Peter's Petite Pair Of Picos

[castiel]

So while shopping around aquariums yesterday (was actually trying to find some sterbai cories, but failed) we spotted the new Dymax IQ5 tanks at a local store. They had one on the counter set up as a mini reef, which I thought was awesome. And my wife is getting a small bonus from work next week, so said she would buy me one as a present!

So off we trotted to go back and get one today, only for the wife to decide she wanted one too! So we ended up with matching (purple was the only colour they had left) IQ5 nano tanks! I left her at the counter to pay while I had a nose around, only to come up to find she had also bought the Dymax heaters and lids to go with it! Which isn't a bad thing, though I had figured I would get heaters later and probably cheaper ones.

We then called at another store on the way home to get some saltwater (had spotted that recently) and some live rock (more on that below). But they had no sand ... so tried yet another (third for the day) and they had just the kind we wanted!

So obviously had to set these up straight away and here is the result:

His (mine):

Hers:

I've read a fair bit about the lights, so will probably add a second in due course. But not sure about the pump, whether it provides enough flow.

Now I'm already wondering whether we did the right thing with the rock. The guy at the store made it clear that it's base rock, so not suddenly going to spring into life.

My first newbie question is - will this cycle with only base rock in there, or does it need something to kick start this?

And given the size of the tank, are we better hunting down some 'real' live rock and replacing this? Or adding to the top.

Looking forward this, I have a lot to learn but really keen to get a cool little reef going =0)

Cheers
Peter

 

[lljdma06]

No, won't cycle. I'd personally for a tank this size get live rock & go through the cycling process. But for now, just leave it there because i don't want you to rush and do anything. What's the volume in these tanks? Your first SW? Picos are tough. You have to be on top of waterchanges & top-offs & the water parameters are rather unstable.

What else did you get besides two cute tanks?

Welcome to the salty side.

Liz

 

[StandbySetting]

You could cycle using ammonia, it would take quite some time though, and you'll more than likely experience some pretty serious algae issues if you do it this way though.

As Liz says, just using live rock would be much easier, but you could seed this with some live rock rubble if you wished, but it would require feeding with ammonia.

 

[seffieuk]

What lovely little tanks and love the his and hers - you will need to really keep on top of good weekly water changes with them, I might even be tempted to do 2 x 25% a week.

IMO I would take out the base rock and source some really nice shaped live rock, you will also as you correctly said need some more flow around the rock.

to the salty side of the forum, i'm really looking forward to watching your porgress, its something I have been thinking about doing at school for quite sometime

 

[castiel]

Yeah as soon as I put the rocks in the tanks back home I realised we had probably wasted our money. Good thing it was on a couple of kilos, rather than a whole stack! Next weekend we're going to have a drive over to a store that I believe has the real live rock.

I think I would much rather cycle with some LR if possible, and we are very happy to be patient.

 

[seffieuk]

I think I would much rather cycle with some LR if possible, and we are very happy to be patient.

thats the salty code 'patience is a virtue'

 

[castiel]

Well as I want to keep this as a journal (might need to get it moved to the Journal section at some point), thought I would summarise the really useful advise that GrayScale has given me via PM so far (he's my SW Buddy!).

Lighting - should be okay for

"most softies and lps"

(still need to work out what these are, but cool!)

Pump - probably needs upgrading.

"A good rule of thumb is at least 20x turnover. Koralia makes an awesome line of nano powerheads."

Filter - (current filter includes white wool/floss, carbon, bio balls)

"Ditch the bio balls alltogether. in the filter I would run carbon, phosphate remover and live rock rubble. So in place of the the filter floss you could run phoshpate remover and in place of the bio balls run lr rubble.

The rubble is different than what goes in your main system. if your accessing the forums on a computer, there is a link to a calculator that will tell you how much live rock you will need in total inside your tank."

And finally, GrayScale asked me why I decided to make the move into SW - here's my answer:

What made me want to do it ... well a long time ago a friend of my dad's had a massive marine tank set up, must have been hundreds of gallons, and it looked amazing. The reason I have taken so long to get to doing it is that too - he told me it had cost 10-15 thousand pounds to set up! So I've always been interested, but only realised a day or two ago that you could do soemthing in a nano tank. And when we saw these little tanks on sale, though we'd give it a go!

 

[@ombomb]

i would agree with switching to live rock

one of the most entertaining things about a new marine tank is spotting all the life that emerges from it (it keeps you interested while the tank is cycling at least)

what is the output of the lights / total volume of the tank?

LPS = long polyped stony coral

e.g.

hammer coral:

frogspawn coral:

Softies are soft corals (no skeleton)

e.g.

leather toadstools

ricordea:

Depending on your light and flow strength you might be able to support a LPS in there, but they tend to be aggressive to other species around them and have long sweeper tentacles which will sting other coral

the other thing you need to remember is corals (under the right conditions) can grow quite large. i've got a toadstool (same species as the one above) bought as a frag the size of my thumb which is now bigger than a dinner plate and a frogspawn which looks like it would be too large to fit in those tanks, but that can easily be fragged and swapped with friends or a fish shop.

Good luck, would love a pico, but remember it will need a lot more care and attention than a "standard" sized tank.

