Interesting setup.

Tired · Feb 8, 2023

Biota Custom Micro Reef-Ready Tank 40oz Desktop Aquarium - with livestock

This Micro Tank is the world's smallest fully functional reef tank, complete with everything you need to get started, even the fish and coral! This tank is perfect for your work desk or kitchen countertop. You can have a little pet to entertain you all day while you work in the office or prepare...

shop.thebiotagroup.com

Am I reading this right, that this is approximately a 2-pint display and a 1-pint sump?
Is this really adequate for fish, even a trimma goby? Particularly with the recommendation of feeding just before water changes- that would mean daily 100% water changes. Seems like you'd be better off with sexy shrimp, for a display volume half the size of a milk carton. Even trimma gobies need some room to move, and a choice of perches. Mine certainly used more than a quart worth of space in my tank, and seemed to enjoy the pod population to snack on.
It's a cute little setup, but this stocking seems like a case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". It also seems like it should come with a warning that micro systems like this are best reserved for the experienced aquarist, and, if anything, the phrasing in the listing looks more like it's meant to appeal to newcomers. If the goal is to offer an inexpensive desktop setup, why not something more like a 3-5 gallon tank?
Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm up too late, but something about this feels inconsistent with the whole idea of helping people keep thriving, healthy, happy fish.

Hurricane Aquatics · Feb 8, 2023

This is absolutely stupid and a new "company". I wouldn't even think about posting that on my company page.

Biota_Marine · Feb 8, 2023

Tired said:
Biota Custom Micro Reef-Ready Tank 40oz Desktop Aquarium - with livestock

This Micro Tank is the world's smallest fully functional reef tank, complete with everything you need to get started, even the fish and coral! This tank is perfect for your work desk or kitchen countertop. You can have a little pet to entertain you all day while you work in the office or prepare...

shop.thebiotagroup.com

Am I reading this right, that this is approximately a 2-pint display and a 1-pint sump?
Is this really adequate for fish, even a trimma goby? Particularly with the recommendation of feeding just before water changes- that would mean daily 100% water changes. Seems like you'd be better off with sexy shrimp, for a display volume half the size of a milk carton. Even trimma gobies need some room to move, and a choice of perches. Mine certainly used more than a quart worth of space in my tank, and seemed to enjoy the pod population to snack on.
It's a cute little setup, but this stocking seems like a case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". It also seems like it should come with a warning that micro systems like this are best reserved for the experienced aquarist, and, if anything, the phrasing in the listing looks more like it's meant to appeal to newcomers. If the goal is to offer an inexpensive desktop setup, why not something more like a 3-5 gallon tank?
Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm up too late, but something about this feels inconsistent with the whole idea of helping people keep thriving, healthy, happy fish.

Hey guys, being that we breed the trimma and eviota gobies we also recommend for these tanks I can say they do pretty well here. In the wild these "jellybean" fish typically stay within a very small area their entire lives (part about the hand's breadth in size). The average life span of these species is typically just around a year even though we have a few Trimma cf. caesura that are pushing over 2 years now. I typically recommend smaller ones like the black bellies, striatum, or prasites for this size aquarium.

The key is to be creative with the rockwork, even in a tank this size they perch and hide really well. We don't do 100% waterchanges but instead use some airline tubing to spot siphon out any gross areas. We've had a few set up around our offices for just over a year now and the real issue is having to frag the corals in them. We've even been able to grow green slimer out of the water in these guys. Some of our employees prefer the macro algae or invert pathway which is nice that you can do a few different things in these tiny aquariums.

I understand the concern for the low water volume but even when neglected we haven't had any losses in the tanks (obviously we may be a bit more experienced than new aquarists) but other than small water changes, topping off, and dropping a few pellets in the maintenance is super easy and we've had a ton of kids have success. The lids that come on prevent evaporation well and having a good amount of corals or macro algae keep the nutrients in check.

The manufacturer of these aquariums is incredibly passionate and I applaud the amazing build quality and desing of basically shrinking down a whole aquarium system to make these setups. Harley also sells other add ons like the ATO and even some larger options. We feel this size fits what we want in our store and through testing the products personally for a year prior to releasing on our website I can vouch for them.

Biota_Marine · Feb 8, 2023

Hurricane Aquatics said:
This is absolutely stupid and a new "company". I wouldn't even think about posting that on my company page.

PNW Customs has been building these tanks for 3+ years now and he makes them with the company's logos so you can find a few of the other large companies selling them here: https://www.pnw-custom.com/

Maybe we're a bit biased because one of our employees was a proponent of the reef fish bowl featured in Coral Magazine and has gone on a few different podcast explaining microtanks and in detail how cool many of these can be. Aquarists aren't limited by the size of the aquariums but the talent and willingness to succeed.

broncool · Apr 17, 2023

Tired said:
Biota Custom Micro Reef-Ready Tank 40oz Desktop Aquarium - with livestock

This Micro Tank is the world's smallest fully functional reef tank, complete with everything you need to get started, even the fish and coral! This tank is perfect for your work desk or kitchen countertop. You can have a little pet to entertain you all day while you work in the office or prepare...

shop.thebiotagroup.com

Am I reading this right, that this is approximately a 2-pint display and a 1-pint sump?
Is this really adequate for fish, even a trimma goby? Particularly with the recommendation of feeding just before water changes- that would mean daily 100% water changes. Seems like you'd be better off with sexy shrimp, for a display volume half the size of a milk carton. Even trimma gobies need some room to move, and a choice of perches. Mine certainly used more than a quart worth of space in my tank, and seemed to enjoy the pod population to snack on.
It's a cute little setup, but this stocking seems like a case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". It also seems like it should come with a warning that micro systems like this are best reserved for the experienced aquarist, and, if anything, the phrasing in the listing looks more like it's meant to appeal to newcomers. If the goal is to offer an inexpensive desktop setup, why not something more like a 3-5 gallon tank?
Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm up too late, but something about this feels inconsistent with the whole idea of helping people keep thriving, healthy, happy fish.

You read the post wrong. They recommend using frozen food right before water, change, and pellets when not changing water.