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Dual Picotopes


pabloescolar

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I got my order in from BRS today and so begins an experiment in simplicity (haha, we'll see).

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I'm wholesale ripping off the Okeanos Group Isolate series seen here, sans skull:

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The plan is to rout two nests into a long flat piece of hardwood instead of one, and do a small reef and small freshwater side by side with suspended lighting.

For the reef tank, it will be extremely low tech with the exception of an ATO, so I plan to do corals that are largely photosynthetic and hardy, with a couple inverts for interest. Very minimal feeding and weekly water changes. The freshwater is still very much up in the air but might be minimally planted with a couple decorative inhabitants.

This won't be a complicated build in terms of process or end result, but I'll update periodically as the aesthetics take shape.

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Thanks Jimbo662 and Gig'em. One thing I almost forgot to mention is that part of the reason I posted this is to open it up to suggestions.

For corals, I'm looking for things that rely heavily on photosynthesitic feeding and are peaceful as things will get crowded quickly. I'm still relatively new to the reef world so what interesting and unique additions would make sense outside of the usual suspects?

For the freshwater, I am okay with having as few as one fish and some inverts, but the weirder the better. Really going for visual interest on this one. Bright shrimp/dwarf crayfish, dwarf puffer, betta or swordtail are on the consideration list now but I'm still a ways out from making a decision.

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I love picotopes! I'm very interested to see what you do with them. I second the mushrooms. A lot of people would do zoas/palys but I never had luck with them in a small set up. I've had a lot of luck with leptastreas.

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Lighting......maybe. It will do for now.

Side note, does anyone know if these Par30/38 style bulbs can be used with a manual dimmer? I know some bulbs are specifically dimmable but I'm not sure if they're all that way because they're wired up for E27, or if you need a specific chipset or something within the bulb.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here's where we're at.

The FW didn't go as planned at all. I'm going to tear it down and redo it soon but for the moment it's just gonna sit there like it is. It's going to be milky/tea colored for a few days until it settles and I do a couple water changes.

The SW isn't going to look like this for long either, the rock structure I have planned is going to take some time and some tools and I haven't had the time to figure it out yet. But for now, it starts cycling. I threw in a piece of rock from my 40b to kick start some environmental goodness.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've devoted very little time this month to these but they're slowly getting closer.

Disregard the toad stool that looks very pissed off. He started a chemical war in my DT so I'm quarantining him in the Pico to see if he makes it, since there's nothing but the toadstool, a hermit and a couple sexy shrimp in the SW.

The FW had to be dumped and redone, the soil method I used was a nightmare. So far I've got five Mandarin shrimp in there and some moss that has not been placed with any intention, I just dumped it in there. 4e119b6e95430c8cbd06d8d5c930af18.jpg

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Glad to see an update on these! The toad stool looks pretty good in that spot actually. What was happening that made you think there was a chemical war? Did removing the toad stool fix the problem?

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Thanks Brooks!

Kim, the toadstool started collapsing - typically the cap was practically flat when fully "awake", but all the edges had curled down, response to light was hit or miss and the entire tank clouded over in a day. I removed the toadstool the same day and the tank cleared up the next.

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