Pico 2 Gallon Jar

[Landshark34]

Hi everyone,
This will be my second pico build. My first build was a half gallon jar that I had running in the office back in 2017. The sole inhabitant of that effort was a piece of gsp frag that spread from its frag plug to cover a piece of live rock over 8 months. The only maintenance I did was sustained weekly 80% water changes. That build was unfortunately interrupted by an extended leave.

Finally over the holidays, I decided to jump back in and start another jar. This time upsized to a 2 gal.
Trying to keep the cost at a minimum, I dug up some old equipment, including my old BoostLED par30 bulb, and picked up salt/sand/dry rock.

I started with 6lb of dry rock and 2 cured biofilter media spheres as seeds. A week in, I added about 3lb more of live rock pieces in an effort to introduce more critters to the system.
The tank is now cycling for just under 3 weeks, and ammonia has been at 0 for a while. I've been adding small bits of fish flakes every few days during this process, and changing 1gal of water per week.

My plan for this jar is to take it slow and once again start with a piece of GSP, and then add some mushroom and candy cane after. For inverts, I hope to add 1 astrea, 1 trochus and 1 nassarius snail, once the tank is a bit more established.

Here is a list of my equipment thus far:

Tank	Anchor Hocking 2 gal jar
Light	BoostLED PAR30 (4blue + 1white) + Ikea light fixture
Circulation	Eheim air 200 (using both airlines)
Heater	Hydor 25W + Inkbird controller
Salt	Red sea coral pro
Substrate	Carib Sea Fiji Pink Live Sand - about 1.5" thick
Rock	Dry Marco Rock 1 piece 6lb Seeded with: 2x BioFilter Media Spheres and 3lb of live rock pieces

The state of the jar at the start of the year (the camera is not dealing with the blue well):

 

[LeannaBanana]

Wow, this is so neat! I'll be following along. Excited to see the progress in your jar.

 

[Landshark34]

I may have already made a mistake. I wanted a bit of macro algae in the jar as a way to eat up some nitrates and introduce some pods, so I picked up a small lump of chaeto. The mistake was that bits of chaeto quickly drifted into cracks and corners of the rocks...

Trying to contain the mess, I went down to this local Japanese dollar store and picked up this small plastic container thing. I shoved the chaeto in and tucked it out of site behind the main rock display above the 2nd airline. I guess I'll use a turkey baster and suck out the escaped chaeto.

The back side of the rock doesn't get a lot of light, so I ordered a cheap grow light off amazon, and it is doing a 9 hour cycle at night after lights off.

I noticed my 25W Hydor heater, even on the lowest setting (at 71 deg), heats up the water to about 82 deg which seems risky. Along with the grow light, I picked up an inkbird temperature controller, and the water temperature is now set at 78-79deg.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hi everyone,
This will be my second pico build. My first build was a half gallon jar that I had running in the office back in 2017. The sole inhabitant of that effort was a piece of gsp frag that spread from its frag plug to cover a piece of live rock over 8 months. The only maintenance I did was sustained weekly 80% water changes. That build was unfortunately interrupted by an extended leave.

Finally over the holidays, I decided to jump back in and start another jar. This time upsized to a 2 gal.
Trying to keep the cost at a minimum, I dug up some old equipment, including my old BoostLED par30 bulb, and picked up salt/sand/dry rock.

I started with 6lb of dry rock and 2 cured biofilter media spheres as seeds. A week in, I added about 3lb more of live rock pieces in an effort to introduce more critters to the system.
The tank is now cycling for just under 3 weeks, and ammonia has been at 0 for a while. I've been adding small bits of fish flakes every few days during this process, and changing 1gal of water per week.

My plan for this jar is to take it slow and once again start with a piece of GSP, and then add some mushroom and candy cane after. For inverts, I hope to add 1 astrea, 1 trochus and 1 nassarius snail, once the tank is a bit more established.

Here is a list of my equipment thus far:

Tank	Anchor Hocking 2 gal jar
Light	BoostLED PAR30 (4blue + 1white) + Ikea light fixture
Circulation	Eheim air 200 (using both airlines)
Heater	Hydor 25W + Inkbird controller
Salt	Red sea coral pro
Substrate	Carib Sea Fiji Pink Live Sand - about 1.5" thick
Rock	Dry Marco Rock 1 piece 6lb Seeded with: 2x BioFilter Media Spheres and 3lb of live rock pieces

The state of the jar at the start of the year (the camera is not dealing with the blue well):

View attachment 2975702View attachment 2975712

Tank design is really unique looking!!

 

[SaltyinTennessee]

I really like the jar reefs! Looks great and best of luck.

 

[Landshark34]

The first corals are in!
Two weeks ago, I picked up a fair sized frag of GSP which I glued to a frag plug and settled it in a space between 2 pieces of rocks. The GSP came with a bristleworm and an asterina starfish. I saw mixed opinions on the asterina, regarding whether it will munch on the corals, but in the end I let it be. It disappeared amongst the rocks and I haven't seen it since. A couple of days later, I picked up a green candy cane. No luck gluing this one to a plug so I just shoved it into the sandbed.

Both pieces are settling in nicely, thus far. I was hoping the GSP would expand in the direction of the smaller live rock, but it has taken a foot hold onto the main rock and appears to be expanding quickly. The candy cane came with 2 heads but in the last week I noticed the left head has split into 2 mouths.

Given the amount of rocks, the total water volume seems to be about 1.3 ~ 1.4 gal range, and a 1 gal water change is done weekly on Sundays, and the corals are fed with a pinch of reefroids on Wednesdays and Sundays (right before the water change).