Upsized to a Deskmate (Formerly a Pico 2 Gallon Jar)

[Landshark34]

Hi everyone,
This will be my second pico build. My first build was a half gallon jar that I had running in the office back in 2017. The sole inhabitant of that effort was a piece of gsp frag that spread from its frag plug to cover a piece of live rock over 8 months. The only maintenance I did was sustained weekly 80% water changes. That build was unfortunately interrupted by an extended leave.

Finally over the holidays, I decided to jump back in and start another jar. This time upsized to a 2 gal.
Trying to keep the cost at a minimum, I dug up some old equipment, including my old BoostLED par30 bulb, and picked up salt/sand/dry rock.

I started with 6lb of dry rock and 2 cured biofilter media spheres as seeds. A week in, I added about 3lb more of live rock pieces in an effort to introduce more critters to the system.
The tank is now cycling for just under 3 weeks, and ammonia has been at 0 for a while. I've been adding small bits of fish flakes every few days during this process, and changing 1gal of water per week.

My plan for this jar is to take it slow and once again start with a piece of GSP, and then add some mushroom and candy cane after. For inverts, I hope to add 1 astrea, 1 trochus and 1 nassarius snail, once the tank is a bit more established.

Here is a list of my equipment thus far:

Tank	Anchor Hocking 2 gal jar
Light	BoostLED PAR30 (4blue + 1white) + Ikea light fixture
Circulation	Eheim air 200 (using both airlines)
Heater	Hydor 25W + Inkbird controller
Salt	Red sea coral pro
Substrate	Carib Sea Fiji Pink Live Sand - about 1.5" thick
Rock	Dry Marco Rock 1 piece 6lb Seeded with: 2x BioFilter Media Spheres and 3lb of live rock pieces

The state of the jar at the start of the year (the camera is not dealing with the blue well):

 

[LeannaBanana]

Wow, this is so neat! I'll be following along. Excited to see the progress in your jar.

 

[Landshark34]

I may have already made a mistake. I wanted a bit of macro algae in the jar as a way to eat up some nitrates and introduce some pods, so I picked up a small lump of chaeto. The mistake was that bits of chaeto quickly drifted into cracks and corners of the rocks...

Trying to contain the mess, I went down to this local Japanese dollar store and picked up this small plastic container thing. I shoved the chaeto in and tucked it out of site behind the main rock display above the 2nd airline. I guess I'll use a turkey baster and suck out the escaped chaeto.

The back side of the rock doesn't get a lot of light, so I ordered a cheap grow light off amazon, and it is doing a 9 hour cycle at night after lights off.

I noticed my 25W Hydor heater, even on the lowest setting (at 71 deg), heats up the water to about 82 deg which seems risky. Along with the grow light, I picked up an inkbird temperature controller, and the water temperature is now set at 78-79deg.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hi everyone,
This will be my second pico build. My first build was a half gallon jar that I had running in the office back in 2017. The sole inhabitant of that effort was a piece of gsp frag that spread from its frag plug to cover a piece of live rock over 8 months. The only maintenance I did was sustained weekly 80% water changes. That build was unfortunately interrupted by an extended leave.

Finally over the holidays, I decided to jump back in and start another jar. This time upsized to a 2 gal.
Trying to keep the cost at a minimum, I dug up some old equipment, including my old BoostLED par30 bulb, and picked up salt/sand/dry rock.

I started with 6lb of dry rock and 2 cured biofilter media spheres as seeds. A week in, I added about 3lb more of live rock pieces in an effort to introduce more critters to the system.
The tank is now cycling for just under 3 weeks, and ammonia has been at 0 for a while. I've been adding small bits of fish flakes every few days during this process, and changing 1gal of water per week.

My plan for this jar is to take it slow and once again start with a piece of GSP, and then add some mushroom and candy cane after. For inverts, I hope to add 1 astrea, 1 trochus and 1 nassarius snail, once the tank is a bit more established.

Here is a list of my equipment thus far:

Tank	Anchor Hocking 2 gal jar
Light	BoostLED PAR30 (4blue + 1white) + Ikea light fixture
Circulation	Eheim air 200 (using both airlines)
Heater	Hydor 25W + Inkbird controller
Salt	Red sea coral pro
Substrate	Carib Sea Fiji Pink Live Sand - about 1.5" thick
Rock	Dry Marco Rock 1 piece 6lb Seeded with: 2x BioFilter Media Spheres and 3lb of live rock pieces

The state of the jar at the start of the year (the camera is not dealing with the blue well):

Tank design is really unique looking!!

 

[SaltyinTennessee]

I really like the jar reefs! Looks great and best of luck.

 

[Landshark34]

The first corals are in!
Two weeks ago, I picked up a fair sized frag of GSP which I glued to a frag plug and settled it in a space between 2 pieces of rocks. The GSP came with a bristleworm and an asterina starfish. I saw mixed opinions on the asterina, regarding whether it will munch on the corals, but in the end I let it be. It disappeared amongst the rocks and I haven't seen it since. A couple of days later, I picked up a green candy cane. No luck gluing this one to a plug so I just shoved it into the sandbed.

