Chipmunk's 2.5g Pico - OF DOOM!

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Hello all, it's been a while..

Life certainly can change a lot in a short period of time. I graduated college this spring, am on my second job since that time, and am finally making medium-big bucks! At any rate, I sold my 29G about 6 months ago due to time, space and money constraints. Here I am, back again (I just couldn't stay away ), with my newest venture, a 2.5g pico.

Why a 2.5 you ask? Space is first and foremost. It would be about the same price to set up a 10g as it would to set this up, and about the same or less work, so I doubt I'm saving money or time by going the pico route, but it's definitely the space-saver I've been looking for.

As far as livestock goes, I don't plan on having any fish (2.5 is too small. A clown goby might be okay, but that's extra work). It's mainly going to be ricordea and zoanthids, as I've seen some astounding picos around containing just these. Perhaps a hermit and snail, but that's it!

I will post pics very shortly, but first, a warning: the algal bloom has been TERRIBLE. Part of that is the lighting, which is listed with the specs below. The other part is that when I got rid of my 29g, I saved some substrate, shells, and a small piece of rock. I forgot about this stuff, and it sat in a bucket of cold saltwater in my basement for a month. When I transferred it all to the 2.5g, it wreaked of sulfur and other nastyness. Thankfully, I got lots of copepods and amphipods that survived and are currently scurrying around the tank! I also have not done a water change since this transfer over.. this water is the water that was in my 29g 6 months ago, since my refractometer broke and I didn't have any other salinity measurement. So this period has been an extended cycle if you will. At any rate, my new refractometer got here today and I'm beginning water changes so I'll soon be ready for livestock!

Specs:
========================
Tank: 2.5g glass aquarium
Rock: 2 smaller pieces of dry rock (substrate from old aquarium seeded some life and coralline algae)
Substrate: Sand (coming soon)
Heater: 25w cheap auto-temp glass heater (reputable titanium heater coming soon)
Lighting: Desk lamp with CFL bulb (LED lighting coming soon , build thread to follow)
ATO: DIY (coming soon, keep an eye out for build thread)
Filtration: Natural. Rock, sand, and small ball of cheato
Cleanup crew: 2x snail, 2x hermit crab, or both, or one of each? (coming next weekend)
Water movement: 10g HOB filter (no media, just circulation)


Pics to come

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

WELCOME BACK COD !!! and congrats on finishing school & new job !

Look forward to pics !

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Nobody home.. yet

Shown with motorcycle for scale

Well that's it for now.. pretty boring and gross. Tomorrow when the fresh saltwater is ready I'm going to do some manual algae removal and hopefully in a week or so will be getting corals!

Thanks for reading :hallo:

 

[Reefmack]

Welcome back to the addiction, and good luck with the pico! The LED lights coming may help a lot to curb that algae.

 

[yungreefer2410]

this sounds like it should be a sexy shrimp tank!

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

WELCOME BACK COD !!! and congrats on finishing school & new job !

Look forward to pics !

Thanks!

It's great to be done with school after 12+ years, finally...

Welcome back to the addiction, and good luck with the pico! The LED lights coming may help a lot to curb that algae.

Thanks, I couldn't stay away

LED parts are probably going to be ordered this week, so a build should be coming together as soon as parts start rolling in.

this sounds like it should be a sexy shrimp tank!

At this point, no reasonable suggestions will be turned away! All I know for sure is that I want the tank to be dominated by colorful and beautiful zoas and ricordea

 

[r2d2]

Very nice you are back. Good luck with this pico and keep posting pics!

Greetings

 

[Dweezil]

Thanks!

It's great to be done with school after 12+ years, finally...

Wow, I'm glad I'm not your mom I would hate to have to pay your student loans! LOL I have one in his junior year and it's already an insane amount of money. haha

 

[Reddog170]

That is going to be an awesome little tank. Following along, Shaun

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Wow, I'm glad I'm not your mom I would hate to have to pay your student loans! LOL I have one in his junior year and it's already an insane amount of money. haha

Haha, when I said 12+ years of school, I was actually lumping in grade school and high school with the college.. I'm no doctor, just the standard 4 years at any rate, it certainly feels like I've been in school forever..:columbo:


Anyways, I did about a 50% water change today and got out the tripod and snapped some pics. Still very green, but promising!

I ordered pretty much everything for the LED fixture today, but due to the LED manufacturer mounting LEDs on a per order basis, the order is going to take probably about 2 weeks to get here. At any rate, the blue should definitely help with the algae. This CFL bulb is probably not doing me any favors..

Stay tuned!

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Got sand and a few 4 snails today.. no pics, nothing really too interesting. The sand actually makes the tank look smaller, haha

I'm really waiting on the pièce de résistance, the LEDs, so I can build the light and actually get some CORALS in there.. and hopefully bake some of the algae with the LEDs too...

