its finished...you certainly could fit alot of corals in there. a LFS here has a small bowfront they are using to house seahorses, and the effect of that bow is outstanding, kind of amplifies the viewing area of the reef and makes it very clear.

Thanks Darrell, hope yours works out. I originally wanted to take mine to work but it still hasn't worked out yet so all the luck to you. IMO these heavily stocked nanos need to be supplied with calcium and buffer regularly (currently using c-balance)--however some claim that water changes alone will supply all thats needed. For some reason my LPS polyps dont look as healthy if they arent given a mL of calcium and buffer every two days or so. Ha@! he said one mil of calcium. 8)
recall the tanks are not skimmed, so much of the buffer ions are fixed (removed from the water column) by internal acid production, and from coralline/coral deposition.

your 2.5's, if heavily stocked and also unskimmed, should require about 3-4mLs (each) of calcium and buffer every three days if you use c-balance.

appreciate it fellas.

b429

 

[reefann]

WOW WOW WOW! Thats about the response your last reef got from me. This reef gets WOW WOW WOW. I cant decide which i like more! Now for the question when you said you use buffer you mean a PH buffer anything else other than calcium you dose with?
Thanks
A huge fan of your work JJ
_________________
current us unemployment rate

 

[brandon4291]

thanks JJ I sure appreciate your kind words. as far as maintaining alkalinity, I have successfully used Seachem liquid reef carbonate or probuffer DKH (Kent) for many months with good results. Recently I tried Julian Sprung's C-Balance which I thorougly recommend for nanos and picos. It is very easy because you add the chemicals in equal proportions, and your calcium and alkalinity measures will remain constant.
I want to keep posting update pics to document the health of the corals over the long-term.

*For many days I had trouble with retracted corals and I couldnt figure out why. I thought a recent lighting upgrade (doubled) had shocked them, but found out it was a dying tunicate colony I had installed a few weeks earlier. The slightest amount of decompositional ammonia stresses the hound of a pico (obviously), so dont stock with small frags that can fall into the structure and hide. I also have a small eunicid worm in this reef too (hitchhiker) who always steals and munches on frags, thought he had ate the tunicate colony

Now they are back out in full, the GSP oddly enough were the most sensitive. Their polyps are emerging after two weeks withdrawn (removed tunicate colony yesterday)

 

[brandon4291]

I like to include the finger here (index of course) as a reference to the size and placement of the frags--the pink blastomussa I found are smaller than my finger nail.

one of my main approaches to aquascaping a pico is to use single polyps in place of where larger reefs use whole colonies. I do this commonly with caulastrea and blastomussa heads.

Also, in the many months of watching these picos ive noted some interesting proximity data on the various LPS/SPS species in both the reefbowl and the Mini75. heres a quick over-view of corals that can actually touch each other and not sting or irritate

clavularia/montipora --touching, no sting

blastomussa/caulastrea --touching, no sting

brown variety zoanthids/caulastrea --touching, no sting

caulastrea/montipora --touching, no sting

brown zoanthids/blastomussa --touching, no sting

xenia/montipora --grown together, no recession at each base. It just goes right from xenia tissue to montipora polyps.

xenia/blastomussa --touching, no sting.

clavularai/brown variety mushroom --touching, no sting to calvularia

**I do not advocate ignoring the proximity requirements of LPS and SPS corals--there is some variable I am unaware of allowing these to grow closely together and not kill each other. Two likely reasons, although Im not sure: 1. Slow stocking rate. 2. Stocked with primarily non-aggressive species.

The only LPS in the Mini75 are blastomussa and caulastrea.



b429

 

[brandon4291]

A clone army of Mini75's is forming in my living room.

 

[brandon4291]

let me touch on the subject of sealing a reef system once again. In a tiny micro reef aquarium, the slightest bit of evaporation or even heavy salt creep will cause stressful salinity shifts. The obvious way around this maintenance hassle is to seal the reef reliably, with a tight fitting lid lined in rubber weather-stripping that rests on the inside upper portion of the tank. Here is the open lid showing the inner and outer rubber seals.

******Note how each power cord is ran through a rubber grommet in the glass lid. This is the only way to truly seal a system, cuts in the rear wall do not work as well. The power wires to the heater and powerhead were cut, inserted, then resoldered.

For some reason this picture really captures the size of the system.

 

[brandon4291]

the lid is held on tight by a custom L-bracket that hooks in slightly at each end. These grip on the upper mid points of the front acrylic panel.
This counters the bend of the acrylic, keeps it straight along the front panel, and presses the seal in tight.

 

[brandon4291]

here's a closeup of the mini glass lid and acrylic box that will soon be an SPS pico reef.

 

[brandon4291]

Ill use these next few posts to make some measurements of the acrylic aquarium part of the setup. This one shows the water column is about 4 inches tall.

 

[brandon4291]

--

 

[brandon4291]

X 9 inches long...