# New Youtube Video of my assorted sub-gallon pico tanks



## ES4 (Jun 9, 2009)

ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! Commending you on your patience too!


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*thank you!*

appreciate your response I have always enjoyed chatting on this forum and freshwater is where you can really get bare-bones with a system because the stability is so pronounced! i thought I might add a few of the stills from the movie to brighten up the thread a little
b


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*--*

the round tank above is a 19 gallon bog planted nano. It only has about 2 gallons of water, but it's had an internal population of wild type guppies recessively breeding for 7 years with no help from me other than feeding...meaning when they die snails take care of them, the fry make their own way I don't feed specially for them, and the poplulation is always stable to about 50 individuals. I find it patently amazing that if you threw these fish in a 200 gallon tank you'd have about 3000 of them after this long, so I guess size of the tank does influence several variables in freshwater fish husbandry!

a hospital iv pump takes out water from the globe and pumps it to the large plants around it, so it's a hydroponics system as well. THere is also a pothos vine 30 feet long that wraps around my living room and originates in the bowl, just forgot to shoot that in the vid. 

I have never done a water change on the globe bog tank in seven years or so, now that's bare bones... i do add distilled water, an occasional few milliliters of water from my reeftank to keep some ions in the water for plant benefit and other than that the waste from the fish runs my whole living room practically.

below is a time lapse of of tiny acropora plug tips grown into mature micro tabletop


----------



## oocfish (Jul 16, 2005)

This is AMAZING. Where did you get the round tank and where does the water go in? I also watched the video, also amazing, thanks for sharing!


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*--*

it's found at naturesocean.com called a fantasy aquarium, only 120 or so for both the tank and the stand! water goes in an 8 inch hole at the top, thanks for stopping in
B


in these pics you have the reef that can be plugged into a car cig lighter, I was getting it ready to assemble in this picture. 

Something called exoscaping I invented, like those corny dolphin magnets that appear in and out of the tank. This is a stand of coral montipora and I gave it the illusion of glass penetration as it plates from the inside and is glued from the outside. The point is to be able to touch the exact skeleton of the live coral growing in the vase.


----------



## Down_Shift (Sep 20, 2008)

Wow this is awesome. More pics of the vine and how fast does it grow?

When you say the water is pumped out of the tank to the large plants around it.. You mean the potted plants that are sitting around the tank or the large plants within the tank itself? Just curious to see how the natural filtration works.

I request you to take more pics for us


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*update*

here's that vine shot, sorry for the delay man. threw in a couple extra too of the sw ones just to show pico diversity and some of the stills from the vid. too bad no still of the turtle only motion cap

guess its not accurate to say it hasn't had a water change in seven years, it does function as a continual throughput via the iv pumps or I can turn them off and just water the plants with the tank effluent and topoff distilled water and ferts occasionally to keep it green. the wild type guppies are just bullet proof animals Im amazed at how much they do for the system, how they remain in a fair population balance naturally and how they deal with the temp extremes as this globe ecosystem is not heated or even circulated, just a bog

the living room shot of the vine draped over the speakers is about 25 feet long id guess. just snapped it w a cell phone pic 5 mins ago. heckuva pothos.

ha just noticed my join date. Wheres the bearded man icon


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*and these*

a couple more


----------



## CL (Mar 13, 2008)

That's really cool. It's hard to believe that those are real. The little reef is crazy. You can see where the water line has been by the acro growth line. Does your CO2 not get off- gassed by the bubbles in your planted tank? Again, that stuff is just crazy.
I'm interested in seeing a larger version of the 3rd to last picture if it's possible.


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*--*

cl thanks for stopping by man. That was a dumb art drawing i messed around with, you can see I scrapped the 80/20 sandbed idea. sorry didn't save it any bigger but some photoshaping would do it maybe kina blurry

I'll post up a quick review of some of the carbonic processes in these tanks, each is different

the vase- a constant bubbler, nothing is more ideal in -driving off-CO2 than a constantly refreshed small water body. heck you could dose this thing pure muriatic and the pH won't flux lol

the planted still bog is likely a combination of non-circulated retention of respired gasses from within the system and the myriad insects, a little bog gas methane to boot and that runs all the plants emersed and bogged. 

The small square reef tank is sealed and does not evaporate and does not require topoff, so, the internal refugium of the plant chaetomorpha constantly scrubs out CO2 from the reef and pumps out O2 via photosynthetic liberation. 

Lastly, the huge amount of potted greenery (kitchen not even shown, 8 foot cane tree inside) greenery helps to consume a little atmospheric CO2 from our breathing, firemaking and general raucus with metal (breathes hard when playing dream theater lol) and this in turn supports the export methods in the micro reefs. I have honestly tried to link the whole damn room together with heavy metal and biology 

the reefbowl closeup below is from just now, oldest pico reef in the world I personally guarantee it just to show the stability of the setup. Its easy to replicate by anyone, let me know if you want to build one cheapest nano in the world too. zero bells and whistles, no moving parts to fail. you just need to be sure your home ac doesn't let it get hotter than 79 and you are fine.

B


----------



## Church (Sep 14, 2004)

All I can say is, WOW. I mean, just, WOW. :drool:


----------



## CL (Mar 13, 2008)

What did you do with those set-ups in the 2nd picture?


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*--*

the brown one was sold for 800 buckeroos which actually is not that much profit considering I had about 500 in frags, 150 in lights and pumps and at least some extra money from the fact the only three of these you can find in any lfs and in any internet post are in that pic (rarity). 

So I still have the other two, with the custom glass lids and grommet holes ready for a 2010 breakout. You can see in the vid, the black mini .5 is now used as an accessory light prop so the reefbowl can get extra light!

Lost my yob in banking this year so there is likely not going to be any new tanks for me lol I get by making web sites now but it aint the lotto or nothin at least it keeps the ones I have going

What I would love more than anything would be to one day find a post about the company who made these betta houses. the LFS owner guessed they were called "R Type" betta tanks or something but since I bought them I have never, and I mean never, seen data regarding them. I really appreciate you guys stopping in to check out the wacky pics.
B


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*updates*

it won't be long before the terrarium hits ten years old the pothos vine is a monster, it takes roughly 3 years per wall to cover at current nutrient and light levels hows that for a lateral growth charting ratio lol.

so...which movie happened to be flashing on tbs when I snapped the pic? any one scene aficionados


----------



## blackace22 (Jan 27, 2010)

all i can say is WOW awsome job


----------



## Albtraum (Dec 27, 2009)

Amazing.


----------



## Grundy (Dec 11, 2008)

Get back to reefing.


----------



## Cobfreak (Aug 2, 2010)

brandon429 said:


> so...which movie happened to be flashing on tbs when I snapped the pic? any one scene aficionados


I'm glad somebody bumped this, that is some amazing stuff. 

Also, I think the movie is JFK?


----------



## brandon429 (Mar 29, 2003)

*--*

thanks for your guess its body guard lol

no I wasn't watching that it was just on tbs while I was doing a water change lol


----------