Also waiting on parts to build the ATO.. lots to come, lots to do! Unfortunately I have a presentation to do for the boss by Wednesday (and might be going "condo-shopping" this week too), so I might not have much construction time during the week.. eventually though :hallo:

 

[yungreefer2410]

can you send me the link you're using for the ATO? I want to do one too I just haven't found one small enough to use for my 2.5g sexy shrimp tank... OF DOOM!! haha. And do you want to compare/contrast pics of our tanks while they progress since you're doing LED and i'm doing t5? We could make it a seperate thread. Just an idea.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Yeah definitely, the ATO I'm basing this off of is Smitty's design on Nano Reef. I say basing it off of because he said it is optional to wire in a relay.. this is not true, I strongly believe a relay must be used.

A float switch is a switch operated by a magnet in the float. When the water level drops and the float switch reaches the low position, the magnet attracts a little piece of metal that completes the circuit, and power flows through. This precision design (even if the specs say it's okay) is NOT meant to handle the full electrical load from the wall outlet.

A relay is similar to a float switch. It contains a piece of metal that, when attracted with a magnet, completes a circuit. The relay has inputs for both the electricity from the wall and a small "switching" current, which is a low-voltage and low-amperage power source that is enough to activate the electromagnet inside and complete the circuit. This way, you can have a very small electrical load passing through the float switch instead of the ENTIRE load from the wall. See below:

Water level normal (float switch off):

Water level low (float switch on:

Basically, you get a low-power AC/DC adapter and hook that up to the relay. When the float switch gets to the low position, it allows the small amount of current to pass through the relay. This activates the electromagnet, which attracts the metal strip, which completes the circuit and allows the entire wall voltage to pass through safely, never coming in contact with the float switch.

I'll start a build thread when I actually get the relay and float switch (shipping from China ) but let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

LEDs arrived today and fixture completed

You can get more info in my build thread, but here are a few of the pics:

I got the relay for my ATO, but no float switches yet. Keep an eye out for that in the next few days. Hopefully I'll be ordering some coral soon too

More to come :hallo:

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

LEDs are looking GREAT! I can't stop playing with the colors, trying to see if there's a more perfect color combo

I have all the parts for the ATO except the float switch.. I'm working on a detailed write up so when the switches get here, it'll be game on and very simple to just upload the how-to.

I don't think I'm going to get any corals or fish for it quite yet, I might be making an offer on a condo today and I need to have enough for the down payment, haha.

More to come :hallo:

 

[twofinhogie]

Akward. I have a BMW HP2 sitting in front of my 3 gallon!!!!!!

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Akward. I have a BMW HP2 sitting in front of my 3 gallon!!!!!!

A respectable bike.. the BMWs are highly underrated with all the Asian models dominating the market. I myself prefer the styling of the Japanese sport bikes, but to each his own

So today I got some LIVESTOCK!! No pics yet, unfortunately. I'm stuck at work today til 4:00, I hope the little neon goby I got can make it! Better than sitting on my porch in the cold at home though. I got a few assorted corals too so I'll post some pics when I have everything all acclimated and happy tonight :hallo:

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Hello all, time for some updates!

The neon goby didn't make it unfortunately.. I woke up the next morning and he was stuck to the filter intake

I did, however, get 3 Florida Ricordea and a few zoanthids that are doing just fine

The three rics

The blue one

This one's kinda green. It really fluoresces when I turn off the white LEDs.

This one's blue, but it has a few green spots that under the blue LEDs really pop

The zoanthids I got about 10 polyps, but they were all disconnected.. I have one glued to a frag plug, then the others I spaced out on this rock. Hopefully with some good water and some LED lighting, they'll take off

Aaaand the FTS. Not the best with the LED washout, but there's really not much to see in it anyway.. haha


I'm in the process of buying a condo so I don't have a lot of spare cash laying around, so I might take it easy on corals/improvements for now. One thing I definitely want to do is make an AC70 fuge to get that cheato out of the tank. More to come :hallo:

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

So I turned the LEDs up a little bit last week (makes me wonder how I ever acclimated corals before.. nothing can beat a tiny twist of a knob once a week ). Everything seems to be reacting just fine. The zoas actually seem to be opening up more with the increased light.

One thing I've noticed with the ricordea is the blue one in the pictures above (all the way to the left) seemed to be more open and stretched out before the lighting increase, and even after. It appears to have fatter "bulbs" or "tentacles" or "nubs" (whatever they're called) than the other 2. The other two look full and healthy, he just looks a little larger and more stretched out. Is it possible he's trying to get more light? I want to move all 3 of the rics out of the sand bed eventually, but from his behavior it seems like he would like a little more light. Anyone have any similar experience?

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Salinity managed to creep its way up to close to 1.030. I had meant to raise it a little, but guess I went to far

I siphoned off some saltwater (a VERY small amount ) and let the ATO replenish it with freshwater. At my weekly water changes, I'm going to keep the SG pretty much where I want it to be (1.026) in the new water and continue to lower the salinity by removing some saltwater occasionally. Don't want to shock the tank with water changes too low in SG.