It’s jarring... 2g jar SPS Pico!

[hart24601]

Ive never experienced the air bubble thing with mine, so I always attributed it to smaller clams for some reason. Ive taken my derasa out of the tank on a few occasions to scrub tube snails and bubble algae off of it without issue as well. Should be an interesting expereiment if they live - the pair of them might wreak havoc on the alk/cal levels should they really get going...

It will be interesting! I wouldn't have thought it possible if someone on nano reef hadn't kept a maxima for a year and a half with only WC. That is if they acclimate ok and start growing!

I suspect it's a bit like corals that demand is reduced as alk and calcium levels drop. Fast growth after a WC and then after the alk drops lower and lower the growth gets slower and slower. Plus with no fish there isn't a lot of ammonia for the clam to eat so that probably slows growth as well. But 1st things 1st is making it though the next week or two, these little guys don't take shipping well ime.

 

[hart24601]

Changed all the water Friday, took the rock out to peroxide a few spots and did another 100% change and stirred up the sand well. Amazing how dirty the water was. This is with chemipure Nano and I have not fed it in weeks. I should add the larger clam that looked rough didn’t make it.

 

[hart24601]

Forgot I had a 3/8” acrylic sheet, so I decided to cut to make a lid. Glass lid is fine, but has some glare, got the acrylic shaped ok and just put the kessil flat on it. No heating issues so seems good and it lights up the jar a lot more.


The seal isn’t as good, small gaps, so will need to watch salinity and see what happens.

 

[hart24601]

The other clam isn't looking so hot, so I don't think it's going to be very long for the world. I don't attribute this to the pico, just how hard it is to get 1-1.5" clams to live after shipping stresses. Neither one of them started growing so it's not like stability or dosing was an issue.
Someday I will probably try another eventually, however I might try a multicolored mantle and not blue as the blue gets a bit lost. For small clams I sure recommend live aquaria with the 14 day guarantee. It didn't look like either of the little clams had much of any bright white on the shell when they came in, so who knows the health to start with.


However there is visible growth on the SPS birdsnests and digis, so that is a win!

 

[hart24601]

I think am getting another BRS gift card after the holidays so will pick up that tunze powerhead so I can make waves. I also found a oxydator mini on ebay that I snagged and will see if it fits. I use them in my FW systems and reef before and like the simple peroxide dosing although I don't think they are a make or break thing.

 

[hart24601]

Happy holidays everyone! I did get a couple BRS gift cards so a tunze is headed this way, yay!

Clam didn't make it, either one, but 1 inch clams are tricky. It was under the 14 day guarantee so at least I am not out anything, but its still not fun to lose livestock- but considering there was 0 growth I could see I am trying to not beat myself up on it too much. Perhaps I will try another eventually, maybe a colored one and not blue. Since it wasn't growing there was not additional demand on the tank and the salinity and temp are rock solid so I don't think there were any issues that were jar related. I have never had luck with a clam under 2" in any system.

The coral are doing great though! Did another round of peroxide on any algae growth. I found this works well:

• Get a towel and peroxide ready, unplug everything.
• Drain water into a 3g bucket, take the rock with all the coral out put in the bucket with the drained water.
• Carry the jar to the sink to magic eraser the glass (or however you like to clean) and stir up all the sand.
• I use some fresh made saltwater to clean the sand but could use the old water. I pour a quart in, stir and sump a few times and put the jar back in place and fill 3/4 full with new water.
• Take rock out of bucket, peroxide the areas I want, set back in the old water for a min to wash off, then put back in the jar.
• Plug everything back in!

I might have missed something but this process is pretty fast and works great!

 

[hart24601]

Few holiday pics. Just iPhone.

 

[hart24601]

And this guy. Lot more cool ones to take out but the thick curved glass is hard.

 

[brandon429]

It’s really great


The tank is rising to your standard for it, this is excellent command in a jar. Solid evaps control

I have some sps that were new, some simple acros they rtn’d halfway on me so that’s unideal lol. Must’ve been the 25 min drains...adapt r go, rough life. A little loss occasionally, but when cruise control hits and we find what selects well for our variables, things get reliable. The loss of my new sps means nothing in a system that was once taken over by the same strain, and other sps doing just fine. With other coral in place and adapting to my harsh care regimen, it simply didn’t adapt well enough this time, but the overall system continues/holds course.


Those colors you have in there are sharp

 

[hart24601]

Thanks! Those iphone pics looks so much better before I look at them on my computer!


I think somehow nutrients got too high at 1st, my feeding was perhaps too overzealous and a simple W/C wasn't enough to remove enough of the food, so I am just leaving things alone for nutrient input until algae slows down a bit although I am keeping on top of the growth and not allowing algae to get very far.

I have not put any acro in here yet. I have been avoiding them and I don't know if I will ever put one in. I have always liked Hawkins, but thin skinned might not play nice with being exposed to air weekly. Something like a slimy stag would be fine I bet.

One nice thing about the bucket transfer method I have been doing is there seems to be a lot less slime in the jar when I am done vs leaving the rock in the jar for the w/c. I will of course have to keep trimming coral to be able to physically remove the rock, but will decide about that later. Perhaps as the system matures it will not be needed.

I am very excited about the tunze. Pointing the output up to make a wave seems like the ideal pico water movement as it shouldn't make a whirlpool like a normal powerhead but we will just have to see.

 

[hart24601]

Going to be giving away the JF burning banana and sunset stylo with the JF flame echinopora and two psammocora. They all have sweepers!

Right now they live on the sand but I am going to give them to my friend has a late Xmas gift. Got no place for sweepers! I didn’t realize the psammocora had them too.

 

[hart24601]

The tunze came in! It's bigger than the sicce so have to get used to that, but wow does it flow. I have it with the flow deflector off and pointing up for wave mode. This might be the perfect type of flow for a jar. The downside is noise, I have it set to totally stop between pulses which makes a noise, the manual says it will quiet down so we shall see. Even if not it can be set to have a slower, but not off, pulse that would work almost as well.

Overall, wow what a pump for pico-nano tanks. Of course it's $140 for a $13 jar.... but since I got giftcards why not!

 

[hart24601]

Pretty much the wave setting on minimum. Love it except for the noise that I hope improves.

 

[lbacha]

I use the fixed speed version in my salt water make up container. It can move some serious water for a small pump. It was too much for my 25g planted tank which is why it's being used for mixing salt water

 

[hart24601]

Oh I bet the fixed one would be crazy. This one I am quite happy with, the plate coral in particular likes the waves vs the fixed flow.

 

[lbacha]

I'm running 2 mp10's synced with a reeflink on my 8g nano. I love the variation in flow those things put out. I have it set to a calm 20% flow at night which is great as my hermits can then come out and forage

 

[hart24601]

Wow, 2 mp10 on 8g! I don’t feel bad now, haha. Have a build thread?

 

[lbacha]

I do check my threads it's under shallow 8g. The DT is a placeholder. It will eventually be upgraded to a 24x24x18 cube. That's why I'm adding the trigger 20c sump to it.

I really don't think the mp10's are overkill it's hard to get good circulation with one pump when you have a 24" x 12" footprint and a decent amount of rock.

 

[hart24601]

I want to add that in addition to attacking the algae with peroxide I got some reef flux fluconazole as it appeared there was some bryopsis. I just added 1 pill which is a bit higher than most people dose but with no fish why not.

Several days later....


Wow. All algae is gone. It looks amazing. Snails seem fine eating the dead bits and the corals looks great.

This was the most dramatic positive thing I have experienced so far in the jar. The budding coralline on the heater doesn’t seem to be phased either. Pretty impressive.

Since reef crystals has calcium around 500ppm and 3dkh ~ 20ppm calcium in theory I could add 15 dkh and have calcium at 400ppm which is fine for growth. So I used reef calculator to see how much baking soda that is (not much) and have been putting a tiny pinch in every couple days. The birds nests have exploded with new growth since I started doing it. The idea is I can supplement alk a bit without worrying about calcium and mag as the weekly 100% resets levels.

I do this of course watching the corals for reactions but so far it’s been quite positive.

 

[hart24601]

Quick pic that looks good on my phone that will no doubt look terrible on the computer. Haha.