Mr. Microscope's 3 Gallon JBJ Picotope

[Mr. Microscope]

Hello All,

I've been hanging out on the marketplace forum for the last few months and figured that it's about time I started a tank thread here. If you want to know the bulk of my story, it's all posted on nanoreef.com.
Mr. Microscope's 3 Gallon JBJ Picotope



Started 2009.10.31

Here's the breakdown of my equipment and stocking:
3 gallon JBJ Picotope, Koralia Nano powerhead, Evil66 PAR38 20KK 80 degree optics (nanotuners.com)
AC70 Fuge mod with Chaeto, Hydor 25W heater, Chemi-Pure Elite, Filter Floss
1L gravity fed ATO
5 lbs LR, 1/2" LS

Fish
Blue Damsel
CUC: 2 Ceriths, 1 Nerite, lots of stomatellas, <strike>Porcelain Crab</strike>, Nassarius
Corals:
Soft: Toadstool leather, <strike>brown mushrooms</strike>, red mushroom, Papaya Cloves, Anthelia, GSP HH, blue spotted mushroom
Zoanthids: Neon Greens, Radioactive Dragon Eyes, Wham'n Watermelons, Zombie Eyes, Tub's Blue, King Midas, Horizons, Green Lanterns
Palythoa: AOGs (Goochsters?), Purple Death, Magicians, Pink and Golds, Mohawks (Variable Stars), button polyp HH, , Green Bay Packers?, Unknown purple and green
Small Polyp Stony: Birdsnest (Frog in a Blender)

...And the images:
Here's my most recent FTS

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Top down shot

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As you can see, I've DIYed a few racks for frags (Yes, I'm one of those zoa collectors :tongueani).

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The picotope is also home to my YCG Gobiodon.

I hope everyone enjoys! I love to trade corals. So, feel free to let me know at anytime you have an offer.
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[noodleman]

:lol2: did you use 12 well cell culture plates for those frag racks?

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Haha! Yep. Cut 'em up with a jewler's saw and embedded some magnets in epoxy. Then, glued felt to the outside magnet and..voila! Instant frag rack. It was actually a 24 well.

also...i couldn't find any egg crate in any of the hardware stores around here believe it or not. I work in a lab and actually have my tank in my office at work. So, I have access to premo water and various other supplies (like 24 well petris :lol.

As the frags grow out, I plan to have less racks and more rock coverage.

 

[autoponicz]

nice pico...!
first time i seen such a mall tank with that many frag racks...haha

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Thanks! It's a fun little tank.

Yup. I'm going the slow route. Haven't purchased any large colonies...probably won't for a while. If I did, I'd probably frag the thing on a million plugs. That's just me.

 

[anthony27]

amazing

 

[Reef Reaper]

where and what type of magnets are those? Such a great idea!!

 

[REEF ADDICT]

Nice nice i see u still have the toadstool i gave ya ..

 

[Mr. Microscope]

where and what type of magnets are those? Such a great idea!!

They're just some strong magnets that I found at a fleemarket type store (not quite, antique, not quite secondhand, not quite junk store). The owner gave them to me 5 for a buck.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Nice nice i see u still have the toadstool i gave ya ..

Yup, and the green zoas too! That toadstool is one of my favorites! Thanks again for the trade. How's the goniopora doing?

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Mr. M = 1
Flatworms = 0​

As planned, before my water change today I used the Salifert Flatworm eXit. I gotta say it did it's job! It only took 3 drops too! I siphoned out some and manually pulled out the rest with a pipette. There weren't that many in there; certianly less than 50. But, hey! I'm a microscopist. I deal with the small stuff.

During the whole process my goby was fine and acting normal (he didn't go to his safety spot), and my corals all stayed open including the touchy toadstool and birds nest.

I finished siphoning out the appropriate amount of water, put back in the chemi-pure, and poured in my usual 4 liters of fresh SW. I'll probably do one more treatment next week just to be safe, but I don't think I'll be seeing anymore of those little red demons anymore.

'Special thanks to junglebase for the Flatworm eXit!

[middle finger] Flatworms!!!​

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Updates 2010.06.11

To start with, here's the latest FTS:

Top Down FTS

You can see that I rescaped slightly; moving my branch rock around, my GSP to the top, and a couple small ones to the bottom for the zoa garden.

I finally started my zoa garden after attempting to grow out for several months. I'm hoping this takes off.

I also added some GSP (Yes, it's THAT bright!). Here you can see both varieties:

The racks were moved to the right side of the tank. The zoas were getting too much flow on the left.
Top (Gobiodon saying, "FEED MEE!!"):

Bottom:

Finally, to help add a little flare, I decided to start a colony of horizons on my branch looking rock in the center. It's hard to see, but there's a brittle star below the horizons on the right.

If you look to the right, you'll see my feather duster that I've had since the beginning. He's grown a lot and worked his way around the rock. You can see his little tube that he made going horizontally, then turning up ninety degrees to where the head is today. When I first set up the LR, he was at the beginning of it. That white growth that branches upward is all new growth in the last couple months. This is the best shot I've ever been able to get of it.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

My goby went desk surfing about a month ago. So, I decided to get a new swimmer.

