Its alive but I don't have to feed it and its a hobby

[chipmaker]

I put together a PICO reef tank a few days ago........and its next to impossible to let alone as its continually producing new unique critters........

Its a wave or s shaped all glass tank of 2 gal capacity, thats why its called a PICO.....which is a tank under 2.5 gal capacity. I put in 4 1/4 pounds of live rock from Fiji Islands, 2 1/2 pounds of live sand and planted a few polyp frags and some mushrooms and other soft corals, pipe organ coral......Have the proper lights etc as well as a light they call a lunar light, which simulated light on a reef under a full moon. Its pretty colorfull with the daylight lighting, but its awesome at night with just the lunar light........all the florescent colors is unbelieveable.........colors so vivid it would be something a used of LSD would be normally seeing :hide: who, no not me!

The only critters that move that i know of or that I bought for in it is a algae eating snail. The rest just started crawling out of the live rock over time......SO far what I can identify is 2 ultra tiny white starfish called asterina, a small serpent brittle starfish about the size of a quater with its arms all the way out..........but there is a heap of stuff I don't have clue what it is. Each time just about you look at it something new is found......

Best part is it should be pretty well self sustaining. Too small to put any fish in it, and with a water change every 2 or 3 weeks it the critters get all their nourishment from within. All the plants(soft corals etc) are photosynthesis, so they get their nutrition from the light..........I may eventually put in a pair or trio of what they call sexy shrimp, and see what happens. They eat algae and any food needed for them would be miniscule, as they only grow to about 1/2 inch long or so.

[Fusion1970]

Thats pretty cool, Chip. How wide is the tank? With an "S" shape, if the tank was pretty thin, a 2.5 gallon tank could be pretty good sized I guess. Can you take a pic of it? If the snail cleans it, and theres nothing in there you need to feed, that sounds even better.

I have had a couple fresh water tanks, and really started liking tiger oscars. They definately have a personality. I wanted a salt water tank, but it was too much of a learning curve for the time. Seen a small nurse shark at a pet store once, but was firmly talked out of it. :00000060:

Greg

[chipmaker]

Fusion
The tank has a very small footprint. Its approximately 12 inches long, 7 inches wide and 8 inches high.....

There is always going to be some form of microscopic algae in the tank somewhere growing and its usually sufficient for just that one tiny snail as well as the brittle starfish....

At one time it was super big bucks for even a simple saltwater setup, and it most always required a huge 55 gal tank or larger, and a mess of pumps and other things. But a self sustaining Pico reef tank is fairly cheap, to buy, setup and maintain. I have under $140 in my setup, and if could have been done cheaper. It all depends on what types of corals and such you buy, as some of them can be in ther hundreds of dollars, but there are lots of varietys out there for a couple of bucks. YOu can often get what is called a frag for a buck or two. A frag is a cutting or chip off an extablished colony, and its common to sell them as eventually some stuff multiplies and needs thinning out....But stuff in a marine tank usually grows ever so slowly, that is everything but the bad stuff you don;t want. ROF

You can get what is called RO/DI water to mix up for your saltwater. It is reverse osmosis and distilled, so all bad things like phosphorus etc are removed, so there is nothing for most nasties to feed off of, so your tank should not get a bad case of algae bloom etc, and since your not introducing any feeds there is still yet another source of food that is not available for unwanted stuff. Having plants that feed off the provided light is great.

Here are a few images...Not the best as I can't seem to get the bold vivid colors nor detail, but it will giv eyou an idea of what I am playing with as well as a couple of pics of other folks pico's from a 3 quart square golass container to a small brandy sniffer setup.....
First two are of the pico setup the first day it was setup. In the opne titled "pico" which is a closer front shot of the tank, if you look at the center at the bottom you can see the tiny brittle starfish that came out of the rock.

[chipmaker]

Here is a pic in which I am making a new coer and hood out of plexiglass to hide and shield the light assembly. The other pic is a close up of some lifeforms in the tank, which are polyps and mushrooms. Mushrooms come in all shapes and colors. The mushrooms are the larger flat low laying type critters..........all this stuff glows various colors of flourescent with proper lights, and the flash attachment on camera sort of washed it all out......

