Pico tank build - Lifegard 3.8 with Side Filter

[KK's Reef]

Great looking tank! Where did you put the heater? There’s no room with the intank media basket, and the rerun are will not hold that much water for the heater to be submerged…

Yup, I also noticed the water level is low with the Intank media basket. But that's only if you have the basket hanging. If you let the basket sink all the way in the chamber, the return chamber water level will rise, and that's where I have the heater. Also note that my heater is slim and short (Hygger from Amazon).

 

[KK's Reef]

Update:

Tank is 11 months old now.

Finally got around to removing a handful of frags off of the frag plug and mounted on to the scape or on rock rubble. Zoa rock is rounding into shape. Micro lords are getting bigger and sprouting babies. Indo gold torch is getting huge and starting to sting its neighbors. Finally got my PO4 to be stable. It was running high for a month, and I think that's what cause my rainbow montis to turn into orange montis. Stopped dosing phyto and AB+ which I think made the PO4 level creep up. Damsel are clown are getting fat. Clown just came down with a case of popeye, so treating him with some Kanaplex. CUC hasn't suffered any casualties, so I think I've found the balance for this tank - two large snails, two small snails, 3 hermit crabs, 1 conch, 1 emerald crab.

Notable additions: Walt Disney frag, purple stylo, and green blue tipped torch

Will post a pic in a month when the tank turns 1 year old.

 

[MK3_LUV]

Any updated pics? would love to see the tank after its settled in a bit

 

[KK's Reef]

Any updated pics? would love to see the tank after its settled in a bit

Hey, thanks for following along. Here's a few pics I snapped today.

The purple stylo is gone, along with indo gold torch. They both were getting too big. The style was 6 inches across and I wanted that space free for acros. The torch grew to 6 polyps. Sold it to make room for a 24K torch. Also sold a couple of micro lords to make room for other ones.

Tank has been cruising. PO4 is always 0.04 - 0.10. Alk is between 7.8 - 8.3.

Additions:
GMK zoa
Banana Muncher zoa
Exosphere zoa
SC Orange Passion
JF Homewrecker
Vivid Sublime
Malaysian 24K torch
SWA Intergalactic blasto
RTA Mean Green micromussa
Zoanthids.com Sugar Daddy micromussa

Current inhabitants:
Clown
Purple Firefish
Tiger Conch
Nassarius snail
Pop Pom Crab
Sexy Shrimp x 4
Blue Legged Hermit
Red Legged Hermit
Astrea Snails x 2
Turbo Snails x 2

 

[Daniel92481]

Looking good!

 

[Poliwag]

did you end up switching your light to a xr15?

 

[KK's Reef]

did you end up switching your light to a xr15?

Not yet. Waiting for an order of F Aptasia to arrive so I can beat back some rainbow monti. Once I do that, I can mount the acro frags and swap lights.

 

[Poliwag]

Not yet. Waiting for an order of F Aptasia to arrive so I can beat back some rainbow monti. Once I do that, I can mount the acro frags and swap lights.

what intensity % do you plan on running it on?

 

[V A R I A N T]

Nice Favia!

 

[KK's Reef]

Planning on starting at 70% and gradually bringing it up to 100%. I hear the G6 has more even spread and no hot spots, so at 100% should give about 400 PAR.

 

[KK's Reef]

Nice Favia!

Ultron favia from WWC, if I recall correctly.

 

[seabedoasis]

I’m digging this set up man! I’m looking to set up my own Lifeguard pico, which return pump did you end up with?

 

[KK's Reef]

I’m digging this set up man! I’m looking to set up my own Lifeguard pico, which return pump did you end up with?

Thank you, bro. This tank has been able to handle it all. I started with zoas and LPS, to now keeping acros. Granted, the acros are still on frag plugs, but I found that acros can be kept in picos (stability is hard, though).

For the price point, the Lifegard tanks are pretty good. I swapped out the stock return pump for a Sicce Syncra 0.5 for more flow.