Pico reef tank cookie jar

[College_Coral]

Hi my name is Dennis and im relatively new to this website and wanted to show off and talk about my tank. I built this tank in april 2022 and its been thriving ever since. It's a 3 gallon cookie jar ive modified to support corals. I would like to know everyones thoughts and questions and look forward to talking to fellow reefers.

 

[BigRed]

Great idea.

 

[clsanchez77]

Looks impressive. Tank was setup in April, so only a few months old. A small, young tank like this will require careful observation, but equally a discipline to not over-react as tanks need stability more than anything else.

Do share the details with us. What mobile inverts do you have in there? I can spot a few, which will be more than adequate. What are you using for water circulation? Is it only the air stone? Also, what is your LED light? I purchased a small reef LED puck to experiment with but have not had the time to put into it. I am also curious if you are feeding this tank. Nutrient balance would be very difficult in such a small tank, but even corals can benefit from a small input. Unfortunately, there is no way to establish an output. But if you do have a cleanup crew in there, they will need to be fed in the absence of fish/fish food. It does not take much.

 

[The GOB]

How are you handling evaporation?

 

[CenlaReefer]

Welcome to LARC! We are so glad to have you on our forum!

I love the nano reef tank you have going! I was curious if you keep the lid on it to cut back on evaporation. Since you do not have a fish, I was wondering if it was OK to do that. I do think a lack of gas exchange could be a problem for pH.

What CUC do you have in there?

 

[College_Coral]

Looks impressive. Tank was setup in April, so only a few months old. A small, young tank like this will require careful observation, but equally a discipline to not over-react as tanks need stability more than anything else.

Do share the details with us. What mobile inverts do you have in there? I can spot a few, which will be more than adequate. What are you using for water circulation? Is it only the air stone? Also, what is your LED light? I purchased a small reef LED puck to experiment with but have not had the time to put into it. I am also curious if you are feeding this tank. Nutrient balance would be very difficult in such a small tank, but even corals can benefit from a small input. Unfortunately, there is no way to establish an output. But if you do have a cleanup crew in there, they will need to be fed in the absence of fish/fish food. It does not take much.

Hi i have 2 nassarius snails and two cerith snails as cleanup crew and my light is a 12w tuna blue led, i do feed the tank but very sparingly just enough to keep cuc alive and the only circulation im using is an airstone as i do not plan to add corals that require high flow, i feed corals a small amount of diluted coral feast with no flow for 30 mins before a 90% water change that i do weekly, so far everything I've put in the tank has been growing and thriving, i set this tank up to be able to have something portable as i am a college student and move 2 times a year, i use a battery pack to keep temp and flow going during the move and its worked flawlessly 2 times now. I also think I've settled on getting a cleaner shrimp as the star fauna of the tank so wish me luck!

 

[College_Coral]

Welcome to LARC! We are so glad to have you on our forum!

I love the nano reef tank you have going! I was curious if you keep the lid on it to cut back on evaporation. Since you do not have a fish, I was wondering if it was OK to do that. I do think a lack of gas exchange could be a problem for pH.

What CUC do you have in there?

I do keep the lid on as it makes evaporation more manageable, however due to the shape of the lid with the air pump i had to use silicon to make a path for equipment which still allows air flow from the tank as my ph sits around 7.9. And lastly my cleanup crew is 2 cerith and two nassarius, and possibly a cleaner shrimp in the future.

 

[College_Coral]

How are you handling evaporation?

The evaporation is very self contained with the lid as most of the evaporated water collects at the top and drips back into the tank.

 

[College_Coral]

Great idea.

I didn't come up with it, a friend of mine told me how to set it up and he has a very detailed guide on his tiktok @myreefjar, he has created one of the most impressive picos I've seen in the hobby and i recommend checking it out.

 

[clsanchez77]

I also think I've settled on getting a cleaner shrimp as the star fauna of the tank so wish me luck!

That would be awesome, but you will want to add some live microfauna if you go this route. If the shrimp starts to starve, then snails and coral guts become fair game. I love the idea, not saying don't. My vote is go for it as I love shrimp, but in a really small tank, the food cycle is too small.

There are some really cool freshwater setups similar to this, but the shrimp is usually feasting after a beta fish, which is feeding off the roots of some sort of plant, which is growing from the nitrogen excreted by the fish and shrimp. This is much harder to pull off with saltwater, but looks like you have a really great start.

 

[seth&angelle]

That Scolymia in your avatar is SICK!!!

 

[BluewaterLa]

Welcome, thanks for sharing your tiny reef with everyone. It looks great thus far

 

[College_Coral]

That Scolymia in your avatar is SICK!!!

Its my dream coral hahah

 

[College_Coral]

Welcome, thanks for sharing your tiny reef with everyone. It looks great thus far

Thank you, hopefully it'll grow out nicely

 

[College_Coral]

Here's an update on the tank so far, im very suprised at how much the setosas have grown and colored up!

 

[clsanchez77]

Coral Banded might get a little big in there. My favorite shrimp by the way, so nothing against the shrimp. They can get quite aggressive when hungry. While they don't have a reputation for attacking corals, another member here is *maybe* having a problem with that. Great thing is they are not picky at all and will eat anything that smells bad.

 

[The GOB]

Would be the perfect tank for the tiny cryptic Blue CBS.

 

[College_Coral]

Coral Banded might get a little big in there. My favorite shrimp by the way, so nothing against the shrimp. They can get quite aggressive when hungry. While they don't have a reputation for attacking corals, another member here is *maybe* having a problem with that. Great thing is they are not picky at all and will eat anything that smells bad.

I've been feeding it pellets and the occasional ground coral feast, I've been trying to keep it full so it doesn't nibble anything anymore.

 

[College_Coral]

Would be the perfect tank for the tiny cryptic Blue CBS.

I've never heard of that, what's its species name, I'd be interested in looking it up

 

[The GOB]

Stenopus tenuirostris They max out around an inch and are ideal for pico/nano tanks as they tend to vanish in larger ones.