1.1 Gallon Oceanbox P1-G Pico Reef

[VintageReefer]

Starting overdue build thread

I am the second owner, and am fortunate to have such a cool tank with some useful upgrades

The tank with Reefbreeders Pico V2 15w LED


Stand is usable space


Custom made gravity ato
Custom made lid + cooling fan




3 section Media rack

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 1
Tank arrived afternoon of Feb 7. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the arrival and by 5:30pm, I had sand, saltwater, and my aqua scape


I skipped cycling by using approx 5 cups of dirty sand from my main tanks sump. I used Brandon429 rip clean tactics and rinsed one cup at at time over and over, poured out the murky water, rinsed and stirred, repeat until the water is clear. Then repeat for the other 5 cups of sand.

I took one piece of 10yr old tonga branch from my sump, and one new piece of caribsea base rock

I mixed 1/2 gallon of new sw, and borrowed 1/2 gallon of sw from my main tank

I filled one of the media rack sections with matrix from my main tank. Just took a handful out of a mesh bag in my sump and put in media rack loose, replaced what I borrowed with new matrix to reseed

An hour later I started adding coral. Zoanthids and a green mouth purple torch



By 7:30 pm on day 1, I had my placement settled, and decided to add a Christmas favia also



By 9:30 pm tank is starting to clear up
I cut a chunk of gsp over growing in my main tank, that had a mushroom attached and added that too


Called it a night and let things settle

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 2 - February 8, 2024

Everything is still alive and looking happy
Added a scarlet hermit to get a head start on any potential mini blooms or algae growth

Played around with lighting also, figuring out what balance between the two channels would look and work best


Torch is a happy camper. I bought this online and was disappointed with how small it was on arrival. It didn’t really fit in my 75g too well. Buy here…it’s perfect!


Hermit


‘scape and gsp starting to open. Shroom needs to relocate because it’s wedged under a branch.

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 3
February 9, 2024

Looking good, added firework clove polyps

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 4 - February 10, 2024
Electronics mounting, cable cleanup

The side panels are magnetic and I found there is a lot of excess cable and wires wedged in, and it pushed the panels off if it’s not shoved in just right. Decided to unplug everything, stretch it out, tidy it up, and mount it in place.

I used 3M Dual Lock to mount controllers, and used rubber bands to keep cable coils nice and toight like a tiger


Fan controller Mounted


Thermometer mounted, probe secured in filtration area


Heater controller mounted, so it can be easily read or used by opening a magnet panel. LED controller mounted. Power adapters and wires getting cleaned up


The little black rectangle with USB’s attached, on the bottom below the led controller…is the “flow booster” and it increases the return pump output by 50%. It’s mounted and cabled so I can bypass if needed and go back to stock flow

 

[VintageReefer]

Feb 10 continued
Coral updates

All still alive. This plan is so crazy it might work after all

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 5 - Feb 11, 2024
Ugly stage begins. And self resolves after about a week. New base rock got most of it, which I expected. Added a second hermit because I don’t have any snails small enough to go in here. Added Acan frag also…but had to remove. Explanation to come later



Goal achieved - everything organized nicely inside, and entire reef only has one power cord coming out of it

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 18 - February 25, 2024
Let everything just kinda settle over the last 2 weeks and I kept my hands out. Oh. Except for the 25 head Duncan colony!

Yes. It had to be rehomed from my main tank due to a fish that started biting it. I had no where else to put it. Fortunately it did well in its new tiny home

 

[VintageReefer]

Forgot to mention my goal

You may have seen my tank page or things I’ve posted about my 75g tank and it only needing about 5 min a week in maintenance work.

Well. I’m scaling the concept down. Everyone says picos are challenging, the smaller the tank the harder it is. Well this is my 1.1g Low Maintenance Pico Reef!

Goal - natural cleaning from snails, hermits, and bristle worms.

I was going to do All For Reef instead of water changes, but decided with this low volume of water the margin of error is too great. Instead, once in a while, I will remove 1/2 gallon of saltwater and replace with 1/2 gallon from my 75g tank

Minimize algae and issues by not adding anything I need to manually feed. Everything will be photosynthetic and fed by light, critters will consume any undesirable growth from light. Important not to overstock snails and hermits, we don’t need any die off causing ammonia spikes in this tiny tank

Feb 25, 2024

 

[VintageReefer]

Feb 27, 2024
Duncan is fully open and all is good in this hood

 

[VintageReefer]

March 3

Duncan colony was able to move back to main display

Pithos crab started eating acans and needed rehome. Moved pithos crab into the pico and moved the acans back to my main tank

Added 2-3 tiny nassarius

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 25 - March 11, 2024
Tank is on autopilot, doing good, no work needed

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 28 - March 14
Added 2 sexy shrimp and a yellow tip torch that is recovering

 

[VintageReefer]

Day 29 - March 15, 2024
Sexy shrimp being sexy. There’s a little one and a really little one. They seem to have made a torch their home and are always on it or near it

 

[VintageReefer]

Overall very happy with the progress of one month, and zero algae or cycle issues. Added 2 or 3 astrea snails

March 19, 2024
Some full tank shots at different angles. Peninsula pico is cool because you can enjoy from all sides

 

[VintageReefer]

Macros from today, and now we are all caught up! Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about the setup!

 

[spielco]

Absolutely in love with this man! Well done! I’ve been poking around wanting to start a nano for our bedroom and this is killer!

 

[VintageReefer]

It would be great! It’s silent also

 

[VintageReefer]

Noticed recently purple torch seems upset and not inflating as much, zoa plugs are closed randomly, cloves looked poor. Didn’t know what was going on…noticed these are the 3 corals my sexy shrimp hover on

Always looks like they are cleaning corals or the plugs

Did some research and found out they can eat corals.

Watched closer…zoas closed up have a tiny hole inter center, and the sexy shrimp is reaching in, picking around in there non stop. Saw other sexy shrimp doing similar to the cloves.

I can’t promise they are eating the corals. They are eating something thought and severely upsetting all these corals for days.

I made traps and caught them and relocated to my main tank sump. 2 hour later the purple torch is opening up as it was before I got the shrimp.

I don’t know what they do at night in darkness but I do feel they are directly related to my corals being closed up. I’m not taking the risk they can go to a new home and clean my sump

 

[Gumbies R Us]

That is one nice looking pico!