Say hello to my new fishy! I'm not sure about a name yet. I'm open to suggestions. It's a female Blue Damsel.

The acclimation went incredibly smooth. I took my time with it. The LFS had their water near SG 1.020. It took a while to gradually bring that up. She stayed her black color the whole time, but I saw her nipping at stuff in the water while it was in the acclimation chamber. So, I thought, "what the heck!?" and tried feeding her some arctipods and cyclope-eze. Sure enough she ate it during acclimation! This was a nice change from the yellow clown goby that took several days to get interested in anything. Since this fish is an omnivore, I'll have to find some sort of vegetable protein to feed her in addition to the actipods and cyclope-eze. Perhaps some nori or basic flakes will do the trick. The LFS said that they were only feeding them flakes and pellets.

Here's a video of her in her safe spot about a minute after I got her into the tank. You can see she's still black. 'Just starting to peak out and explore her new territory before darting back.

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Another video. Getting a little more daring now, but still on guard.

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Since everything went so well, I decided to try to feed her a little something before leaving my tank for the day. I turned off all the pumps and went to get some food. When I came back she had changed color to brilliant iridescent blue! I couldn't believe it. She looked about 10 times better than she did in the LFS. The blue is so bright that it's red lining my camera! I wish I could capture how beautiful she is. This fish is a real show-stopper! Best $5 I ever spent. Here's a couple more videos.

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She's fast too!

Blue Lighting!​

 

[FrostyNYC]

Great tank! It's going to take a while for your zoa garden to fill in, but once it does, this will be glowing. I'm a fan of the damsel too. Being labeled as a beginner fish makes them hard to appreciate I guess. I want one myself.


Sent from my iPhone using Reefs

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Thanks Frosty! Yeah, my zoas have been growing slow lately. This damsel is doing well. I'm just hoping it won't raise the nitrate levels. My focus is on the corals here.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Update:

I've made a couple changes to my tank. So, I've decided to take a new FTS and highlight the new stuff.

New FTS 2010.07.19

Top Down

Last friday I attached a bunch more frags to my rocks. Here you can see a couple Purple Death palys (sorry, a little blurry) at the base of my branch rock between the mushrooms:

Also, I attached the RDEs, Green Lanterns (not open here), a few Neon Greens, and five (soon to be eight) of my mystery zoas to the rock that the feather duster lives on.

I only have ten frags left on racks. I'm starting to really clean it up. I'm also starting to consider either changing the light or figuring out a way to screen it/reduce the output somehow. I'd like to find a happy medium spot between the super week 18W PC that I had before where the zoas were huge, but lost color, and the LED's which are getting good color out of everything, but leaving them extremely small.

 

[jadakiss]

very nice just dont feed too much nitrate would be ur biggest factor

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Thanks! I'm working on that. I mostly do target feeding and make sure whatever doesn't get eaten is taken out of the tank.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Big Update:

So, about a week ago, I mentioned that I wanted to come up with a strategy to improve the lighting situation. I ended up moving the the lamp completely vertical. The light no longer hangs centered above the tank, but rather higher, and at an angle down towards the tank. This the highest I can get it without putting books or something underneath.

In ONLY a weeks time, I have noticed a HUGE difference in all the corals. The zoas are getting bigger and coloring up better, the mushrooms are opening up, and the toadstool is putting out it's polyps much more often. I'm really amazed at the changes I've seen in such a small amount of time.
Here's a new shot of the zoa garden. I moved the toadstool and Zombie Eyes over to the garden, nestled in the concave rock. The AOGs, Neon Greens, and WWs are doing much better. Also, the mystery zoas are starting to color up. I'm still not sure what they are. You can see one of the baby Yumas that I mounted in the upper left.

Here is a shot of my little talked about King Midas zoas along side a mystery zoa on the right. It looks like it's getting green/yellow skirt, sky blue middle, and neon orange mouth. I haven't mentioned the King Midas in a while because they were melting. I started with seven. I'm now down to three (looking at this image, I now see that I might have four soon), but they are doing much better. I think the frag is going to recover.

Also on frag rack are the Horizons, however, I'm reconsidering their identification. After taking this image, I noticed that they are getting yellow-orange mouths. Nice! These have also gotten much bigger and better colors since the moving of the light.

I also noticed that my blue mushroom is looking better than I've ever seen it. It really is starting to look neon and is opening up better than ever.

Finally, I purchased some aquarium putty yesterday and mounted some of my new Yumas! Here's a close-up of a couple, but you'll see the rest in the FTS's.

And now, drum-roll please..
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New FTS 2010.07.27

And the top down view

I've posted a lot of FTS's this month, but there's been lots of changes. Following my post to the General Discussion Forum about photo-period, I've shortened my photo-period to eight hours; this works well since my tank is at work. Hopefully all the corals will grow faster and I'll be able to post even more changes.

Microscope out!

 

[guarda]

Awesome pico man. I was recently forced to downgrade my 14g to a 12g but after chancing upon your thread I don't feel as guilty as I did before, heh. Can't wait to see everything grown in with your picotope. Keep the pics coming!