 

[castiel]

Thanks for the info! LPS look very cool =0)

The lights are Dymax NX5 - 43 LEDs, mixture of blue and white (7 blue, the rest white). Also quite neat that it has a little controller so you can change the brightness of the white, blue or both lamps. Here's a pic of the box:

Was wondering about adding a second of the same type?

From what I have read, and what GrayScale recommended, looks like the pump might need an upgrade. Or I also saw someone with the smaller version of this, the IQ3, that fitted another pump in the other side just by drilling a small hole in the back wall!

Live Rock is on the agenda for this weekend. Would you keep the base rock at all, or just ditch it?

Oh and yes, very aware of the attention the pico will need. But very much up for doing what it takes!

 

[castiel]

So, next steps for the pico (plus a couple of questions!).

- Buy live rock, store dead rock somewhere for future. Question - will the base rock be usable in future if stored dry? The LFS had it in a huge tub of water, but if there's nothing live in there, is there any point?

- Ditch the bioballs and put live rock in the filter section. Question - does it matter if this is a single piece, or should it be several small pieces? Would the base rock be suitable for this if I broke it up? Or will the LFS sell suitably small pieces?

CYCLE

- Buy either another mini pump, or a powerhead. I am going to look into the solution this guy implemented on his IQ3, with a minijet 404 added, and still using the stock pump: http/www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=276637&view=findpost&p=3451782 . Question - does that make sense, or is a mini powerhead a better option? Does it make a difference? I like the fact that both pumps remain hidden and out of the main tank.

 

[GrayScale]

So, next steps for the pico (plus a couple of questions!).

- Buy live rock, store dead rock somewhere for future. Question - will the base rock be usable in future if stored dry? The LFS had it in a huge tub of water, but if there's nothing live in there, is there any point?

Re: you might be able to exchange it and a few extra bucks at the lfs for some actual lr.

- Ditch the bioballs and put live rock in the filter section. Question - does it matter if this is a single piece, or should it be several small pieces? Would the base rock be suitable for this if I broke it up? Or will the LFS sell suitably small pieces?

Re: It would be beneficial to have several smaller rubble like peices within the filter. Once you get lr in the tank itself, I think you could get away with crushing up some base rock to put in your filter but depending on your cycle it may take awhile for it to colonize. Dont quote me on that though. You can usually find some lr rubble in the bottom of the containers they keep the lr in.

CYCLE

- Buy either another mini pump, or a powerhead. I am going to look into the solution this guy implemented on his IQ3, with a minijet 404 added, and still using the stock pump: http/www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=276637&view=findpost&p=3451782 . Question - does that make sense, or is a mini powerhead a better option? Does it make a difference? I like the fact that both pumps remain hidden and out of the main tank.

If keeping the tank clutter free is a main priority, which I understand since they are smaller tanks. You might be able to get an external air pump that doesnt need to be submerged and hook it up to some rigid tubing and put a nozzle for more forceful but directable flow or a spray bar. I would go with a nozzle myself. You could even get fancy and get a hose splitter so you can have it split 1 into each tank or have 2 nozzles in each tank on each end. I would recommend a y splitter and not T splitter for this and only split it once. Of course thats only if you choose this route. I'll do some research on external pumps today if you'd like.

And good point on most lps and other coral getting too large unless you learn to frag- which- as stated above, isnt a bad thing.

 

[castiel]

Hey Gray

Thanks for the advice. I like the idea of a split pump into both tanks ... I've also had advice to implement one light fixture across them both, which also sounds like a good idea. I guess my reluctance is the fact that them sitting next to each other was possibly a temporary thing while we find somewhere else for one to go! But then again I quite like them together, particularly if we end up putting different things in each, would be a nice contrast. So an external pump might be good =0)

I might just keep the base rock - even when we get the live rock, it might help with structuring it in the tank. And if it can be used for filter material then also great! Maybe I'll keep the smaller pieces and take the large ones into the lfs.

Really excited to be going to a lfs with a proper marine display on Saturday - only two days to go =0D

 

[castiel]

So, regarding lights ... the Dymax LED light has blue and white, both dimmable. So I was thinking of following this pattern:

~1 hr when we get up - BLUE
~10 hrs while at work - BLUE & WHITE
~3 hrs while home in the evening - BLUE
~10 hrs while sleeping - OFF

Any thoughts?

Pics with new rock coming tomorrow!

 

[ALW]

So, regarding lights ... the Dymax LED light has blue and white, both dimmable. So I was thinking of following this pattern:

~1 hr when we get up - BLUE
~10 hrs while at work - BLUE & WHITE
~3 hrs while home in the evening - BLUE
~10 hrs while sleeping - OFF

Any thoughts?

Pics with new rock coming tomorrow!

Sounds good

 

[castiel]

Some VERY live rock has been purchased and placed! Yet again over-estimated the size of these little tanks so had to break it up a bit, which led to us discovering all sorts including worms, tiny little crabs and an unfortunately beheaded shrimp (which I probably did when breaking the rock). Also there was a very cool, purple coloured crab about 1.5cm across! Didn't manage to grab a pic before he hid away ... I just hope he didn't get crushed while I was rearranging.

Will upload some pics later =0)