Just for fun 1.5gal pico

PufferMan

PufferMan

Member
So I was cleaning up a bunch of old fish stuff a couple months ago and came across an old glass 1 gallon betta fish tank. Just for fun and kind of as an experiment to see what was possible, I decided to set up a tiny pico reef on my kitchen counter. I found an old HOB filter for aquariums up to 5gallons, and ordered a little 4 watt LED clip on light off of ebay, and voila, a little pico reef.

Grabbed some small pieces of LR and a few small frags of GSP, some zoas, kenya tree, and some mushrooms I had sitting around on a frag rack, and put them in. I originally had a tiny 1watt heater in there too, however it has since been removed.

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Suprizingly, I have had this up and running for almost 2 months now, and haven't lost anything at all. I actually even have some coralline algae starting to grow. Now the little light I have on there is barely enough to support the few things i have in it currently, so I don't expect much growth from them, but its pretty amazing that something this small can sustain itself for this long. We'll have to see how it goes. Who knows, if it goes well, maybe I might upgrade the lights and see what it does!

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mr_z said:
No fish?
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Hahaha. No, at least not anytime soon. I was thinking of maybe a tiny goby or a shrimp eventually, but this whole thing started as sort of an experiment to see if this thing can even maintain overtime. And it's definitely kind of tough, I have to top it off every day cause it loses about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water a day, which causes decent fluctuations in salinity day to day. But like I said, so far it's been going pretty well, so maybe someday there will be something to call this little thing home!
 
Aquatica has some super tiny ywg and they had a tiny randals goby I think it's called that'd be perfect.


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PufferMan said:
That's exactly why there's nothing in there now. Not a whole lot of room in there, and not very consistent params due to the size.
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Look into sexy shrimp. A 1.5g would be perfect for them. You would actually be able to see them in that size tank and they would dance on a ricordia all day long.
 
how bout a pom pom crab?.. but idk if the nem they carry would survive in that small of a tank
 
You can maybe try a small Dwarf Seahorse I think they only get to about 1/2" to an 1" big- but don't know if they will survive- I know they don't need much room at all to move around- as long as they can get food they would be good...
 
Tank2379 said:
You can maybe try a small Dwarf Seahorse I think they only get to about 1/2" to an 1" big- but don't know if they will survive- I know they don't need much room at all to move around- as long as they can get food they would be good...
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That would be nearly impossible to keep coral with. The food density needed for a Zot (Dwarf Seahorse) would keep the water paramaters pretty well out of coral range.
 
Neat! I have a 5 gal right now and my sexy shrimp are doing pretty well. You could try some pulsing zenias. Mine really love it in there, although one of them already tried making a break for the new world, so you'd probably have to be careful that they don't take over. I'd also be concerned about any fish in there since it is pretty tiny. What about just making a sexy shrimp paradise?
 
Pico update Pic

Added a couple other things to the pico: couple more pieces of LR, a few new kinds of zoas, and a tiny hammer coral.

The hammer coral was sitting in my frag tank, and was really small, so I figured I would put it in the pico to see if that little clip on LED light was strong enough to sustain a piece of LPS. And sure enough, the coral looks great. I'm by no means expecting huge growth out of it, but the fact that it is alive shows me that either the coral doesn't require that much light, or that little LED light is putting out more light than I suspect! My little piece of Kenya tree in there has also grown at least a solid 1" in the past month too.

Fun little experiment so far!

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