esacjack Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 thanks! looking forward to getting it all pieced together so I can let it grow out! Already planning a sump/overflow version of it for my bedroom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 22, 2012 Author Share Posted October 22, 2012 (edited) updated picture. Added a pico refugium, built from the remains of the OEM filter. So far working great. Also found a ricordea hitchhiker on some of my LR rubble. Haven't decided what to do with him yet. Kenya tree has been a little annoyed over the last few days and I'm not sure why. I'm beginning to think it has something to do with the additional flow provided by the refugium. Also added a yellow cucumber and replaced a few of my larger snails with smaller ones. Edited October 22, 2012 by esacjack 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 looks really good. the only way i ever managed to piss off my capnella was to have my salinity too high. it's pretty much indestructible though, I wouldn't worry too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Looks great, love the yellow cucumber. I tried going to Pico route at work, but just didn't have the patience to do water changes at the office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Cob Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 nice looking pico! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 Since my last post, the tank has been a little more stressed / upset with me. It began Saturday, my kenya tree and neon pineapple tree (capnella?) had shriveled up into tight little nubs. I noticed two of my rogue zoanthids that were doing extremely well, appear to have melted or something? A rock which I thought I'd properly secured, managed to pop loose and drop the large rock holding the mushroom/zoa colony. The mushrooms have been 'shedding' ever since. I was thinking maybe this was a chemical defense, and the zoas were just in the wrong place/wrong time. So I've performed a few larger water changes to try and dilute/remove the problem. Then I noticed about 4 or 5 astrea stars wandering around on the corals. I've read they can sometimes eat the dead tissue of a coral or the coral itself. I've also read this is a constantly debated issue, so I err'ed on the side of caution, and plucked them out. Over the last few weeks, I've noted something else. Every so often a stream of feces/mucus would shoot out from a hole in one of my live rocks. Ordinarily, I would have left it undisturbed, but the sheer amount released, and the frequency alarmed me. So I removed the rock and soaked in RO and lugols. So in addition to the stress the tank had already been put through, I've tampered with its balance. Hopefully I'll have a positive turn in the morning. Should I just leave this rock out of the tank at this point? Would re-introducing it to this size of a tank trigger another cycle? I've also been wondering if maybe my refugium is doing more harm than good? I completely masked off all areas that would come into direct contact with water. I let the paint cure/set for about a week, then ran it for a week with tap water (without rocks/chaeto). Then washed it out with fresh RO water before putting it to use as a refugium. Hopefully, it's not chemicals leaching off into the water column :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 i laughed about the feces stream. reintroducing shouldn't give another cycle, unless something on the rock died when you have it out. honestly, what it sounds like to me is either salinity swings or temperature swings. check all your parameters and get back to us. often times rushing to fix something (many large water changes) can be more stressful to the tank than whatever the unerlying problem is. I'd leave your fuge, at worst it does nothing. at best it is exporting excess nutrients. if you're worried about chemicals in the tank, run carbon. Make sure you use good stuff (BRS rox is the best IMO), and I have some if you need it. For clarification, what parts of the tank did you paint, and how? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 I only painted the refugium/hob filter Lid and backing to black it out. I didnt actually paint the tank itself. I have a carbon bag in the AC50, I'm not exactly sure when you're supposed to change the carbon filter, if at all? Current temp is 78.1 Max temp (last 24) : 79.7 Sal - 1.024 (Refractometer) Nitrites : 0 Nitrates : approx 5 Ammonia : 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Mucus description sounds like a spaghetti worm. I wouldn't be worried about it. As for the asterina stars, if you don't see them on coral, I would leave them be. Mine seem to only care about film algae, but there are many species of them and some are definitely reported to eat coraline algae or actual coral. Melting corals is most often salinity in my experience. Ruling out salinity, the kenya and pineapple corals are possibly fighting which is why they look like crap. Soft tree corals are very prone to using chemical warfare on nearby corals. These chemicals are designed to irritate or stunt or sometimes completely destroy competing corals. I had a xenia and kenya go to war on eachother in a previous tank, and I eventually had to get rid of one. Running carbon can somewhat help, but IMO if they decide to fight in a tank this small, there may be no choice but to remove one. Anyway, I wouldn't quite go there yet. I think you're just hitting one of those new tank road bumps right now. Tanks this small are often difficult to maintain stable parameters Based on your previous post, I would still suggest staying on a routine schedule and make sure to closely match your parameters before doing > 10% water changes. I think this is one of those diligence and patience will prevail moments, unless you do find something measurably wrong with the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 Last night I had an epiphany. Saturday while performing some tank maintenance after hours, I switched my power strip to manual - all lights on mode. I realized last night, I never turned it back to Auto. So for the last 6 days, my tank lights have been on non stop! *shakes head* My last colony of zoas was tanked as of this