1L Pico Reef

[samuel88]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to present my 1L pico reef inspired by reef vases.

Currently it is only holding softies like Xenia and different kinds of Zoanthids and Palythoas and a lot of brown little slugs, copepods, and bristleworms, theres even a oyster of some sort although its not very visible (on the right side of the tank blending in with the rockwork).

Equipment used includes a glass jar i bought from Daiso, an Airpump with airline tubing, a plastic container lid i place on the top to prevent evaporation, and lastly a Beamswork LED, i can't remember which model but it cost about $40 plus. So total tank setup (not including corals) would be around $50 to $60.

When I first started off, I overdosed microbacter7 to saturate the substrate with bacteria, and after about 2 week to a month I started adding new corals.

Maintenance is done once a week, I do a 100% water change with coral pro red sea salt and pluck out as much algae as I can. I also dose 1 drop of Microbacter7 after each water change. I use a airline tubing to suck out all the water from the tank (up til the substrate level), and after wiping the inside of the tank with a piece of tissue, I slowly pour in the new water over my hand into the tank to prevent damage to the corals. I do not test the water parameters as I do 100% changes, aside from testing the salinity from time to time.

The tank has been running since the beginning of March, and has not been without its share of problems in the beginning, but things have really started to stabilize and there is even sprouting of new zoanthid polyps.

One of the issues I ran into is that introducing a number of corals at a time can trigger a bacterial bloom within half a day, but that was quickly remedied after doing a few 100% water changes. So taking that into consideration I decided that whenever I introduce livestock I should be around for that day to do a emergency water change.

Aside from the issue of introducing too many livestock at once, the tank has been really stable, I really like this tank because it is my least troublesome tank that I have had so far. Being tiny allows me to appreciate the little things that go unnoticed like how the copepods scurry about their daily lives and the little details on corals. The rounded edges on the sides also act like a magnifying glass.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, feel free to ask me any questions!

 

 

 

[kakak99]

You want to take a close up shot of the brown little slugs you mentioned?.. They should be dangerous pest.

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[samuel88]

3 hours ago, kakak99 said:

You want to take a close up shot of the brown little slugs you mentioned?.. They should be dangerous pest.

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you have a good point, and i did think they might be pest too, but they have been in my tank since the beginning and haven't really seen any damage done to the coral. I'll post a pic and hopefully my camera phone can capture the details. They hang around mostly on the glass, haven't seen them on corals.