[MowHoward2210]

That's an amazing setup you got there, chipmaker! Is this a different model tank from the one that had a design flaw?

[chipmaker]

PIcs of some lifeforms, Polyps, close up. The first onbe is a blue poly type and the other is a galaxia polyp. There are hundred of different types of polyps and they come in all kinds of colors. I also have what is called eagle eytes, which is like the blues but a brilliant green center with a brownish gold edge. The eagle eye is visible in a previous image if you look close.

[chipmaker]

Here sre a few of some other folks pico setups which inspired me. The first one is a small brandy sniffer overall view and a close up. The other one with a blue hood is a pico on a shoestring budget.........the hood is made out of that corrugated plastic commonly used in making signs etc, and held together with hot melt glue. It has a 3 quart capacity......and he has less than $60 bucks in it, counting the lifeforms.......and its been untouched for close to 6 months now, except for a water change once a month.

[chipmaker]

Mow, yes this is a different type tank altogether than what I had originally wnted. The other was known as a NANO, which is any self contained tank 5 gallon or above up to 25 gal capacity. It was a U shaped curved glass tank, with built in pumps, lights etc in a small neat package. They presently have a class action lawsuit started against the manuf of the "Nano Cube" (brand name by JBJ products).

The attached image here is in my opinion one of the neatest compact pico reef tanks I have ever seen. Its been up and running without a problem or feeding for over a year now, and its just awesome IMHO. You can get an idea of its size as compared to the watch in thr foreground, and again no feeding required, just occasional water changes and good lights. Temps need to be between 75 and 80 so for most households you do not even need a heater. None of the tanks I posted images of use any heaters, nor do any have any critters other than a snail or starfish in them.
]

[Fusion1970]

That is neat, Chip. Its amazing what all is "alive" that does not look like it is. The starfish is cool too.

Greg

[USN_ED]

chipmaker -

Since you seem to be so heavily involved in this type of activity you should try to go to Austrailia and dive on the Great Barrier Reef. You'd be amazed at the eye-candy that is there.

Hawaii is ok but not that outstanding in my opinion. Now, the Marianis Islands (Guam) are great too and if you could, Tahiti is outstanding too.

I was stationed on Diego Garcia, which was smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when I was in the Navy and the reefs, fish, and other sea life was just spectacular.

Are you interested in Sea Shells by chance? Let me know. I may have something you'd like to have.

Great tank and display.

[Steve (Magnolia, TX)]

...I was stationed on Diego Garcia, which was smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when I was in the Navy...


Ed,
I've just got to say... "I'm sorry".

I spent 4 days on Diego Garcia (we flew in on a C141 and sailed out on an MPS vessel) and came to the conclusion that 3 days is the optimal amount of time to spend on Diego Garcia.

The beach is great. The water is great, but... Something about looking out across the lagoon and seeing the opening sequence from Gilligan's Island... ROF

[USN_ED]

Steve -

I know just what ya mean. I was stationed there from April 1974 through April 1975 and that was when there was basically nothing there. We only had Sea Huts (4' plywood walls with screen on top and tin roof) to stay in and that was about it.

When were you there?

[Steve (Magnolia, TX)]

When were you there?


August of 1987...

We stayed on the ship (the MV PFC William B Baugh) the entire time we were in "port"...

[simple_john]

chip love te reef tank... thats slick.. 2 gallons.....


I used to have a 90 gallon reef tank for years.. i finally broke down and got rid of it 3 years ago.. it was nice but too big, way too time consuming and expensive.... My biggest issue was once i moved out of portland and onto well water.. the tank did not do well... i slowly lost and replaced everythyng... short of buying a r/o water thingie i sold it... plus the noise of the thing was horrible... I was sort of glad but still sad to sell it...




your tank:

love your live rock.. you can get some cleaner shrimp right? i love them and they look so cool crawling around the rocks....

How about one of those awesome looking sea tridachina clam thingies?


personally id have no problem with a fishless tank.. the crustations, dsponges, mushrooms, anemones, wormrocks ect are better than any salt water fish...



great setup... do you need heavy duty lighting (metal halides) to sustain the coral & lieve rock?

