P.T.I.: Pico Tank Issues!

[Gerald Garcia]

Hello all, I have a tank issues that is not so big. I own a 2.5 gal pico tank which currently is stocked with a Yellow Watchman Goby, small Kenya tree, small pulsing polyps, Green Star Polyp, medium Feather duster, a small Peppermint shrimp, 4 blue leg hermit, a bumblebee snail, 2 Asteria snails, and a few recovering Palm tree polyps.

My filtration is a mini Turtle canister filter and an Aquaclear 20, DIY'd with lava rock and a sponge. This act as my flow, later it will serve as my cheato mini refuge.

The three live rocks I have do not have any room. I tried aquascaping it three times and as I stocked the tank, I continued to have issues. Not with my waters parameters, but with the ability to clean the glass and allow my snails to get around on the glass. I now have a few dead spots and Diatoms or brown algae.

I'm thinking about going bigger, like a 3.7 or 5 gallon. I don't want to go bigger than that, as I'm limited on space. What do you think?

 

[andrewkw]

Space is always an issue with pico tanks. You could break up the rock if they just won't fit in such a way that allows you to clean the sides of the glass. Or just give up on cleaning everything but the front pane. If you want a bigger tank by all means get one but I wouldn't swap this out just because the sides are hard to clean.

 

[zachxlutz]

Why don't you break up the rock into smaller pieces and aquascape with some epoxy/super glue?

Is your lighting held up with a glass of water?

 

[brandon429]

also you might like the benefits of doing a fully parted cleaning, that alone removes all the waste that builds up in a display tank sandbed and it will remove the invader. allows for rock cleaning/breaking and repositioning as mentioned.

The fact that its a pico system doesn't make it more sensitive to a full parted cleaning, it makes it easier to conduct. Its possible to simply lift out all the rocks one by one, then catch the fish and other animals and hold them in tankwater elsewhere, then clean the entire sandbed back to cloudless perfection, wash and rinse off rocks to make sure none there, and assemble it all back without causing a new cycle.

Ive done this exact series of steps in my 12 yr old pico hundreds of times and many of them documented in video in the sand rinse thread if you ever want to attempt it. sure is a nice reboot for a tank, your corals are hungry and perked up afterwards etc. neat option to consider, an all at once vs an incremental one.

if you want to upgrade tanks the same skip cycle technique can be used to avoid having to recycle the new tank, either way its a cleaning method so it doesn't matter when you apply. being able to access a tank and not have it recycle is a core critical reefing skill that can save your tank one day in an emergency.


*there's nothing wrong with not doing that, and simply hand siphoning out the invader to guide it out. many ways w work

that big rinse is just a nice way to practice the method before a large invasion is in place, while its easy to access things. when they are done correctly they're an energizing event, not a negative one.

 

[Gerald Garcia]

Why don't you break up the rock into smaller pieces and aquascape with some epoxy/super glue?

Is your lighting held up with a glass of water?

Lol, yes... My light is held by an empty glass. It's so the center light get through to the bottom. And the reason for this is that the bar it came with isn't flexible enough to reach 75% of my tank. So I "Poor man" rigged what you see.

 

[Gerald Garcia]

also you might like the benefits of doing a fully parted cleaning, that alone removes all the waste that builds up in a display tank sandbed and it will remove the invader. allows for rock cleaning/breaking and repositioning as mentioned.

The fact that its a pico system doesn't make it more sensitive to a full parted cleaning, it makes it easier to conduct. Its possible to simply lift out all the rocks one by one, then catch the fish and other animals and hold them in tankwater elsewhere, then clean the entire sandbed back to cloudless perfection, wash and rinse off rocks to make sure none there, and assemble it all back without causing a new cycle.

Ive done this exact series of steps in my 12 yr old pico hundreds of times and many of them documented in video in the sand rinse thread if you ever want to attempt it. sure is a nice reboot for a tank, your corals are hungry and perked up afterwards etc. neat option to consider, an all at once vs an incremental one.

if you want to upgrade tanks the same skip cycle technique can be used to avoid having to recycle the new tank, either way its a cleaning method so it doesn't matter when you apply. being able to access a tank and not have it recycle is a core critical reefing skill that can save your tank one day in an emergency.


*there's nothing wrong with not doing that, and simply hand siphoning out the invader to guide it out. many ways w work

that big rinse is just a nice way to practice the method before a large invasion is in place, while its easy to access things. when they are done correctly they're an energizing event, not a negative one.

Wow, [emoji848] thanks Brandon429; As a noob, this will help a lot. Will post when done.
Cheers!

 

[brandon429]

If I could offer one pre plan event

It’s that when people rinse the bed, they only have so much saltwater so they’ll under rinse, leave cloud, bad
You don’t have to do the mechanical heavy rinse in salt ~ do that as the final rinse

Use ro if you want, I use tap, limit less

Final rinse saltwater, reinstall clean bed it’s trick to ageless lifespan. Under rinsing and leaving the cloud is the risk, not being thorough. Those bacteria stayed wet the entire time and the contact time w tap was brief, the sand retains enough bac to be fine. Trick of the year for nano reset
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445