My 2.75g pico coldwater

This is the official post. Its a curved glass 2.75g. Styrofoam around the sides. The tank is holding at about a steady 53.9 degrees.......lol. I love decimals
Equipment:
10 watt 50/50 pc light. one of those ones you put in a incandescent fixture.
old style iceprobe thermal chiller
Aqua clear 20 filter.
Its basically diy. I have the iceprobe connected into the filter. Of course the styrofoam on the back has Saints painted on it. I have a few strawberry nems in there right now. Im trying to figure out how to seed this tank. I think ill try acclimating bacteria from the reef tank to here? I dont see why not. Everyone says you should acclimate 2 degrees per week but my system changes form like 80-82 degrees with lights to like 78 at night and everything is fine.

heres a fts kinda bland right now. need more rocks.


my ghetto iceprobe rig


the nems!

Nice. Okay first of all get some substrate. You could try and collect "natural" sand from your beach which will most likely have the beneficial, and possibly non beneficial bacteria in it. Another thing, bacteria from the reef tank i am pretty sure won't survive since they are well, tropical reef bacteria. However as stated in one of the info centers articles it would only leave off the hardiest of organisms. Another thing, changes that you stated above are still in the tropical spectrum of things and don't dip in the slightest to temperate temperatures which is different. If the tank you were running were sub-tropical then it would be different. Okay, i think i covered everything .

Great tank btw. Such small nems .

lol I wish i was going to be at the beach soon. But the forecast calls for snow this weekend. Ive only seen this 3 times in my life.lol. ill take your advice on the live rock. Lalani from NR said you can do it but I trust you before her. I do have a native brackish/saltwater tank that ranges from 68-72 degrees that I might be able to get some seeded sand with. It was supposed to be brackish but the salinity has been about 1.023 lately. Are crushed oyster shells good for substrate? I have some sand but its silica based which id rather not deal with. i think I can add livestock if I keep lots of water on hand to do water changes when needed because it is such a small tank.

I'm personally not a fan of the crush oyster shells. What i would do it hold of on substrate until you get some sand then put a couple nice big patches of the crushed stuff for some aesthetic affect.

If the salinity is correct and the temperature is also correct you can try and seed with that sand. Expect a mini-cycle from the die off but otherwise it's fine. How long has the tank setup? The average temperate tank takes twice as long to cycle as its tropical counterpart.

Yep, Simply due to the variety diffirences in the temperature ranges i bet.

yep, ill try and seed later. I need to find some better sand. I have the white play sand stuff but that would definantly not be good. Ill do what I can and i will keep yall updated.

You cant just get a bag of aragonite? I think EVERY pet store has it

Not the same, and definitely not seeded.

Oh sorry didnt notice we were talking about live.

Well were reaching a month and seeded. Almost time for livestock.

hmmmm.....whats up with this week? nobodys posting?

Everybody left us

Good, what are you thinking about getting? Sorry it's been a while.

not exactly sure what the guy is collecting for me. Just lots of anemones, macro, crabs, etc. Cant wait.

I dont know about an anemone in that small of a tank. Just my opinion anyway.

I think nems will be fine in that tank. CW nems are very tough and can tolerate very high nutrient levels. Fish on the other hand might be too much. I want more pics!

Didnt know that. >.>

Yea thats why nems can survive a cycle. Of course try to keep nutrient levels down but they are a lot tougher than tropical ones.

Wow. interesting man, Thanks.

Yea anytime. CW stuff is pretty tough actually. For a fish, if you really want one, what I call bullheads (only one) might be a good inhabitant. They eat anything but then again it is such a small tank. Go for nems first Also maybe add some macro for nutrient export

Macros own

lol... CW nems are very strong. It is also very easy to keep nutrient level down in the tank because it is so small therefore water changes are really easy. I dont want to put any fish in here because it would be just a little to much I think. Maybe after a year of cycling I might upgrade to a larger tank and chiller.

Haha yep. Sounds like you can do mostly inverts in this tank. I agree with jake, more pics!

well brown algae is starting to come, it should go away in a few weeks. But that means the cycle went good. Im struggling right now to keep the tank at 58 degrees. It keeps wandering to 60. Do yall think a fan would cool it down like 2-3 degrees?

Couldnt hurt to try.

true...I am going to test my electrical skills and connect a computer fan to a dc ac power transformer. ill tell yall how it goes.