Lifegard 4.1 pico tank

danieyella

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Next week I will be receiving a little 3g cube ( 11.31 in x 11.31 in x 13.375 in) . I plan to set this up as a pico in my home "office" (read: room with my computer and all my weird stuff - I don't work in here, it's my equivalent of a man cave). My office is dark grey (top half) and black (bottom half), with bronze fleur de lis stenciled on the black half of the walls. It's covered in taxidermy and various other oddities. I have 1 large curiosity cabinet, and one small table with my tarantula. I'm keeping the pico in here, even with the lights on - it's a dark/dim room. I want the pico to match the theme well enough, but stand out just a little.

I'm torn on lighting right now, I know the manufacturer lights won't be enough so I definitely need to switch them out. What I *don't* know is if I want to stick w/ just blues or do a blue/white mixture.

Any lighting recommendations? I was looking at the Hipargero LED on amazon, not sure if it's suitable?

Not sure if I'm going to go black sand or bare bottom yet.

Coral-wise I'm still a little torn on which way to go as well, but I've got time. Part of my thinks - corals on the back wall (encrusting montis? cyphastrea?) and maybe a nice acanthophyllia as the main piece, but who knows.

My large tank is primarily zoas, LPS, and softies and I don't want this to just end up being a miniature version of that. I want to put some kind of theme together in my head before I go for it.

Now is the time for recommendations and ideas, so please, throw them at me!


EDIT:
This tank is now a Lifegard 4.1 - I transferred because I was tired of fighting to clean the rounded edges in the front. Effective April 2021.
I run it with an Aquaknight v2 light.
Media includes: chemipure elite nano & aquachar

EDIT: 7/30/22
Set up an awc a few months ago. It's pretty hands off now. Everything taking off.

FTS 7/30/22
PXL_20220730_182734876.jpg
 
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HuduVudu

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I have started so many tanks with the hope of putting together a theme and it never really materializes. Maybe you will have better luck than I did :)
 
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danieyella

danieyella

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I have started so many tanks with the hope of putting together a theme and it never really materializes. Maybe you will have better luck than I did :)

Hahaha, we will see!
 

HuduVudu

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Just know the pros and cons. Bare bottoms aren't a silver bullet. There things you will have to give up when you do them and things that you will have to do different also. I haven't done bare bottoms but I have seen elsewhere that they are more difficult up front.

Anyhooos it's all fun and games until someone loses and eye ... then it's hilarious. :p

Keep posting as you get further. :)
 
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danieyella

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Trying to think out aquascape for this guy, I have a piece of unused rock in my sump that I might pull and utilize, or I may go hit up the LFS for some tonga branch and see what I can assemble with that...

I'm currently considering pulling some of my utter chaos and space queen zoanthids because I think they might make a nice color contrast together like that. They're not very close together in the big tank, and theres so many varieties in there anyway.

Talk to me about encrusting corals for the ground/back. Recommendations? Thinking something dark base with brighter mouths/polyps/etc.
 
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danieyella

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Zoas or SPS?

That's the thing, my 90 is a ton of zoas and leathers. I'm trying to not duplicate the exact same thing, but I historically don't have the best luck with sps other than some montis... My last little tank (the 20 that got upgraded to 90) had sps growing like crazy, when I wasn't monitoring much of anything and only did my weekly 5g water changes. I'm wondering if that was the key then, and if I would have success again with the small one because I don't plan on doing any dosing just water changes to replenish parameters.

I'd love to have success with them again, I'm just nervous. I guess I have quite some time to make the decision.

I was kind of thinking some cyphastrea (not decided on specifics yet) somewhere as well... Oddly enough, I have NONE of that in the big tank.

I need to pull out the rock from the sump and post it, maybe I'll do that once the tank arrives next week and you guys can help me decide if I should go with that or start from scratch with rock. Aquascape will likely help me decide which way to go with corals as well.
 
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danieyella

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Alright hivemind, I'd like some lighting recommendations that can mount onto the tank rim.

Tank dimensions are: 11.31 in x 11.31 in x 13.375 in (approximately 3 gallons)

I haven't ruled out SPS yet, so something controllable that can handle SPS if I decide to go that route would be ideal.
 
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danieyella

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Tank comes today! I'm going to try to get a photo of it w/ the extra rock I have sitting in the sump of the big tank so I can get opinions regarding using that.

I'm *hopefully* getting my new reefbreeders lights installed on the big tank today or tomorrow, and I just discovered they have a small pico light, so if the big guys work out I may go that route for this one.
 
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danieyella

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Alright, tank is here. Don't forget, I'll be installing a different light on it than what came with. It's not even set up on this.

IMG_20200614_141839.jpg


Here it is with the extra live rock from the sump of my large tank.

IMG_20200614_141942.jpg


I think it's a decent fit, will probably either stand it up sideways, or angle it a little more not set it straight in like that. Any suggestions/thoughts?
 

tho

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Alright, tank is here. Don't forget, I'll be installing a different light on it than what came with. It's not even set up on this.

IMG_20200614_141839.jpg


Here it is with the extra live rock from the sump of my large tank.

IMG_20200614_141942.jpg


I think it's a decent fit, will probably either stand it up sideways, or angle it a little more not set it straight in like that. Any suggestions/thoughts?

Cute tank! The rock fits surprisingly well in it. Maybe just lining it up along the diagonal will do it for you. I like that it naturally has a line for your eye to follow. And less is more sometimes, coral growth will add to the shape in interesting ways. Following!
 
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danieyella

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Update: it's almost time to start moving things out of my office and back into the spare room. Which means I can find a place for the pico to live and get started on the real work soon.
 

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Update: it's almost time to start moving things out of my office and back into the spare room. Which means I can find a place for the pico to live and get started on the real work soon.

those dimensions would make me think a Kessil A80 would be perfect if it’s in the budget. I’ve run 2 or 3 over an office tank as it’s evolved over The past two years. 24x20x11.

74D24A96-16C9-46EE-9DD7-EBF9304CBBB5.jpeg
878B1B75-08BD-4CA5-94F8-1A5CE449A7F7.jpeg
8ED946DB-9C68-4850-BFB9-96033F74582F.jpeg
 

DSEKULA

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Here's my 2gal the pic is taken with an orange filter to be as true to life as I can manage.
The light is up in the little hood area with the ato resivour. It's a simple 3blue 3white led unit. For fun I even did a par map and got from a 100-300ish bottom to top. I use this tank as a night light, it's in my bedroom running reverse photoperiod. It was important to me that the tank was well lit for growth but also wouldn't spill light all over the room. Keeping the hood on with the light reflected down was the perfect look for me and sounds like you want something similar. IMG_20200731_204238.jpg IMG_20200809_221208.jpg
 
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danieyella

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Give me all your toxic looking recommendations, like it fell into an acid pit with color. Those orange/purple/green type color combos.... I'm doing bare bottom so I've got some extra real-estate down there as well.
 

DSEKULA

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For my pico i decided to mainly do maxmini carpet nems then fill in the rest with zoas and shrooms. Also want to try a toxic candy cane and maybe pocilipora. Most of those come in some cool color combos
 
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danieyella

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For my pico i decided to mainly do maxmini carpet nems then fill in the rest with zoas and shrooms. Also want to try a toxic candy cane and maybe pocilipora. Most of those come in some cool color combos

i forgot carpet nems were an option. I've seen some fun rhodactis color combos so I'm sure I'll have a few of those . My larger tank has a variety of zoas so I want to try to go with some different versions than what I already have... I'll look at some different pocillopora as well.
 
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