[simple_john]

oh chip dont forget feather dusters... and the brains are awesome...

also on one of your pics is a pumping xenia (sp) its got these little fingers and opens and close (pump) them from time to time.. very cool...

[chipmaker]

oh chip dont forget feather dusters... and the brains are awesome...

also on one of your pics is a pumping xenia (sp) its got these little fingers and opens and close (pump) them from time to time.. very cool...

SJ....I know what you mean on a large tank......Large tank = more rock, more sand more livestock and more water to change out.......which all equaztes to more $$$$$$$$....I was fine with this pico setup until the wife drug home the feather dusters, and a pink and purple cocoa worm.........now I have to feed the things (filter feeders) but its only 2 drops of phytoplanton every 5 days or so, so its not a big deal.........No cleaner shrimp, but I have three "Sexy" shrimp coming. Sexy shrimp only get abaout 1/2 to 3/4" max in size and they are algae eaters, and reef safe. Red in color with white dots, and they call em sexy shrimp due to the way they shake their "booty" when walking.

Also added some red and green pipe organ coral and another mushroom this past weekend. Just finished making a custom acrylic splash shield/cover, and a custom acrylic hood that is cut and formed to the shape of the tank......was a bit tricky to make, but it came out looking good. No Metal Halide lights, just some really good PC 50/50. The little tank has 2, 13 watt 50/50 bulbs in it, so I have decent lighting but not enough for hard corals...but thats ok. I also instaled a fan inside with a temp sensor so when the water gets to 80 deg, it cuts on, and when it gets to 76.5 it cuts off....but my water temp is holding pretty darn good, considering how small this tank is and with 26 watts of lights.....its staying right between 77.6 and 78.4 deg.....Supposed to keep it between 75 and 80 according to the fella in the salt water fish place..I also added some rubble to the hang on back power filter for more filtration........I also added a dimmer for my moon lights, so now I can duplicate the brightness of the phases of the moon, just for the heck of it.......Its still popping out new critters that we have not seen before......

One day I hope to get a larger tank, in the 110 to 150 gal range but I have to play with this one first just to see if its really something I want to fool with on a larger scale. I'll probably make my own acrylic tank as I have 6 sheets of 1/2" acrylic just begging to be used for something, as well as a heap of other thicknesses and colors besides clear.......(all of it obtained when a plastics distributor housecleaned and moved to a different location, i wound up with a barn load of plastics of all kinds, and its fun and neat to work with.......)

So far I am even getting new cora line growth and on one rock its comming in a redish pick, where my other rock is a purple with some green......Also putting together yet another 2 gal pico just like this one. NOw that I got the details worked out on making a hood and splash /cover, it will be a piece of cake.

[chipmaker]

chipmaker -

Since you seem to be so heavily involved in this type of activity you should try to go to Austrailia and dive on the Great Barrier Reef. You'd be amazed at the eye-candy that is there.

Hawaii is ok but not that outstanding in my opinion. Now, the Marianis Islands (Guam) are great too and if you could, Tahiti is outstanding too.

I was stationed on Diego Garcia, which was smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when I was in the Navy and the reefs, fish, and other sea life was just spectacular.

Are you interested in Sea Shells by chance? Let me know. I may have something you'd like to have.

Great tank and display.

Ed.......I have been to austrailia 3 times so far, diving......and a heap of other places as well, I worked part time for a dive shop as a scuba instructor, and they played to a pretty good clientel of customers who always wanted exotic trips, and the usual policy was with the dive places if yu can fill the trip with X amount of folks 2 or so could go free, which was usually us instructors.....Been to Truk sp? Lagoon, Wake, Hawaii, Easter Islands, Panama, Bon Aire, Phillipines, South China Sea, Cozumel, All over the caribean like Haiti, Dominican Republic, all over the Florida Keys, Atlantic coast, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes,, Bahamas,Jamaca,Curaso, Aruba, Yucatan, West coast of USA, Mediteranian and also the Red Sea.......with the later two when I was TDY. I was also among the first 200 US citizens to get into cuba on a trip, and that was perhaps the most awesome dive trip I was ever on. That place is relatively undove for many many years........but they kept a good watch on you. So I have been all around this old world under water over the last 40 years....Been certified since I was 18.

