Office Pico- Huzzah!

[Medym]

Well, since I got decent handful of cash from the office Playoff Hockey Pool, I thought, why not sink more cash into my hobby!  This time at work!

I work within DFO and I am tired of walking around an aquarium-less work environment.  I went out and picked up an Aqueon Evolve 2- which is a 2 gallon AIO tank.  Let's just say hauling it all into work was not easy.  I carried the water I mixed from home (3 gals of it), the tank, LR and aragonite from my car the to my office. I have had it set up for about a week and a half now.



The build:

Evolve 2 AIO Aquarium
18x 1w LED light fixture (needs to be replaced)
Stealth submersible heater
1.1 lbs live rock (yes it is on the light side, but I wanted to have some room to play with!)

The tank is offering a couple obstacles. 

1.   While I am keeping 2x 1 litre bottles of water at my desk (one fresh one salt), I do not have any testing stuff here to monitor regularly what is happening in my tank.  I am not sure how I want to solve this problem, yet.  As I can see now, I am enjoying a bit of a hair algae problem.  My coworkers think it looks cool, I am loathing it right now. 
2.   Stocking.  To stock this tank will require me either buy something in the evening, acclimate it to my tank at home, bag it again, acclimate it again here at work and add it, or take time off during the day to pick stuff up.  In addition, being at work, I do not want to add anything too fragile.  It needs to be stocked with something that can survive a long weekend (3 days) on autopilot (automatic feeder and timers; sump, dosing and controllers not really an option here).  In addition I also have to worry about curious coworkers sticking their grubby fingers into the tank when I am not at my desk.
3.   Lighting.  While the stock light fills its purpose, I hate how it is 90% white.  Gimmie some Royal Blues!  A PAR30/38 bulb would just be overkill and I want to keep the tank "low profile."  Only thing I can think of is trying to purchase another light, crackin it open and retrofitting some nice crees into it on a small driver.

To tackle the algae problem I am thinking about a turbo snail (nom nom nom).  As for anything else, I cannot decide what I want to put in here!  Once I sort out the lights, I know I am going to be searching for small frags, just no idea what!

Any stocking/lighting suggestions, I am all ears.

[Darth]

when I had my 5 gal nano running I never tested anything in it, I would do 80% water changed every 2-3 weeks, whatever the system used up was replenished by water changes, live stock shrimp/goby combo, coral zoa rics, or go crazy and have a tank full of pulsing xenia LOL

[Medym]

Might as well throw up an updated picture.

The mexican turbo has done a great job cleaning the tank and I have made a couple trips down to Marinescape for some frags to liven my tank up a bit.   It is a little difficult to maintain and aclimate the fish and corals at my desk, but with a short length of tubing a couple clean Solo cups and patience it has come together.

The addition of a BoostLED PAR30 bulb above has been the game changer.



I am going to keep my eyes open for a few more small frags of zoas and then sit back and enjoy as the tank propagates.  The first button polys I have gotten are thriving and a few new heads have sprouted up. 

Water changes are done with a couple bottles of water.  I bring a turkey baster from home, suck up the water and deposit in in an empty bottle and replace it with water mixed at home.  Top offs have been done with RO/DI water from home, again from bottles carted back and forth.

It certainly captures the attention of people wanting to bother me at work.  I expected someone to complain- but thus far the only complaint has been that I need more fish.

[76brian]

That looks great!

Would a nano/pico be a good intro to saltwater?

[Medym]

That looks great!

Would a nano/pico be a good intro to saltwater?

I do not know if I would say it is a good intro, but it has been my main intro into saltwater.  I have also had relative success with my tanks.

I had put together a 56 gal Fish only with live rock, but I did not keep it long and I have taken it down.  When I did, I built myself my 4.5 gal pico which is currently on my desk at home.  To build that, I actually put together the glass, the LED light, I modified the filter and did a number of things myself. This was the first tank I put any corals in.  With patience and a lot of learning, I have been successful- for the most part.  With a pico tank, I got to learn a valuable lesson about SPS corals and keeping them the hell away from GSP- oops!  Anything bad that happens in a pico carries immediate risks to everything else to the tank.  More volume means the effects can be mitigated.

With this small tank, I was able to keep a low profile with pretty much everything self contained.  I have a decent pump with great water movement.  I am using some chemipure filter media which is great and lessons learned at home have helped me with this little tank at work.  But being at work has its own obsitcles!  I will be away from it for 3 days this weekend, coworkers tapping the glass, etc.

I would say a nano tank can be a good way to learn salt water, but it needs to be coupled with a lot of patience, hard work and research.

[robt18]

Ahhh crap I want salt water again.

[sas]

   It is a little difficult to maintain and aclimate the fish and corals at my desk, but with a short length of tubing a couple clean Solo cups and patience it has come together.

Ah yes but are they red solo cups .

Sorry about that couldn't resist .

Back on track nice job, great looking little tank.
A lot of work but it certainly has paid off.

[Medym]

Looks like I lost the goby this morning.  Not sure what happened overnight.  The corals are open and happy but the goby is upside down

I think this might just be a sign that I should avoid fish in this tank.  Too many unknowns.

[Cheebs]

Have you considered maybe a couple sexy shrimp? They seem to be quite hardy when they are acclimated, are fun to look at, and would suit this size of tank!

[Medym]

Have you considered maybe a couple sexy shrimp? They seem to be quite hardy when they are acclimated, are fun to look at, and would suit this size of tank!

I took your advice and added sexy shrimp with another zoa frag.  I think one more frag will do it and I will just sit back and let the tank grow and propagate on its own for a while.  The colours are great and there is a nice gentle movement within the aquarium which is very relaxing.

I will try to get a new picture hosted so I can share.

edit here is the current picture:

[Medym]

So here I was just giving a quick scrub to the tank when I noticed this little guy moving over the bottom.... hello hitchhicker!