# Hoochi's pint sized Pico



## Subotaj (Oct 16, 2006)

sweeet!


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## ikuzo (Jul 11, 2006)

how old is this pico? do you have serious algae problems with that much of light?


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## rodney (Apr 10, 2007)

Cool!
But what is the point to a pico, is it just looks or what? Can yu keep anything in it besides plants?

Thanks, rodney


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

ikuzo said:


> how old is this pico? do you have serious algae problems with that much of light?


The pico is almost 2 months old. I did have some problems with hair algae and diatoms when I started the tank but those went away after a few weeks. I guess the reason I don't have serious algae problems is because most of the light doesn't actually make it into the tank, a lot of light is diffused around it.



rodney said:


> But what is the point to a pico, is it just looks or what? Can yu keep anything in it besides plants?


It's mostly just for looks but when the pico become established and all the UC has filled in I plan to put a couple cherry shrimp in and see how they do.


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Technically, a pico in reefs i believe is under 5 gallons. in FW, it's more like under 1 gallon.

the point of near ALL planted tanks is just for looks.

but you can put some stuff in picos.

that size could do some cherries, maybe, or microfauna, such as water fleas, copepods, maybe even carnivourus aquatic beetles like circus beetles.

Maybe a toad tadpole.


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Oh yea, and maybe ada will start selling 10cm cubes now!


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## bulrush (May 7, 2007)

A toad tadpole is good at eating algae but they mature in about 4 weeks. 

And a cherry shrimp will multiply if you put more than 1 in there. Soon you will have 30 shrimp.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

*updated 9/23*

here's an update









Utricularia is filling in nice and slow









From my point of view


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## tropicalfish (Mar 29, 2007)

Looks real nice? Do you do water changes? (Real tiny ones of course hehe )


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

I don't do that many water changes actually. Maybe every 2 weeks I'll do a 50% change. 
I do however lose a lot of water through evaporation so I'm always topping off the tank.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Time for another update. Finally got some fauna for the tank, a little Heterandria formosa. Got a bunch of these guys and I figured a tiny juvenile would do ok in the pico.

All the old HC leaves melted on me but new growth is sprouting. Utricularia melted too but came back strong with nicer looking leaves. I've started to dose excel at 1 drop a day and 3 drops at a water change.









FTS and you can see the Heterandria formosa right in front of the rock.









Here's a closup of the tiny guy looking for something to eat. Its only about 6mm long right now.


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

that is a tiny fish. 

sweet pico, btw.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Wow that is sick. That UG is growing nicely! I've always seen it grow much higher than that!


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## tcy81 (Sep 11, 2004)

very nice UG lawn.
you didnt dose any liquid fertilizer except excel ?


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## sNApple (Nov 6, 2005)

what! that looks so good, too bad my amanos ate all my UG


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## Tdon1md (Jun 3, 2007)

That's just too Cool!!!!! Nice Job!
________
Web Shows


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Thanks everyone.

The UG is still a little sparse in some areas still. 



sandiegoryu said:


> Wow that is sick. That UG is growing nicely! I've always seen it grow much higher than that!


UG only starts to gain height once it really fills in. It just keeps growing over itself competing for light which is why the leaves get so long. High light will also help keep it shorter.



tcy81 said:


> very nice UG lawn.
> you didnt dose any liquid fertilizer except excel ?


I haven't dosed ferts in this tank for a while, just excel at the moment.



sNApple said:


> what! that looks so good, too bad my amanos ate all my UG


I've got some UG in another tank with amanos but they don't seem to bother it at all.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Haven't updated this tank in a long time but I changed it again recently so I will show its progress. I'll try to update this journal and not slack off.

11/19/07








Last photo I took before a battle with algae. You can see the water is slightly cloudy from greenwater. Lost most of the UG to algae. 

Didn't really feel like rescaping it so I just threw some dwarf hairgrass in and let it go. Neglected it except for the occasional water change. No pictures taken during this time. The tank was a mess.

Over a year later....

12/16/08

















Had a real problem with gda for a long time until I threw some limpets in. They cleaned it right up. After harvesting cherry shrimp from my outdoor pond in the fall I threw some males in. Shrimp decided they didn't like the slope of my tank and just kept digging and digging till everything just flattened out.

I figured new year, new scape. 
12/27/08








I tore this down and I'm starting with UG again. Gonna try with smaller rocks too since that last rock took up half the tank. Took a hammer to one of my seiryu stones.

1/11/09

















Foggy FTS. UG has started making some progress and I can see lots of new growth shooting out.


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## Outsane (Dec 5, 2008)

that is very cool..

great for a desk... I work at home and wish I could see more of my tank..


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

That's dope. At first i was thinking, what's the point but as it grew out, very cool. I'd put one on my desk if it wasn't covered with recording studio related electronics.


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

that looks awesome!!


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Outsane said:


> that is very cool..
> 
> great for a desk... I work at home and wish I could see more of my tank..





talontsiawd said:


> That's dope. At first i was thinking, what's the point but as it grew out, very cool. I'd put one on my desk if it wasn't covered with recording studio related electronics.





monkeyruler90 said:


> that looks awesome!!


Thanks!

That's what I like about this tank, it fits almost anywhere.


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## Down_Shift (Sep 20, 2008)

Wow where'd you get such a small pico?

I've been looking for a small sized cube vase at random stores for under 10 bucks.. never got around to finding one I liked though.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Down_Shift said:


> Wow where'd you get such a small pico?
> 
> I've been looking for a small sized cube vase at random stores for under 10 bucks.. never got around to finding one I liked though.


I got this tank from Hong Kong when I was there on vacation a couple of years ago. 

Crate and Barrel used to have a similar sized cube vase but I don't think they sell them anymore.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Not much to update except for some growth from the UG.

1/17/09









1/27/09


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Finally got the single LED put together yesterday. Its not as bright as the 23 watt CFL but I think its plenty bright for this tank and it only uses 3 watts. 

2/11/09








Older shot with CFL bulb.

















View of the LED and heat sink. The LED driver is tucked into the bulb socket which is right above the heat sink.

















Comparison of the CFL and LED. CFL is the top pic and LED is bottom. Pics were taken with same shutter speed, exposure and white balance settings.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Been a while since I've updated.

I really like the LED, it puts out no heat at all and its a nice crisp light. The heatsink gets quite hot to the touch though.

Growth is great with the LED and the UG has even thrown up a flower stalk.
Its almost ready for filling with water. I'll let a couple more flowers bloom before I fill it. The back hasn't filled in as much as the front either. The flower looks like most pics of UG I've seen online so it looks like I do have UG.

3/21/09









Shots of the flower


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## deleted_user_16 (Jan 20, 2008)

update?


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Been a while since I've updated. I was waiting for the UG flower to start wilting before I filled it up. These plants sure can bloom for a long time. They have a couple flowers on the same stalk which bloom consecutively. You can still see the flower stalk and there are still some flowers on top that look good.

Tank has been filled about week now and I threw in 3 cherry shrimp and some limpets to take care of any algae that might appear. The UG has really grown up the front of the glass and I'm gonna have to trim it when I have time. Almost all the rocks have been swallowed up except for one in back. I don't mind too much since the rocks will at least help keep the slope of the substrate. The back still hasn't filled in completely but hopefully it will in time.

Just snapped 1 quick pic.

6/5/09


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

wow, what a fantastic tank! i remember it from a while ago and glad to see this update. that is really cool that you have _U. graminifolia_ in a setup like this--i thought that it was a very demanding.


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## garuf (May 30, 2007)

I'd only checked this thread out of curiosity as I'm a full time hater of pico tanks. This however is breathtaking, in both it's longevity and it's plant choice. Can you give some tips on how you got the UG to grow so well and how you maintained it during this period, I'm genuinely inspired to get some for my optiwhite nano!


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Thanks for the comments.



hydrophyte said:


> wow, what a fantastic tank! i remember it from a while ago and glad to see this update. that is really cool that you have _U. graminifolia_ in a setup like this--i thought that it was a very demanding.





garuf said:


> I'd only checked this thread out of curiosity as I'm a full time hater of pico tanks. This however is breathtaking, in both it's longevity and it's plant choice. Can you give some tips on how you got the UG to grow so well and how you maintained it during this period, I'm genuinely inspired to get some for my optiwhite nano!


I've never found UG to be very demanding. UG has done well for me without ferts or CO2 and it can grow in med light except it tends to grow longer than if grown in higher light. I do however use RO water for my planted tanks so UG might prefer a lower KH. 

For this tank in particular I mixed in some new aquasoil when I rescaped and I decided to grow the UG emersed. I planted some plugs of UG, poured water to just below the soil line, covered the tank tightly with plastic wrap and just waited for things to fill in. The tank needed a few occasional refills of water due to some evaporation. I kept the photoperiod at 12 hours since it was growing emersed and now I've cut the photoperiod back to 8 hrs since filling it up. Voila! that's it. A very low maintenance tank start up. Now to wait and see how the UG does converting from emersed to submersed. Hopfully the algae will stay away and the UG grows well.


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## garuf (May 30, 2007)

Thanks for that, I have very hard water but since you've had such good luck I think I'm going to go for it. Again, really nice, it's rare I like picos since they're so contrived but this is brilliant.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

i need to try some of that plant someday. it looks so cool.


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## hoochi (Apr 10, 2003)

Bringing this thread back from the dead. The tank was overrun with hair algae when I put a little piece of mini pellia in that had a spec of algae. The nutrients in the aquasoil were starting to get depleted anyways and UG was starting to suffer because of it. So this tank will be decommissioned.

I do however have a new pico tank to work on. It's a 12cm cube instead of 10cm. The 12cm is a 75% increase in volume over the 10cm which will give me a little more room to try and get a better scape. I can't wait to get started once I get together some hardscape materials for the tank.

Here are some final pictures of the tank


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## TeamTeal (Mar 31, 2010)

that last pic look so clear!
very nice


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## arien12 (Jan 29, 2011)

This is an amazing little tank! I'd like to have something like this for my desk at work. roud:

Have you started your new pico tank yet?


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## Cottagewitch (Oct 22, 2009)

Sweet tank! I've been thinking of a pico for my desk.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE little tanks!


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