Both pieces are settling in nicely, thus far. I was hoping the GSP would expand in the direction of the smaller live rock, but it has taken a foot hold onto the main rock and appears to be expanding quickly. The candy cane came with 2 heads but in the last week I noticed the left head has split into 2 mouths.

Given the amount of rocks, the total water volume seems to be about 1.3 ~ 1.4 gal range, and a 1 gal water change is done weekly on Sundays, and the corals are fed with a pinch of reefroids on Wednesdays and Sundays (right before the water change).

 

[Landshark34]

It has almost been a year and this jar is still alive and kicking. I am a bit ashamed but also somewhat glad to say that this has ended up being a totally low maintenance effort tank. It is literally taking care of itself and I am now purposely doing the bare minimum to avoid disturbing the system.

In the spring I was religiously changing 1gal of water weekly and it triggered good growth from the GSP and the candy cane had split into four by early summer. I have not added any other corals.

Since the summer I had gradually reduced the frequency of water changes, by the fall I was doing 1gal of water change per month and as of right now I have not changed the water for 2 months aside from topping up with distilled water every week. This has slowed down the growth of the corals but the eco system remains stable with a lot of critter life roaming around.

Every week or two, i throw in a pinch of fish food, and this triggers some activity from the bristle worms and pods. The asterina starfish remains visible from time to time, unclear if it is the same one but the population had not exploded.

I guess the chaeto really helped with whatever excess nutrients there are in the water as small strands had grown into clumps and I had to removed two golf ball sized clumps during the year. The massive amount of live rock also seems to help. There has not been any noticeable algae blooms. Lately I have noticed a small amount of bubble algae, including on the base of the candy cane, but I am leaving it alone unless the quantity explodes.

 

[Landshark34]

Finally feel confident enough to pick up a few more frags to add to this jar over the holidays.
Added 2 acan frags and a piece of monty, focusing on getting some red colour into the jar.

I'm not sure if the monty is fragged along the edge, which has a white trim or whether this monty is bleaching... but it was only 5 bucks. I placed it at the bottom for now and will move it slowly upward in the next few days.

When I first started the jar, I didn't know if anything was going to live, so I just threw the GSP right in the center. Now I have deep regret as it spreads across my main rock, taking away valuable real estate

 

[Landshark34]

I couldn't help it and decided to marginally move one size up. I picked up a Deskmate towards the end of the holidays and over the next several weeks I will try to move over all the inhabitants of my jar. I'll update the title of this thread and just continue here instead of making a new one.

Concurrently I picked up some other equipment to go with the new tank, highlighted below. I thought about getting an AI Prime HD but couldn't really justify over 350+ CAD just on the light, which is more than everything else. I also believe if I got an AI Prime it would just compel me to upgrade to an even larger tank...

Anyway I found a PAR reading test done by @Scottrshoe for the Fluval Sea Nano and it seems to be adequate. Currently I am running Pink-100%, Cyan-100%, Blue-100%, Purple-100%, White-30% on the lights.

Tank	Deskmate
Light	Fluval Sea Nano
Circulation	Sicce Syncra Nano + VCA RFG nozzle
Heater	Hydor 25W + Inkbird controller
Salt	Red sea coral pro
Substrate	Carib Sea Fiji Pink Live Sand - about 1" thick
Rock	Reuse everything from the jar (at least 10lb of rock)

The tank seems to support itself on 4 acrylic pegs at the bottom, which I fear could be movable (by the kids) and be noisy from the pump vibration. I added a foam mat cut from a 3mm yoga mat, and I also lined the return chamber bottom with a piece of silicone baking mat cut to size (the role of purple sitting on top of the tank). The pump is dropped into the return chamber without the rubber feet and the whole thing runs silent.

Keeping with the low evaporation achieved with the jar lid, I got a piece of 3/8" polycarbonate cut to 8.75" x 11" for the display area and 3.25" x 11" for the rear. The rear piece needs some grooves cut out pending the config of the light and the cables.

I plan to have the entire rear chamber as a refugium with some rock rubbles and cheato + the heater.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Finally feel confident enough to pick up a few more frags to add to this jar over the holidays.
Added 2 acan frags and a piece of monty, focusing on getting some red colour into the jar.

I'm not sure if the monty is fragged along the edge, which has a white trim or whether this monty is bleaching... but it was only 5 bucks. I placed it at the bottom for now and will move it slowly upward in the next few days.

When I first started the jar, I didn't know if anything was going to live, so I just threw the GSP right in the center. Now I have deep regret as it spreads across my main rock, taking away valuable real estate

Nice looking frags!

 

[Landshark34]

For the back of the tank, I actually like the fact that the deskmate has no dividing panel between the overflow and the skimmer area such that the entire area can be used as a huge refugium.
I stick the heater right under the overflow and dumped in a pack of marine pure gem. I unleashed all the chaeto packed in the plastic container within my jar. This is about half of the chaeto in the jar, the other half has outgrown the container and will stay in the jar for now. I used a piece of plastic mesh to cover overflow to the return pump to prevent chaetos from escaping into the display area.

