You should check out PNW custom. They have taken the cunz tanks and made some serious upgrades. Their systems have real sumps with sump lighting, better overflows, lids for the tank and sump, micro heaters, micro wave makers, micro atos, and better lights. They also have micro rock scapes. I just ordered a 32oz cube!
I bought this same tank after being inspired by your earlier videos about it. In my experience, I find stomatella snails do a good job of keeping the algae at bay between very irregular algae removal, but I'm not too bothered by the algae that remains. I also have a little hermit crab and some GSP happily in there. I previously had a leather, zoas and some mushrooms too, and they all did well before I moved them on. Interestingly I don’t find my salinity increasing in the same way as you’ve experienced (if anything it’s a bit low). I change about a third of the water once a week. Stuffing it full of pre-cycled rock, sand, filter media and water seems to have it set up pretty successfully so far, at least for the first couple of months. Will be very happy if it keeps going the way it has been, fingers crossed!
I love my 8" Reef Bowl, you're right about line of sight I bet. Mine sits on my desk as a result I look at it all day and think about what needs to be done. my filer is an air sponge, I have a heater so temp does not fluctuate, water change 1/wk, DIY leds. lot's of coral and 2 nems...
I had one for a year and had the same issues you describe. For some reason, maintenance seemed like more work than my 40 gallon tank. I took it down about 6 months ago. I am thinking of trying again. I'm no quitter either. BTW, I love your videos.
I am currently designing my own version of a Pico reef. Looking at around 0.6g cube with no sump. Using your experiences here to help with my own. Plan to use a microcontroller to set temperature and lighting cycles. Possibly more as I want to look at a peltier cooler to act as a chiller or evaporative and top up solution in hot weather. Thanks for your videos of the good as bad. If I get my design done I will find a way of sharing it with you - Paul
Excellent video Dork. For my two Penneth I think these tanks are just too small to work long term. I want to set up a pico desktop. My vision is to grow copepods etc to feed the main tank and maybe even keep a mandarin but it would need to be a lot bigger than this.
I wouldnt put a mandarin in anything smaller than a 30g😂😂
5 месяцев назад
I had two, a freshwater and a saltwater. Both were very short experiments. Lets talk about the reef tank here. I wanted to do everything perfectly, I wanted a beautiful small Zoa garden from the very small head Zoa varieties. Bought a more reliable return pump (TMC nano), a more reliable heater (Sicce Jolly preset) that are both small enough to fit in the sump. I cut the side of the sump open and glued an acrylic panel to check the water level. Installed a nano sized ATO in the sump (Autoaqua smart ATO), crazy how many nano size quality equipment can fit in the sump. Still had place for some Poly Filter Pad (because that is magic for nano tanks), a small activated carbon, and assorted small pieces of seachem matrix. Cut a small piece of acrylic under the light to further decrease evaporation. Everything was set, but I noticed cleaning the sump is a nightmare. you have to remove the whole tanks, splashing everything everywhere and when finished, they barely clicked together again. Salt creep was evident on the whole perimeter of the sump/tank barely fitting connection. My ATO did its job heroically, but due to the constant salt creep my salinity levels swinged heavily and tank trank crashed in two weeks. The freshwater one became and algae pond in the same time. I reused the equipment and built a much larger (15L) tank from it, with much much more fun, still having the pico feeling. These tanks can barely survive a few days. They are only good for displays on a conference. But not as an office desk aquariums. If I retry something in a similar size, I will go for a closed loop canister system, not as fancy, but easier cleaning, no evaporation, no salt creep.
As someone who has a 3.7 gallon pico in the bedroom, I can attest to the appeal of having such a tank, but when I saw this disturbing trend toward 0.5 gallon and smaller atto tanks I knew it wouldn't end well due to the challenges you described. It is also my belief that this sort of marine betta tank would be leveraged by the industry to attract new customers to the hobby, of which, perhaps a very small percentage would move on to bigger and better tanks, thereby inflating manufacters profits. However, my concern is the heaped masses of empty tanks and coral/marine life corpses that are inevitably stacked in the name of this fad. Owning a marine aquarium, regardless of size, requires a certain amount of dedication, and knowledge. These are two factors that are going to be sorely lacking in most people who are only dabbling in the hobby. I find it sad that the industry has embraced a quick buck at the certain risk of damaging the reputation of the hobby even more, particularly at time when we are under the greatest scrutiny ever due to environmental extremism and captured governments (Hawaii shutdown etc.). We should be doing what's best for the life in the box. This definitely isn't it. I know this sounds preachy, but this is the wrong direction for the hobby and I can only see it causing more harm than good despite the fact that it is theoretically possible to maintain such a setup.
Hey Reef Dork, You can make a tiny gravel vac using airline and connecting it to a spare tiny turkey baster(like what comes with a refractometer. You just cut the top off the part you squeeze
Size gives stability, forgivness and an exponetially rising cost. These things are little kill boxes to provide temporary amusement for the casual RUclips hobbyist.
Well, mine has been stable for over a year now.🤔 I clean off the algae and spots with a little piece of algea-remover sponge on a woodenpickstick every 2 to 3 days. So it doesnt get the chance to grow and spread. I do a waterchange about 15 % once a week. And drip in a couple of drops of dest.water every 2 to 3 days to keep the Salinity stable because of the vaporation. The salt building up at the edges at the top of the sump I just sweep a wet kleenex after 3 day maintanance My sump is complety filled with the original filtermaterial but the first chamber i filled with Sera Siporax ,then comes the black sponge, then the white and the chamber where the pump sits is filled with extra fine filtermaterial surrounding the pump so even the finest particals get filtered out. The light is on 16 hours , 8 hours lowest setting, 4 hours highest, 4 hours middle. My sexyshrimp do very well as well a seastar that travelled along some corals. Its more for the hobbiest then it no problem.
Def a legit tank but I need to see some mature micro reefs to make up my mind! I’m glad you mentioned salt creep, most likely this will be number 1 deterrent! For me anyways!
Yeah, completely agree - even a small amount of salt creep made a massive difference on this tank so salinity was all over the place, as was temperature
I would definitely vote gimmick; even a 10 gallon is large and stable enough for some neat life forms, but a micro tank like this, while a neat desk trinket, seems like a pretty big waste to me. Freshwater micro tanks on the other hand...at least there you can have some interesting plants like anubius and micro swords. Serpadesign for instance has made some beautiful little micro tanks that are just as stable as they are interesting
Yeah, I’ve never liked these. It’s way too small, and it’s silly to me especially since you could set up a 3-5ish gallon pico reef tank for around the same price, and it would definitely be a bit easier to maintain.
Hawaii ban over..waiting for price drop but to be honest yellow tangs should be cheap with the ban, they have been bred over and over in captive just like normal clowns.
Price won't ever come down....they'll just become available....the ban being lifted doesn't mean it goes back the way it was... there is stricter limits and less species allowed collected
10 gal reef tank - how should we call it! Let's call it NANO reef tank. Ok, 5 gal reef tank - how should we call it? Let's call it PICO reef tank. Ok, and what about 1gal reef tank? I know, let's call it MICRO reef tank! 🤨
Why have a tank, even more a saltwater tank if you can't keep anything in it except water and rocks? For me its a waste of time, energy and money. Not worth the effort! But thanks for showing it to us!
Update. I decided to get rid of this after all...!
You should check out PNW custom. They have taken the cunz tanks and made some serious upgrades. Their systems have real sumps with sump lighting, better overflows, lids for the tank and sump, micro heaters, micro wave makers, micro atos, and better lights. They also have micro rock scapes. I just ordered a 32oz cube!
I bought this same tank after being inspired by your earlier videos about it. In my experience, I find stomatella snails do a good job of keeping the algae at bay between very irregular algae removal, but I'm not too bothered by the algae that remains. I also have a little hermit crab and some GSP happily in there. I previously had a leather, zoas and some mushrooms too, and they all did well before I moved them on. Interestingly I don’t find my salinity increasing in the same way as you’ve experienced (if anything it’s a bit low). I change about a third of the water once a week. Stuffing it full of pre-cycled rock, sand, filter media and water seems to have it set up pretty successfully so far, at least for the first couple of months. Will be very happy if it keeps going the way it has been, fingers crossed!
I love my 8" Reef Bowl, you're right about line of sight I bet. Mine sits on my desk as a result I look at it all day and think about what needs to be done.
my filer is an air sponge, I have a heater so temp does not fluctuate, water change 1/wk, DIY leds. lot's of coral and 2 nems...
PS, I would not attempt this if I did not have a large "rescue" tank nearby...
I had one for a year and had the same issues you describe. For some reason, maintenance seemed like more work than my 40 gallon tank. I took it down about 6 months ago. I am thinking of trying again. I'm no quitter either. BTW, I love your videos.
I am currently designing my own version of a Pico reef. Looking at around 0.6g cube with no sump.
Using your experiences here to help with my own. Plan to use a microcontroller to set temperature and lighting cycles. Possibly more as I want to look at a peltier cooler to act as a chiller or evaporative and top up solution in hot weather.
Thanks for your videos of the good as bad. If I get my design done I will find a way of sharing it with you - Paul
Excellent video Dork. For my two Penneth I think these tanks are just too small to work long term. I want to set up a pico desktop. My vision is to grow copepods etc to feed the main tank and maybe even keep a mandarin but it would need to be a lot bigger than this.
I wouldnt put a mandarin in anything smaller than a 30g😂😂
I had two, a freshwater and a saltwater. Both were very short experiments. Lets talk about the reef tank here. I wanted to do everything perfectly, I wanted a beautiful small Zoa garden from the very small head Zoa varieties. Bought a more reliable return pump (TMC nano), a more reliable heater (Sicce Jolly preset) that are both small enough to fit in the sump. I cut the side of the sump open and glued an acrylic panel to check the water level. Installed a nano sized ATO in the sump (Autoaqua smart ATO), crazy how many nano size quality equipment can fit in the sump. Still had place for some Poly Filter Pad (because that is magic for nano tanks), a small activated carbon, and assorted small pieces of seachem matrix. Cut a small piece of acrylic under the light to further decrease evaporation. Everything was set, but I noticed cleaning the sump is a nightmare. you have to remove the whole tanks, splashing everything everywhere and when finished, they barely clicked together again. Salt creep was evident on the whole perimeter of the sump/tank barely fitting connection. My ATO did its job heroically, but due to the constant salt creep my salinity levels swinged heavily and tank trank crashed in two weeks. The freshwater one became and algae pond in the same time. I reused the equipment and built a much larger (15L) tank from it, with much much more fun, still having the pico feeling.
These tanks can barely survive a few days. They are only good for displays on a conference. But not as an office desk aquariums.
If I retry something in a similar size, I will go for a closed loop canister system, not as fancy, but easier cleaning, no evaporation, no salt creep.
As someone who has a 3.7 gallon pico in the bedroom, I can attest to the appeal of having such a tank, but when I saw this disturbing trend toward 0.5 gallon and smaller atto tanks I knew it wouldn't end well due to the challenges you described. It is also my belief that this sort of marine betta tank would be leveraged by the industry to attract new customers to the hobby, of which, perhaps a very small percentage would move on to bigger and better tanks, thereby inflating manufacters profits. However, my concern is the heaped masses of empty tanks and coral/marine life corpses that are inevitably stacked in the name of this fad. Owning a marine aquarium, regardless of size, requires a certain amount of dedication, and knowledge. These are two factors that are going to be sorely lacking in most people who are only dabbling in the hobby. I find it sad that the industry has embraced a quick buck at the certain risk of damaging the reputation of the hobby even more, particularly at time when we are under the greatest scrutiny ever due to environmental extremism and captured governments (Hawaii shutdown etc.). We should be doing what's best for the life in the box. This definitely isn't it. I know this sounds preachy, but this is the wrong direction for the hobby and I can only see it causing more harm than good despite the fact that it is theoretically possible to maintain such a setup.
Well said hawaii ban is over yellow tangs £300 average yeah right breed them like you are breeding or growing corals.
Hi have you got any more videos on the Fluval evo
There's an update on the Reef Dork Xtra channel and I'll be uploading another one to Reef Dork Xtra with light settings/par soon...
Hey Reef Dork,
You can make a tiny gravel vac using airline and connecting it to a spare tiny turkey baster(like what comes with a refractometer. You just cut the top off the part you squeeze
Airline tubing that is
Sounds like a bit of a pita to be honest! Which is the case with most things on this tank!
Use a plastic putty knife, the kind for mudding drywall. I use one to clean the spots i cant get to with my magnetic cleaner and it works great.
Nice idea 👍
Size gives stability, forgivness and an exponetially rising cost. These things are little kill boxes to provide temporary amusement for the casual RUclips hobbyist.
Awesome video! Thanks for this.
Well, mine has been stable for over a year now.🤔
I clean off the algae and spots with a little piece of algea-remover sponge on a woodenpickstick every 2 to 3 days. So it doesnt get the chance to grow and spread.
I do a waterchange about 15 % once a week.
And drip in a couple of drops of dest.water every 2 to 3 days to keep the Salinity stable because of the vaporation. The salt building up at the edges at the top of the sump I just sweep a wet kleenex after 3 day maintanance
My sump is complety filled with the original filtermaterial but the first chamber i filled with Sera Siporax ,then comes the black sponge, then the white and the chamber where the pump sits is filled with extra fine filtermaterial surrounding the pump so even the finest particals get filtered out.
The light is on 16 hours , 8 hours lowest setting, 4 hours highest, 4 hours middle.
My sexyshrimp do very well as well a seastar that travelled along some corals.
Its more for the hobbiest then it no problem.
Def a legit tank but I need to see some mature micro reefs to make up my mind! I’m glad you mentioned salt creep, most likely this will be number 1 deterrent! For me anyways!
Yeah, completely agree - even a small amount of salt creep made a massive difference on this tank so salinity was all over the place, as was temperature
Excellent points👉
Now is it possible to setup a doser to continuously run a water change to alleviate the problems with small tanks?
Micro tanks: cool or just a gimmick?
I would definitely vote gimmick; even a 10 gallon is large and stable enough for some neat life forms, but a micro tank like this, while a neat desk trinket, seems like a pretty big waste to me.
Freshwater micro tanks on the other hand...at least there you can have some interesting plants like anubius and micro swords. Serpadesign for instance has made some beautiful little micro tanks that are just as stable as they are interesting
Gimmick
Have you heard about the uplifting of the Hawaii ban? (Video idea)
Yep, limited species but a promising start!
Yeah, I’ve never liked these. It’s way too small, and it’s silly to me especially since you could set up a 3-5ish gallon pico reef tank for around the same price, and it would definitely be a bit easier to maintain.
Gimmick!!!
Must get old fast tbh, really good example of why bigger tanks are more stable tho 🤣
Hawaii ban over..waiting for price drop but to be honest yellow tangs should be cheap with the ban, they have been bred over and over in captive just like normal clowns.
Price won't ever come down....they'll just become available....the ban being lifted doesn't mean it goes back the way it was... there is stricter limits and less species allowed collected
If we love our animals, or have love for them, we wouldn't submit them to such a harsh environment.
They seem like gimmicks to me.
10 gal reef tank - how should we call it! Let's call it NANO reef tank. Ok, 5 gal reef tank - how should we call it? Let's call it PICO reef tank. Ok, and what about 1gal reef tank? I know, let's call it MICRO reef tank! 🤨
I am against these micro tank who ever thought of this is a joke and to be honest who the f.uck would buy this tank ?
I would say cool, but definitely not for beginners.
Why have a tank, even more a saltwater tank if you can't keep anything in it except water and rocks? For me its a waste of time, energy and money. Not worth the effort! But thanks for showing it to us!
Those tanks are a piece of shit.
I'll try not to rain on your parade, but this whole trend is a bit silly
I don't disagree...
Have you tried adding a tang for algae control? 🫢
The pet rock is making a comeback .....
Scam of a product....
Death trap product .....