I realized just the other day I never posted anything up regarding my beloved Picotope mini-reef tank that I’ve been wanting to set up for years! So I went to it and took a bunch of pictures and even made a stupid little video. I amused myself with all of this at the very least.

Our system set up is the JBJ 3 gallon Picotope aquarium kit which by no means would I consider a kit right out of the box. It comes with a decent 9 watt compact florescent light and a filter that can just about get you by. However, for the price I really can’t complain. In the beginning I use everything that came standard since I was all excited and impatient. I also ordered a water pump for proper flow and a 25 watt heater of course.

Shown 4 months after initial set up.

Set up was simple. A solid 2 inch thick bed of live Carribean  sand and 3-5 lbs of Fiji cultured live rock left to sit and fester for one solid month. Within that amount of time the tank went through a normal fishless cycle, with live rock bacteria dying off to help propagate each level of nitrogenous bacteria! The end of a diatom bloom signified the tank was set up and ready for scavengers. We tossed in 3 blue leg hermit crabs and 2 astrea snails to tidy up the death of the diatom. In less than a day everything was sparkling clean.

Jacques, our first Sexy Shrimp!

Once the scavengers settled for a few weeks it was time for some new inhabitants and upgrade the current equipment. We ditched the default filter that came with the picotope and custom modded our own mini-refugium out of an Aquaclear 70 filter. The default light also became a back up for the refugium while we ordered a coralife mini compact hood for the main tank.
The tank is currently home to some pulsing xenia, green colony coral, assorted mushroom coral and a small colony of clover polyps. This also marked the introduction of Jacques, our much anticipated sexy shrimp! Would have loved to get a pair but sexy shrimp are hard to come by here. As an alternative, we picked up a small little squat shrimp called a bumble bee shrimp. Cute and creepy all in one. It’s unfortunate that he is rarely seen.

Jacques and his colony of coral!

By now the tank has sprouted out all sorts of random little hitch-hikers including brittle starfish, bristle worms, small crabs, tube worms and random polyp colonies. We’ve had a few run ins with some unwanted creatures like little black clawed crabs, coral-eating starfish and a couple of flatworms. Though nothing seems to be posing any sort of major problems. I don’t think our tank could sustain anything to get large enough to cause a problem.

For the future I’ve already purchased my 14 gallon biocube as an impulse buy when I had the opportunity to get one on sale for about half the cost at work. Working in a pet store does have it’s advantages when you’re a fish nerd. It’s only unfortunate that I’m unable to set it up just yet due to lack of space. Once we move though, oh, you better know I’ll have that thing set up within the first week! Probably before I finish unpacking any boxes. Seriously.

To end things off, I made a cute and stupid little video of the Picotope. Yes.. I’m totally a loser for doing this. But obviously I love my fish tank.