I have a huge collection of shells, but unfortunately all of them are packed away in boxes in the attic, except for a certain few special ones..They just take up so much room to properly display, and unless they are in a glass case or cabinet can be a nightmare to keep dusted off. SO what kind of shell is it that you have........I like Cowrys, and Spiney Conch's as well as Nautilus..I even have a few nice pieces of the prized black coral from the bahamas, that we smuggled out of the country......

[USN_ED]

Wow!! That's quite a diving resume.

I was going to offer to send you a few shells and like yours, mine are in boxes in storage. I have cowries, conchs, spiders, cones, and the like that I got while shelling and diving in Diego Garcia, the Philippines, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian spots.

I've known a couple of guys that had living tanks that have surrounded/placed nautical items like shells around or near the tanks.

Anyway, with your collection of shells, it looks like you don't need any from me. Once again - nice tank.

[chipmaker]

Ed I appreciate the offer. After posting the above last night, I remembered a few other places I dove that I did not mention as well......but thats not important anyhow.....Back about 1981 or 82 I went back to Pennsylvania during the Christmas holidays, and took my dive gear along.......I had it adapted for cold water use, so my reg would not freeze up, and used a dry suit. Back in PA, there was these huge deep open stip mines that filled with crystal clear water, that at one time used to be open pit anthracite mine, and it also had a lot of deep shafts run off out of the pit to get to smaller veins of coal.....it was first mined as a pit, then later they went in and mined it in shafts when it wa no longer economical to remove all the overburden to get to the coal and smaller veins......Lots and lots of quartz crystals and fools gold (iron Pyrite or suplhur diamond was very abundant) and we used to swim in these old pits as kids.......My intent was to dive in the one we called the blue canyon, which was a working pit/shaft mine at the time it flooded, many many years ago and there was not enough time to move most of the equipment down there out........in addition there was old cars and such folks used to push off into the pit. At the ramp leading to this pit folks constructed a boat ramp, and it was not uncommon to see one or two power boats and sking going on in the summer as this pit wa huge......Anyway the thing had about 2 feet of ice on it, that year, so I used a chain saw and cut a hole about 6 foot square in the ice, and tied on a couple of lengths of nylon line, so I could follow my line back out of the water once I was under the ice. Jumped in and started to explore....It was quite a site.....All those quartz crystals and fools gold, and the multitude of prisms and colors infiltrating through that ice was beautiful........Dive only lasted about 20 minutes, and ranged down to about 100 feet but mainly in the 40 to 60 foot range........I have been down to 227 feet off the Great wall in the Cayman islands, with 4 other local divers, just to do a bounce dive........Stayed there just long enough to get a pic of our depth gages and head back up.......thats extremely deep for scuba and probably not really a wise thing, nor a depth at which sport scuba has any business going.......I could entertain myself around reefs and jetties in less than 20 feet of water. I have been in a decompression chamber 2 times already, at Panama City Florida due to incidents I encountered under water beyond my control, or should say something I really should not have done. Luckily I did not have to pay, as the NAVY writes it off as a learning experience and training, but each time was 4 hours long........Have you ever spear fished? Thats a wild and exciting sport as well.......I got to the point I could not decide if I wanted to carry a spear gun down or my camera, so I usually took it all, and placed what I was not using at the time at the tie in for the anchor for easy access.......

[USN_ED]

No, I never did any spear fishing. All the diving I did was strictly recreational like you but no fishing. I didn't have a camera either. A couple of the guys did but most of us didn't.

Sounds like ya had a good time diving the Quarry. I'll bet it was cold as all get out.

I never had to use a decomperssion chamber but a couple of guys on Diego Garcia did. They were diving at the mouth of the harbor and an un-scheduled ship came in and passed right over them. There was only five to 10 feet of clearance between the bottom of the ship and the bottom and they were in between. The channel was very narrow and there was no where for them to go so they had to hold on like mad to some coral so that the prop wash wouldn't toss them arond too bad and so they wouldn't get sucked into the props. Well, the coral cut them up really bad and they had to surface in a hurry and they didn't have time to decompress so it was into the decompression chamber for them.

[SAMSRAM]

Hi there ED.If youstill have our e-mail can you send me an e-mail ?
Thanks SAM
:trink40: