1 gallon SW tank??

harndog

harndog

Member
I got a 1 gallon cube for my desk at work. My wife got it for me for Christmas. I got a little hydro heater and it has a hob filter with a crbon floss filter. Going to set it up with a few shrooms and maybe some green zoes a p shrimp and a hermit crab. Should be a cool little addition to my office desk. will post pics once it's up and going most likley sat night. I plan to change about a cup of water everyday. Will keep a 2 gallon rubbermaid mater container under my desk full of aged sw. Please post pics if anyone has one of these.
 
harndog

harndog

Member
I have a 75 reef and a 175 fowlr at home I can add the p shrimp and crab as well as the corals back if I need to. I like the sexy shrimp and if I decide to buy anything for this I will get one for sure they are cool. I do have a tiny trochus in my 175 I may put in there. I have a few small lr with shrooms and green zoos I plan to use. I also have a very small p shrimp and about 40 hermits to pick from. Don't worry I won't kill these guys if i notice any signs of distress I will take them home. Keeping water parms up should be the biggest challenge. the office stays at 73 degrees or so and the light warms the tank up a degree or two without water in it. Hopefully the little 7 w heater can get it up to where it needs to be. As stated I will post pics. anybody else have any pics????
 
chipmaker

chipmaker

Active Member
I myself like the PICO sized tanks.....I have a bunch of them all around the house from 1 quart to 2 gal in size. ***** had a closeout on some very nice betta tanks. One was a basic all glass tank rectangular in shape, but the other was a rounded corner 1 1/2 gal tank of all glass construction, They both came with a small hob powerfilter, and a clip on light, which for the ost part is useless for a reef or corals, but suitable for a small fuge. They originally sold for like $19.xx and $23.xx but clearanced priced at $3.00 and $6.11....hard to beat those prices and they make great pico tanks.
I turned one of the rectangular tanks into a mini sump for a 2.2 gal Red Sea Wave tank, and another I have as a fuge for the rounded corner tank.......
One thing, is those small 7 watt non controllable heaters......Keep a very close eye on them as they can heat your tank up fairoly quickly if you have a light over them, which is also going to heat the water..They are designed to heat the water just a few degrees above "whatever" the room temp is, so if your lights heat the water to say 80 deg, the heater is gonna run it up to 83 or 84or maybe more, since it doe snot know water temp from room temp. I had problems with them intially but my cure was to utilize lights during the day to keep water warm, and since all are on timers, when the lights go out the heater comes on later during the night, so my water has been staying within 2 deg which is not bad considering such a small volume of water is in use.. Walmart has the round 7 watt heaters for under $5.00, and other than shape fromn a round tube to a flat mat, its the same as the hydor mat 7 watt heaters are and just as functional, but the cords are kind of heavy duty and stiff, where the hydor is like lamp cord and very flexible....
The 7 watt and 13 watt Art Deco PC lights work very well on these sized tanks. Deco Art is made by Red Sea and they can be found very cheap. You can get different bulbs for them quite easy and cheap from 50/50's to full actinic to daylights of various temps.
PICO' tanks ya just gotta love em so much stuff n such a small package. My main lfs hates them as they say they are so hard to take care of, but I find them quite easy to manage. We used to have night lights here and there in the house, now we utilize those pico's for night lights.
 
harndog

harndog

Member
Thanks chipmaker. I work evenings and intend to have lights come on at about 430 in the evening and run until 10 or so. and run the heater the rest of the time. It is a steady 72 degrees in the office hardly ever changes. not sure how the art deco light will warm it up but the light it has is a 7 watt 10000 k pc light and it only goes up about a degree I will just have to play with it before I add any livestock to see how it does.
 
J

jcrim

Guest
If you're willing to spend about 5 minutes a day to hatch baby brine shrimp, you could put 2 or 3 dwarf seahorses in there.
 
harndog

harndog

Member
JCRIM that would be sweet I think I could do that. Do the brine shrimp have enough nutrients for the seahorse?
 
J

jcrim

Guest
Yes, actually they are the main staple for dwarfs. The only catch is that they must be babies... meaning you must hatch them yourself. I'm just getting into it as I've only had my dwarfs for a couple weeks. But they are starting to eat really well and it's pretty cool. If you want some instructions on how to hatch them, let me know but it only takes a couple minutes.
 
harndog

harndog

Member
sure any info is apprecitated. also where did you find yours. I will call around to the sw stores locally and see if I can find some but have been to most and don't recall seeing any dwarfs. I know one store has a brine shrimp hatchery and sales the eggs in little packages I was not sure if those would hatch though.
 
J

jcrim

Guest
You'd need a hatchery or you could easily make one. I bought one pretty cheap. Basically, you put 1/2 teaspoon of eggs in saltwater and run an airtube in there. They take about 24 hrs to hatch.
I got mine from a great online breeder. Post your email if interested and I'll let you know. Never seen them in any LFS.
 
ninjamini

ninjamini

Active Member
How about a few pics of these picos.
Originally Posted by chipmaker
I myself like the PICO sized tanks.....I have a bunch of them all around the house from 1 quart to 2 gal in size. ***** had a closeout on some very nice betta tanks. One was a basic all glass tank rectangular in shape, but the other was a rounded corner 1 1/2 gal tank of all glass construction, They both came with a small hob powerfilter, and a clip on light, which for the ost part is useless for a reef or corals, but suitable for a small fuge. They originally sold for like $19.xx and $23.xx but clearanced priced at $3.00 and $6.11....hard to beat those prices and they make great pico tanks.
I turned one of the rectangular tanks into a mini sump for a 2.2 gal Red Sea Wave tank, and another I have as a fuge for the rounded corner tank.......
One thing, is those small 7 watt non controllable heaters......Keep a very close eye on them as they can heat your tank up fairoly quickly if you have a light over them, which is also going to heat the water..They are designed to heat the water just a few degrees above "whatever" the room temp is, so if your lights heat the water to say 80 deg, the heater is gonna run it up to 83 or 84or maybe more, since it doe snot know water temp from room temp. I had problems with them intially but my cure was to utilize lights during the day to keep water warm, and since all are on timers, when the lights go out the heater comes on later during the night, so my water has been staying within 2 deg which is not bad considering such a small volume of water is in use.. Walmart has the round 7 watt heaters for under $5.00, and other than shape fromn a round tube to a flat mat, its the same as the hydor mat 7 watt heaters are and just as functional, but the cords are kind of heavy duty and stiff, where the hydor is like lamp cord and very flexible....
The 7 watt and 13 watt Art Deco PC lights work very well on these sized tanks. Deco Art is made by Red Sea and they can be found very cheap. You can get different bulbs for them quite easy and cheap from 50/50's to full actinic to daylights of various temps.
PICO' tanks ya just gotta love em so much stuff n such a small package. My main lfs hates them as they say they are so hard to take care of, but I find them quite easy to manage. We used to have night lights here and there in the house, now we utilize those pico's for night lights.
 
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