I am actually surprised at how much live rock I have stuffed into the jar. I have about 7 pieces of small sized rock (obtained as cured live rock when the jar was setup) that could cover the majority of the display are footprint (3 of them shown below in the pic) + one massive dried marco rock that is now live + two more marine pure biospheres. I had to extract the large rock to remove the GSP on it. It could not be peeled so I had to hack it off, felt a bit bad for it.

The remaining GSP will be isolated on a single rock. I might stick the original frag plug against the rear wall to create a GSP wall. Anyway the tank is not fully cycled yet so I returned the GSP back to the jar.

Not exactly sure how I can fit all the rocks together to form a nice scape

Meanwhile, the jar has taken on the look of a sandy tidal pool look, which is kind of nice actually.

 

[Katrina71]

Octoaquatics can make a pico sized magnetic chaeto holder for ya. He made us one for an 8g.

 

[Landshark34]

Octoaquatics can make a pico sized magnetic chaeto holder for ya. He made us one for an 8g.

oh yeah I've checked them out for lids and stuff before. I live in Canada though, shipping might be too prohibitive . For now I want to keep the fuge wide and open, since I don't have plans to use any media or skimmer. The filtration will be purely by circulation over a lot of rocks, and nutrient export by chaeto.

 

[Landshark34]

The tank has been cycled and is getting a layer of diatom showing up on the glass and sand bed. I also moved all the corals from the jar, and picked up another two frags, another acan and a piece of mr. freeze lepto.

The coral move showed that the hardscape of my tank is pretty terrible. Basically a very strong flow blasts from the nozzle to the left and then wraps around over the sand bed, so the entire middle band of the rockscape and the sand bed receives too much flow, and this ticked off all the acans, which I originally intend to place around the rock work, and the candy cane, which is sitting on the sand bed. The monti frag I placed at the very top of the rock and the lepto at the very bottom left corner seems to be responding well with the high flow.

As a temporary measure, I moved over all the acans onto the frag rack on the right which has low flow, and created a great wall with a couple of rocks to shield the candy cane. I will leave the scape alone for a few weeks to let the corals settle down, and then will try to rescape a bit to get the desired flow.

The monti seems to have recovered its colors, and the acans have reopened up, and responding to some targeted phyto feeding. Apologize for the color inconsistency of the photos...

 

[Landshark34]

I did some rearrangement of the corals as it seems that they have all settled in. I have been target feeding the corals phyto daily and reef roids twice a week and they seem to have responding well. All four heads of the candy cane are splitting again, hopefully I can plump it up in the next few months.

I initially wasn't too impressed with the Mr. Freeze lepto and only got it because it was 5 bucks, but this thing is rapidly growing over the frag and looks quite nice in blue. I put the frag next to a piece of rock on its own in the hope that it will grow over and encrust it.

I am also battling a resurgent growth of gsp on the main rock. Tiny polyps are showing up (see pic below) around the areas where I first scraped off the gsp, and I have been scraping these new growths off with a knife as well as soon as I see them.

Also thinking of adding a single clownfish to give the tank a bit more life.

 

[Landshark34]

I didn't like my Fluval Marine Nano light, the color is too white, so I did an upgrade/sidegrade. I was able to pick up 2 Kessil A80s with their goosenecks and a spectral x controller for 240CAD (180USD). It seemed like a decent deal relative to buying the A80s lights new, but a second hand AI Prime also goes for around 200CAD

Nonetheless I am pretty happy with the lights so far. I actually took off the goosenecks and DIYed a fixture by bolting both A80 onto the Fluval Marine arm. I think it looks pretty sweet from the top in my own biased opinion. The lights are fairly low, 2" above the water. The left light is directly over the monti (about 3" under the water) and running a schedule peaking at 40% intensity. The right light is over the GSP and is on a simple timer to supplements the left, and is running at around 20% intensity.

In terms of livestock, I added one black misbar clown a couple of weeks back. The fish is about 2" long so I assume it is at least 2 or 3 years old already. The fish settled in and took a liking to the frag holder. Feeding the fish immediately disturbed the tank's nutrition balance and caused another diatom bloom, which is slowly subsiding after 2 weeks. The clown also severely ticked off one of the candy cane heads that its flesh is receding while the other 3 heads are growing, so I had to move the candy cane back down to the sand. It is now at least puffing up so hopefully it will recover.

 

[Landshark34]

I added a rock flower anemone to the tank! First anemone for me, just want to get some experience.

I started out by putting it into an PVC end cap as recommended, but my sand bed wasn't deep enough so the cap couldn't sink all the way down. I prodded the rfa to leave the cap and just set it loose near a crevice by the main rocks. Over the next few hours, it slowly crawled over and wedges itself in. By the next morning it seems to have settled in and opened all the way up.

I've been target feeding all the corals so far and now the rfa is added to the list. Really enjoy the dramatic feeding response from the rfa.

 

[Manpeckz]

Looks great!!

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Looks really nice.

 

[kanders87]

Looking good!