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JBJ Pico tank

mnat

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So to keep ourselves entertained until we setup the 57g the wife decided to buy a pico tank. We really did not know what we wanted to do with it and were just going to leave it in the box until people started to get panda gobies in. We have always wanted them but being so small they would get lost or eaten (yes we lost one to a fire shrimp). We bought a nice sized piece of live rock that seems to fit perfectly, added sand from both our other tanks with some dead sand (formerly live was left over from filling our fuges), threw in a couple nassarius snails and one small hermit.

Right now there are three panda gobies in there (supposed to be four but we got shipped an empty bag...seriously) and we will probably leave it at that fish wise. Right now you can see some digis in there but they are just there for now. We bought a really cheap one that we are going to frag a piece of to see if we can keep it under the 50/50 pc bulb way high up. We are researching other lighting alternatives but the MH bulb is expensive and will really heat up a tank of that size. We are trying to keep this as simple as possible. We are also looking at LEDs but can't seem to find anything reasonable. We hope to keep the digis healthy and at some point add some zoas, rics, yumas, and maybe a favia. Maintenance wise we are going to do weekly water changes but might bump that up to smaller ones every few days because the water chemistry in these tanks is so precarious.

Pics:

Right after we added the live rock:
pico.jpg


A couple shots of the star attractions:
picopanda.jpg

picopanda1.jpg


FTS with everything in there:
picofts.jpg



The reason we are trying with the digis is that the gobies are most comfortable with SPS colonies and if further down the line mate, that is where they lay their eggs. If we get them to mate we will have all the local news stations down to do a panda watch and record all their mating, they will be rock stars.
 
Looks very nice. What type of heater is that and if possible could you give me the dimensions,I need to heat my nano and that looks like it might just fit into the overflow .thanks Paul

PS and where you bought it, thanks
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
The heater we bought at R2R I don't remember the brand off the top of my head will post about it tonight (or you could shoot R2R a pm and ask).
 
It is a Tetra heater and I DO NOT recommend it, it is supposted to be rated up to 10G, but my water temp fluctuates and has not topped 75. . . which is a BIG problem. Marineland sells a tiny heater as well, I'll be picking that up this weekend.
 
I think it's this heater:

http://www.aquariumcenter.biz/store/product/306030/TETRA-HEATER-50WT/

I have one in a 10 gallon tank, and the larger one in a 30 gallon tank and have zero problems with the temp fluctuating. I will say the "78 degrees" think is not accurate. It keeps my tanks closer to 80 degrees, which is fine with me, but mine do keep the tanks pretty steady, and no fiddling with them at all. Just drop them in, let them acclimate, and turn them on. Just my personal experience though.
 
Thanks sorry for the slight hijack of your thread, I have not been to r2r for a while so its visiting time .
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Thank you for the assist mfisher. That is the heater we have, the issue might be we have in kinda in a hallway that has no heating vents so the ambient temp is pretty low here right now. We will probably head to R2R and check it out this weekend.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
So we broke this guy down. DO NOT BUY PANDA GOBIES, waste of money. So small, trying to find them in a pico is like playing where waldo. They just sit around anyway, no real swimming. We will set this up again at some other point, but not worth it right now.
 
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