esacjack Posted November 27, 2012 Author Share Posted November 27, 2012 Actually dont let it dissuade you. My pico tank is one of the best investments I've ever made. It's a very demanding tank initially, but once you get the pattern of feeding/water changes down to a science, its relateively set and forget. For example. I know that 48 hours after I feed the tank, the nitrates will be up. So I will generally feed on Wenesday, 10-20% water change on friday. From what I understand, the reason my cuke died was primarily because he wasn't getting enough food in the tank. I highly advise against yellow cukes in pico tanks. During their 'die off' they release toxins, and in this small of a tank, even after catching him during his death roll, it still put my shrooms into shock I also highly advise the use of an ATO, gravity or non. Currently I'm using a gravity fed ATO. Which works 'ok' but has no sanity check for overflow. Long term, I plan on buying the tunze nano osmolator. However, BRS had a door buster sale on the JBJ ATO, so I grabbed one, and I'm going to see what it will take to make it work in the pico. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 ... I also highly advise the use of an ATO, gravity or non. Currently I'm using a gravity fed ATO. Which works 'ok' but has no sanity check for overflow. Long term, I plan on buying the tunze nano osmolator. However, BRS had a door buster sale on the JBJ ATO, so I grabbed one, and I'm going to see what it will take to make it work in the pico. I'd say an aqualifter based ATO would fair well for a pico...as they move very little water and a cheap and easy to make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted November 28, 2012 Author Share Posted November 28, 2012 Here's an updated FTS. I tried to use the JBJ ATO, but the float doesnt trigger till the water level is down about 2 inches! That's over 2000ML on this pico. So I guess I'll stick with the gravity feed until Tunze gets the nano ATO working... le sigh.. Everything is a bit unhappy right now, I think the cuke dying did some damage to the mushroom, its been shriveled up all week. I also just cleaned the tank and added some 'deco' because I was bored at the office Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KimP Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Wow, that's looking great! Hard to believe it's such a small tank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted November 29, 2012 Author Share Posted November 29, 2012 hauled *** to Aquatek this morning to pick up the new Tunze Nano Osmolator. In the process of taking out of box pictures and setup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KimP Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works on a tiny tank. Still need an ato for my nano. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted November 29, 2012 Author Share Posted November 29, 2012 So the ATO works great. Here are a few tips to get it working great out of the box. (which looked a little something like this) Note some of the RC parts I snagged from my RC gear. The system comes with a bracket that you fasten to the tank (more of a clamp). Which has a plastic screw and nut holding the tube holder in place. I left out this part of the system, and drilled a hole in my AC70 to accommodate a small barb fitting i grabbed off my RC gear. I fit the barb into the hole of the AC70 lid, and attached a 1 inch piece of tubing on the barb below the lid, and attached the feed tube to the barb on top of the lid. The reason I used a 1 inch section of tubing below the lid, was to ensure the water was flowing directly into the AC70's mesh bag for the biopellets, and not just squiring water from up high. I also needed to keep it OUT of the water so that it wouldn't reverse siphon.See below pic. The nano's sensor is very sensitive, but is not affected by turbid water due to the shield around the bracket. It appears as though this will help with keeping the snails out of it. On my picotope, the top of the nut going to the sensor is flush with the rim of my tank. This keeps my level exactly where I want it. I tested it by using a bulb pump to pump out 300ml at a time, and at about 150 ml, the ATO kicked on. So it does work quite quickly. However, the first time the system begins to pump, it takes it QUITE a long time to get the water into system. To avoid this problem, simply turn the pump on with your ATO return in an empty bowl or bucket, and shake the pump up and down inside your water reservoir. The pump will begin to flow almost immediately. All in all Tunze did an amazing job with this ATO. It works 100x better than my JBJ. One word of warning though, the system is only designed for use with 55gallon or SMALLER tanks. However, in order to fully utilize the pump for the higher gallonage (26-55gal) you need to change a jumper in the controller box itself. You have to power off the system completely (the ATO, not the tank), and open up the controller, and move a jumper. The controller is the same dimensions of a postage stamp, which is AWESOME. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted February 5, 2013 Author Share Posted February 5, 2013 Another small update. Ive been running the Tunze Nano Osmolator for almost 4 months now. I have to say I love this little thing. My only complaint would be that it needs a better critter control guard. Aside from that its fantastic. Here's an updated FTS. I havent added any live stock, but my zoa's have seen explosive growth, I started with a little 4 head frag, lost 3 heads to the filter. Now I'm up two twelve heads! My reverse joker mushroom/corallimorph has reached approx 6.75 inches! When is this thing going to split!? There are 4 others on the rock, and they started as .5 inch specimens, and are now two inches each. I picked up a ric from the dome, and love it. However, I managed to position it too closely to my grape coral. Now its a bit ticked off, so I had to move it closer to the duncan. I know this is a risky move, but it was the only option, less I lose my rarest coral to shroom warfare. :/ I also added a mangrove, but have been having issues with the root system. It appears chunks of it come off at a time, and the leaves are taking very pronounced dark edges. I do mist it with fresh RO water, and it gets a full 8 hours worth of overhead lighting. So not sure what else to do. Salt creep has been insane lately. I think the fact that its rimless contributes to this greatly. Everywhere I have something hanging on the tank, the creep is REAL bad. I harvested quite a bit of GSP for my new tanks. The GSP was VERY thick, with extremely green lashes/polyps. But when I moved it to the new tank, the polyps look...thin...less colorful... not sure what I'm doing wrong. The pico might just have to be my new mini frag tank In the future, I hope to remove all of the LPS out of the picotope and migrate them into my new 46 gallon. The "torch" which I discovered was actually a frogspawn (after purchasing it of course..) Has been growing like crazy. Every day there are at least 12 or more splits in the tentacles. I'm up to 3 heads, up from 2. Current maintenance routine: Monday - Purple Up! dosing (6 drops) Yes, I know that its actually just calcium, iodine, etc. But since the tank is small, there was no need to go buy all of those additives separately, when I can just use it as a standard supplement. Let me rephrase. I didn't buy the purple up to boost my coraline growth. I purchased it as a one stop shop for my pico dosing needs. I did note that once dosing began, that coraline growth seemed to accelerate a bit. But this is mainly due to keeping levels in check. Wednesday (feeding) - 200mg coral frenzy to 1/4 cup FSW / .25G brine sheet dissolved and strained (For damsel and whomever else) Friday - 1 gallon water change Replace RO/DI top off water once monthly. I havent had to siphon the sand bed..... ever. Running my DSB has provided ample opps for bristle worms and pods to grow and hide. The moment the coral frenzy hits the water, the worms come to the surface and begin feeding. I used to only see them at night, but I suppose theyve adapted to the feeding schedule. Oh, also, I'm thinking seriously about removing at least one of the capnellas, as the red one is really pissing off my mushroom when its fully extended. Last but not least. The new costar of the show. My starfish! He was the size of a silver dollar when I first picked him up. Now he's pretty big. About 3". He's VERY good at keeping the tank clean. He's one of the main attractions when people come into the office. They see the starfish and go crazy.. " OMG YOU HAVE A STARFISH?!@#" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Looks great. A good ATO is pretty much a necessity for a pico. I would buy one before the tank itself if I were starting from scratch again. I've got 2 Osmolator's now. Pretty much the best setup I've found based on the compact size, included pump, and dual float switches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 +1 Tunze really nailed it with the nano osmolator. I just bought another one for my frag tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 Well after the near death of a lot of corals thanks to a mishap with a battery, I've decided to retire this system and upgrade it to a 7.5 gallon Mr.Aqua cube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 Sorry to hear about your corals. I love the Mr. Aqua Product line...thinking of getting my wife the Mr. Aqua 12 for her office. I look forward to your next build thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted April 17, 2013 Author Share Posted April 17, 2013 agreed I was skeptical at first, given how inexpensive the tanks are. But I really like the 7.5. I may add a bit more rock work to it eventually, but for now I'm sitting at zero nitrates zero phosphates, so I don't want to trigger a mini cycle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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