morning :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Last night I had an epiphany. Saturday while performing some tank maintenance after hours, I switched my power strip to manual - all lights on mode. I realized last night, I never turned it back to Auto. So for the last 6 days, my tank lights have been on non stop! *shakes head* My last colony of zoas was tanked as of this morning :/ Ouch that sucks, At least you remembered...I have done the same thing , but replace "lights" with "heater" and "colony of zoas" with "entire contents of a tank" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 d'oh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Still seems a little weird man. Has anyone else has instances where the light being on all the time causes death? I would have thought it would be temperature, as a result of the lights being on, but earlier you said that the temp never exceeded 80. very weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Bio)³ Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Still seems a little weird man. Has anyone else has instances where the light being on all the time causes death? I would have thought it would be temperature, as a result of the lights being on, but earlier you said that the temp never exceeded 80. very weird. Left sump on for two weeks. Didn't realize cause I was always working during the time it should be off. Nothing down there died but nothing did great either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 26, 2012 Author Share Posted October 26, 2012 tank is doing much better today after the lights came on per the schedule. My 'dead' zoa colony looks like its growing again, the mushroom still doesnt look quite right. Going to perform another water change today see how it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 26, 2012 Author Share Posted October 26, 2012 updated pic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 it looks really good to me man. everything looks happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 26, 2012 Author Share Posted October 26, 2012 (edited) thanks, the mushroom is getting more and more irritated as the day goes on... not sure exactly why. I moved the mushroom frags away from the kenya/capnella just in case it was going to war. The capnella snapped back almost immediately to its 5 inch length. The mushroom however, has been receding more and more. See attached. Did I maybe move it into too much flow? Edited October 26, 2012 by esacjack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 Today came in to find Nitrates had stabilized a bit. It's been a roller coaster of high nitrates to almost no nitrates for the last few days. My torch is doing remarkably well, as is my duncan. I really love the duncan, its like a huge zoa. Had to remove the backing on the tank, and was in a rush, so couldnt get it lined back up before the FTS. But oh well. Thinking seriously about upgrading the lighting. But seems like a lot of money to toss into this pico, with my 46 gallon build underway. The mushroom is back to its rather large status and is consuming the majority of the rock its on. How big do these things get before splitting or reproducing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 for the livestock you have, unless it's purely an aesthetic thing, I wouldn't add more if it were me. There are some small strip LEDs that you can supplement color with (check the ecoexotic stunner strips). } As far as nitrate rollercoasters go, that's a little weird. IME, unless something dies and is rotting, it tends to creep and build, not vary wildly. If it's real, and not test error, it may have to do with the small tank volume and high frequency of water changes that you're doing. What kind of swing are we talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 I'm done adding live stock, now just going to watch it grow. detectable levels, i.e the water being a hot pink, vs. barely a tinge of color to the water post test. I thought it may have something to do with my feeding schedule. I've cut way back on water changes also. Now I'm only doing a 20% water change on Sundays, and 5-10% as needed throughout the week. When/If Tunze releases the nano ato, that'll be the final purchase for this tank. As for lighting, I was thinking about doing a par30 nano FS bulb. I would just like to see the colors pop a bit more, rather than wash out as they do now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Tank looks good. There's several brands that make Par30 or Par38 LED's that look amazing on a pico tank. They do run about $100 though which is a pretty stiff price for such a small tank IMO. Ecoxotic is a really good one. BoostLED makes a great fixture / Par30 combo. There's a few others that are really good as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 Yah I was kind of eyeballing the Ledtric par30 and the ecoxotic brands. I know I want to get two of the full spectrum for my new 46 gallon. I'm not 'planning' on keeping many, if any, SPS. I really prefer LPS and softies currently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted November 27, 2012 Author Share Posted November 27, 2012 Just a small update, the cucumber didn't make it. I had noticed his feathers hadn't been coming out as much lately. Then without reason, they stopped coming out at all. Today I happened to glance over at the tank, when suddenly he just started falling backwards off the glass. Like a dirty sock thrown against the wall.. I scooped him out and got him into my QT, but as of typing this, he hasnt moved an inch. Sad. I really liked that little guy.. Coraline is beginning to encrust my front glass rather quickly (seemingly overnight!). I had two spots on my tank as of Friday. Today I had two 2-3mm circles where the spots used to be. Then noticed some of my 'dead rock' i had in the tank was covered in coraline. It seems to rather prefer indirect light strong, but gentle flow.. It seems to only form in the areas that meet those conditions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 sorry for your loss, you are making me fear the upcoming pico contest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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